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lacking or only having weak research programs in a 

 given R&D sector may find it difficult to participate 

 in joint undertakings as the more advanced partici- 

 pants act to prevent countries receiving benefits out 

 of proportion to their contributions.^ In addition, 

 Dragon is testimony to the ability of a multinational 

 consortium to effectively implement a joint program 

 in a timely manner and with a minimum of conflict. 

 Twelve countries participated in the project design 

 and construction, and procurement was based on an 

 equally widespread tender action. Only a few disputes 

 arose over bids and were quickly resolved by the 

 board, and the reactor reached criticality five years 

 after the agreement came into force. 



Eurochemic is the third major NEA-based venture 

 and for its time (1960s) was one of the most ad- 

 vanced and frankly industrially oriented joint ven- 

 tures in the energy R&D sector. Its objective was the 

 construction and operation of a reprocessing plant 

 and the carrying out of related R&D work. Organiza- 

 tionally, it offered the same kind of flexibility as 

 Halden and Dragon although it had a separate legal 

 entity-an international joint stock company, which 

 operated under the authority of a board of directors 

 and a general assembly of shareholders-and it was 

 constituted by treaty rather than the private form of 

 agreement that characterized the other NEA joint 

 undertakings. Eurochemic is described frequently as 

 a failure because it eventually succumbed to the com- 

 petitive pressures of national reprocessing facilities in 

 some of its member countries. However, its main pur- 

 pose was to serve as a training ground to acquire ex- 

 perience in handling reprocessing of different fuel 

 types and to lay the base for industrial development. 

 Failure only can relate to the political criterion of 

 creating a single European level consortium governed 

 by some overarching European managerial board. As 

 a technical enterprise, Eurochemic facilitated and 

 helped launch the basis for industrial capability. Mea- 

 sured against that criterion, it was a s 



III.D. INTELSAT 



The INTELSAT was created to develop, con- 

 struct, and operate, on a commercial basis, the space 

 segment of a telecommunication satellite system. Of 

 the cooperative experiences considered in this paper, 

 it is the one with the most extensive U.S. involvement. 

 This reflects the somewhat surprising finding that, 

 relative to its size and the scope of its scientific and 

 technological activities, the United States has entered 

 into only a modest number of joint R&D undertak- 

 ings that go beyond basic exchanges of information 

 and personnel. In the latter category, there are a large 

 number of bilateral and multilateral agreements on 

 the books. But in the realm of more extensive co- 

 operation and genuine joint projects, rhetoric dom- 

 inates reality and the record is parsimonious and 



focuses largely on several coal technology undertak- 

 ings (FBC, SRC-II), the nuclear cooperation with 

 Euratom, and INTELSAT. This is consistent with 

 findings in a number of studies that suggest that the 

 greater the level of economic and technological re- 

 sources of a nation, both absolute and relative to the 

 international community in which cooperation is 

 taking place, the weaker the propensity to cooperate 

 internationally unless extraneous political and diplo- 

 matic reasons are taken into account."*"'^ 



Not only interesting but significant, INTELSAT 

 is a technically successful organization that demon- 

 strates joint ventures to implement and manage 'a high 

 technology system, where commercial and industrial 

 interests loom large and national political interest is 

 high, can be carried out successfully. This is not how- 

 ever to imply that success was achieved without dif- 

 ficulty as was manifest in part in the R&D sector. 



At the outset, the United States held a technolog- 

 ical monopoly extending from satellites to launchers 

 to ground stations, which it was interested iri maxi- 

 mizing and which others had a very powerful interest 

 in acquiring. European interest in joining the IJnited 

 States in INTELSAT reflects less their desire for 

 global communication, and more their concern that 

 the United States not translate superiority ip space 

 technology into a communications monopoly. They 

 entered into partnership with the United States to 

 acquire some influence over the course of, future 

 events. The INTELSAT evolved in two phases, the 

 first of which was an mterim agreement constituted 

 by an international consortium without legal person- 

 ality and which reflected U.S. dominance. Other 

 member states acquiesced in the initial arrangements 

 because of U.S. superiority and their desire to acquire 

 technological resources they did not possess.'^ 



System management in this first phase (1964 to 

 1972) was entrusted to Communications Satellite 

 Corporation (COMSAT), a pnvately owned U.S. op- 

 eration and the designated U.S. entity in the ar- 

 rangement. The definitive arrangements provided for 

 substitution for COMSAT by an international admini- 

 strative and technical staff responsible for managing 

 the system under the direction of a board of gover- 

 nors on which signatories sit and vote in proportion 

 to their investment shares. The substitution of an 

 international secretariat for COMSAT is scheduled to 

 be implemented on a progressive "phase-in-ph^se-out" 

 basis with COMSAT continuing to perform technical 

 operations and maintenance sen'ices under renewable 

 five-year management service contracts. ; 



As the designated overall manager for design, de- 

 velopment, construction, and operations of tne space 

 segment, COMSAT developed a practice of giving 

 R&D and procurement contracts to the firms that 

 had the most technological advantage, which essen- 

 tially meant U.S. firms. In addition, COMSAT tended 

 to favor in-house research in its own laboratories over 



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