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U.S. Attitudes in the Conduct of the Negotiations 



Diplomats were clearly the focus of action, with scientists in an 

 advisory capacity. No radically new participation of scientists was 

 observed in these international negotiations. 



The interplay between science and technology and diplomacy was 

 not so continuous or extensive as to require direct participation by 

 scientists in the negotiations. Rather, the advice and analysis from 

 science advisers served mainly to set the stage for the diplomats and 

 their negotiations. 



At a time when scientists enjoyed the peak of postwar public esteem 

 for their contribution to the victory in World War II, their normal 

 role in the Baruch plan negotiations did not extend beyond technical 

 advice. Apparently, the scientific approach with its emphasis upon 

 objective, experimentally demonstrable fact did not provide a useful 

 paradigm for the international negotiators. 



The characteristics of the proposed control plan, as enunciated by 

 the scientists of the Lilienthal Board and those of the UNAEC Scien- 

 tific and Technical Committee, suggest that the authors were thinking 

 in terms of an ideal situation. Many of the features of this plan, while 

 considered necessary to an effective control system, presented notions 

 which were totally unacceptable to the Soviet Union. A possible al- 

 ternative in the U.S. policymaking process might have been to deter- 

 mine the basic technological and political requirements for an effective 

 control system which each side would accept, and then to try to estab- 

 lish some common ground between the two positions. With this process 

 as a starting point for the negotiations, perhaps the discussions could 

 have proceeded to elaborate on the control system in such a way as to 

 explore a variety of proposals and arrive at the proper combination 

 of technological and political characteristics which would provide both 

 an effective system, and one reasonably acceptable to all concerned. A 

 willingness to proceed on this basis might at least, in the Baruch plan 

 negotiations, have emphasized good faith and signalled an understand- 

 ing that each side had its special political problems to resolve. 



