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acceptability. The first concerns those characteristics required of an 

 effective system, that is, one which merely fulfilled the function of con- 

 trol. For the most part, these could be found primarily in the area of 

 science and technology of atomic energy, although certain political 

 factors were thought to be essential to a workable plan. The second has 

 to do with the acceptability of the plan, those technological and polit- 

 ical characteristics of the plan which would lead to agreement among 

 nations. In turn, those aspects of the plan which promoted its capacity 

 for effectiveness or acceptability interacted in ways which may have 

 contributed to the failure of the negotiations. 



During negotiation of the Baruch plan, one can detect two absolute 

 factors which were peculiar to the efforts to attain an effective system 

 of international control over atomic energy: a technological reality 

 and a political reality created by the discovery and use of atomic 

 energy. In turn, both of these realities created substantial problems 

 for the negotiations, and thus for the acceptability of the plan. 



The predominant political characteristic of atomic energy was the 

 fact that the keeper of the military use of the atom represented an 

 absolute power for a finite period of time. Thus, the control system had 

 to be effective in such a way as to exercise adequate control over this 

 tremendous military force. The primary problem this presented for 

 the United States was the fact that international control affected the 

 very heart of its military security. To the Soviet Union, the political 

 impact of the United States as sole owner of the bomb strengthened the 

 impression of a very real threat to Soviet military security. More 

 assurance of an end to that threat would have been necessary in ex- 

 change for Soviet renunciation of its own efforts to develop a bomb 

 and accept international control. 



The technological reality of atomic energy which was important to 

 the negotiations was the fact that the processes associated with the 

 peaceful and military uses of atomic energy were approximately the 

 same. And it appeared from the outset that the security of a control 

 system would have to be maintained through inspections of an exceed- 

 ingly intrusive character. The Soviet Union was faced with this pe- 

 culiar attribute of the technology of atomic energy which weighed 

 heavily on the choices of a control system and which seriously chal- 

 lenged the closely guarded society of that country. To the United 

 States, a major consideration influenced by this technological fact of 

 life was how to penetrate the rigid secrecy of the Soviet Union in 

 order to prevent or detect its expected violation of the control system. 

 Perhaps also, to some indeterminate degree, this penetration of Soviet 

 society was regarded in the United States as an intrinsically desirable 

 goal, apart from considerations of atomic control. 



Thus, during the negotiations to devise a control system, both the 

 United States and the Soviet I'liion were faced with certain political 

 and technological absolutes which were directly opposite to certain 

 fundamental features of their respective countries. These features 

 were integral to meeting what each country considered the require- 

 ments for maintenance of its national security. The negotiations ne- 

 glected to reconcile these requirements with these dominating techno- 

 logical and political factors of atomic energy in order to attain 

 adequate and acceptable international control. 



