96 



stages beyond the assertion that a necessary first step would be a raw 

 materials survey. This consideration was primarily an operational 

 requisite of the international Authority. When the plan was submitted 

 to the committee, Conant, Bush, and Groves were the principal ex- 

 ponents of the political and military arguments for determining the 

 transitional stages for the release of information and transfer of 

 material. 



Bush based his position on the recognition that rapid demobiliza- 

 tion of U.S. military manpower had resulted in a U.S. dependence on 

 the atomic bomb as its primary source of military power, while the 

 Soviet Union had retained its large armies. If the international con- 

 trol system should be established in one step, and the United States 

 relinquished its monopoly, Bush argued, the Soviets would be left in a 

 superior military position. 



Acheson's comments on the stages centered on two considerations. 

 First, while he granted that the plan should go into effect as quickly 

 as possible, he appeared to envision the transitional period as one 

 which would reveal whether other nations would adhere to a system 

 of international control. Acheson's remarks have been described as fol- 

 lows : "As soon as the organization had completed the first transitional 

 phase and everyone was 'playing pool,' it would turn to the next. If 

 the first phase revealed bad faith, further progress was out of the 

 question." 102 Acheson's second point was that the United States should 

 be prepared for crises with the Soviet Union and that a variety of 

 issues, whether connected with the plan or not, could sabotage the 

 whole effort. Therefore, U.S. preeminence in the field of atomic energy 

 should not be forfeited immediately, in the event that steps to set up 

 the international Authority failed. 



Moreover, support for the idea of stages was based on the commit- 

 tee's general view of the complete plan for international control. Both 

 Acheson and Conant described the plan primarily as a "warning de- 

 vice" whereby the United States and other nations of the world would 

 become aware when a country embarked on its own program to de- 

 velop nuclear weapons, and could take preventive or punitive action. 

 Given this attitude toward the fully operational control system, it is 

 understandable that the committee should have sought to retain for 

 the United States the highest degree of military preparedness in the 

 event of a breakdown as the system was being established, while at the 

 same time preventing other nations from developing their own nuclear 

 weapons. 



Committee members differed as to the extent to which a detailed 

 schedule of transition could be specified. Bush suggested that the 

 stages would have to be defined clearly enough to insure acceptability 

 of the plan, perhaps on the grounds that such definition would serve 

 to strengthen the confidence of other nations in U.S. intentions to re- 

 linquish its monopoly. lie recognized, however, that the fine details 

 could not be determined at that point, a task which rightly belonged 

 to the American negotiator. This position was supported by Acheson. 

 Throughout the deliberations between the Board and the committee, 

 General Groves supported the idea of setting forth the most explicit 

 stages possible, to show "where the American people would come out 



«» Ibid., p. 548. 



