237 



expressed his fears that the cut would be a "body-blow" to the future 

 of the whole Euratom joint program and could even cause its demise. 

 At that time the AEC had in hand proposals from the U.S. nuclear 

 industry for research totalling $25 million. The Joint Committee sub- 

 sequently increased the authorization by another $7- million, bringing 

 the total to $12 million. 



THE SECOND 5 -TEAR PLAN (196 5-1969) 



If the first 5-year program of joint U.S. -Euratom research was dis- 

 appointing in terms of research begun, the second was even more so. 

 Originally planned at $100 million by both parties, by the start of the 

 second 5-year plan, the AEC called for only $15 million each for 

 the United States and Euratom. The reasons for this reduction were 

 twofold. First, the joint power program had produced proposals for 

 only two reactor types instead of the five or six originally expected, so 

 less research and development was needed. Second, there had been un- 

 expected technological advance in the U.S. domestic nuclear power 

 program. The AEC's director of reactor development explained the 

 situation to the Joint Committee as follows : 261 



If you will recall, in the first place when we went in with this Euratom pro- 

 gram we expected to have five reactors. We had three instead of five. There 

 were two types of reactors that actually came under the joint program and 

 as we have looked at the type of progress that has been made since, it just 

 didn't seem that we could carry out a sensible research and development pro- 

 gram of water reactors because they have gotten so far toward commercial- 

 ity in the meantime. I think we didn't anticipate when we went into this pro- 

 gram originally that water reactors would have gotten as far along during this 

 period as they have. 



The pace of the second 5-year program slowed so much that in 

 1966 the AEC requested no additional funds. Indeed, in August of 

 that year it proposed to Euratom that both parties reduce their level 

 of participation for the entire 10 years to about $33 million each. 

 Furthermore, the AEC proposed that Euratom accept certain research 

 already funded under the AEC's domestic reactor program as ful- 

 filling*the United States' commitment to the joint research program. 

 The cutback and financial pressure within the AEC stemmed from 

 assigning higher priority to research on reactor types other than those 

 of interest to the joint program. 262 The situation was as bad in Eura- 

 tom. There, the General Advisor to the Euratom Commission for Ke- 

 searcli stated that in view of Euratom's current budget crisis, the 

 Euratom Commission would be unable to consider matching additional 

 research proposed by the United States. He advised further that the 

 Euratom budget for 1968 contained no funds to start new projects 

 under the joint research program. 263 Consequently, the joint research 

 program came to a halt and ultimately faded away. 



Conclusions and Current Issues 



American diplomacy was able to arrange with Euratom for joint 

 programs of demonstration and research and development, but could 



201 U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Hearings, AEC Authorizing 

 Legislation, Fiscal Year 1965, 88th Cong., 2d sess., 1964, p. 370. 



262 U.S. Congress. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Hearings, AEC Authorizing 

 Legislation, Fiscal Year 1968, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 1967, p. 908. 



283 U.S. Congress. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Hearings, AEG Authorizing 

 Legislation, Fiscal Year 1969, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 1968, p. 366. 



