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impact of technology transfer upon U.S. technological 

 leadership, 

 o The countries of the EC believe that leadership in magnetic 

 fusion research lies in Europe in the near future and are 

 skeptical of the reliability of the United States as a partner 

 because of past experiences; consequently, the EC presently 

 shows little inclination to cooperate on major new projects. 

 On the other hand, cooperation with EC would probably be 

 acceptable to Congress; and the technology transfer issues 

 would be easier to resolve. 



The extent of reliance on international cooperation to achieve the 

 objectives of the U.S. magnetic fusion program is a key policy issue. 

 There are two aspects of the issue: 



o Should the United States rely on cooperation with programs 

 abroad, where they are or may become available, to carry out 

 technology development or to investigate plasma physics 

 questions in areas that are vital to the mainline U.S. 

 program(s)? The past practice has been not to do so, but 

 rather to encourage foreign program leadership in areas 

 considered less vital. Itiis position is quite probably 

 unsatisfactory from the viewpoints of other countries. 



o Should the United States require early joint planning, in the 

 hope of achieving collaboration with programs at home for major 

 new component test facilities and fusion experiments? It seems 

 more likely that foreign collaboration could be established 

 after a firm commitment to go forward with a project had been 

 made by the United States, although there are good reasons to 

 involve prospective partners in early planning. 



One compromise on the first point would be to minimize the effects of 

 duplication of effort by phasing related efforts in time among the 

 several partners, rather than asking any partner to forgo an important 

 line of work entirely. 



In three policy areas conditions on technology transfer arise in 

 the implementation of cooperative projects: national security, 

 protection of the economic interests of U.S. industry, and 

 preservation of advantage to foreign participants from technology 

 developed by them in the face of provisions of the U.S. Freedom of 

 Information Act mandating public access to such information. 



Implementation and Management Considerations 



There appear to be many possible methods of implementation of 

 international cooperative arrangements: treaties. Executive 

 agreements, intergovernmental agreements, and bilateral purchase 

 contracts. Treaties establish the most binding commitments of the 



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