Canberra, 23 April 1959

871. Secret

Safeguards of Nuclear Exports

Your telegram 455.¹

Schaetzel² (Office of Special Assistant for Atomic Energy) told us on 23rd April that United States had agreed that COCOM³ should permit export of nuclear materials to Communist countries under I.A.E.A.⁴ safeguards. Reasons for this decision were:

1. it would bring Agency in to greater prominence, which was in line with United States policy to do everything it could to increase effectiveness of Agency.
2. it would provide channel of assistance to East European countries in form which might be acceptable to them.
3. it was felt to be in free world's interest that East European countries should receive nuclear materials, subject to safeguards, rather than receive such materials from Soviet Union without safeguards. United States Representative on Paris group had been advised two weeks ago to inform other members of group that United States would waive Battle Act⁵ in Polish case, so long as Poland was prepared to accept I.A.E.A. safeguards.

[matter omitted]

5. The United States attached great importance to agreement among all suppliers to adopt uniform attitude on question of safeguards. If principal suppliers gave their active support to such system, as was evidenced at London meeting, there would be no difficulty about holding line and it would enable individual suppliers to stand up to pressures of their respective mining interests. Schaetzel commented, in this regard, that the South African Cabinet had decided to support, in principle, arrangements discussed at the London meeting.

[NAA: A4940, C2609]

• 1 Not published.
• 2 John Robert Schaetzel, whose role as Special Assistant for Disarmament and Atomic Energy focused primarily on promoting the peaceful use of atomic energy.
• 3 The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) was established in 1947 to embargo exports from Western countries to Eastern bloc countries.
• 4 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established as an autonomous organisation in July 1957. The idea of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose 'Atoms for Peace' address in December 1953 had called for an international agency to which nations would make contributions from their stockpiles of fissile material 'to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind', the IAEA's aim was to promote the practical use of nuclear energy and inhibit its use for military purposes. This original defining objective came to nothing. See Barton and Weiler (eds), International Arms Control, pp. 72, 82 and David Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency: The First Forty Years, IAEA, Vienna, 1997, pp. 9-10.
• 5 Congressman Laurie C. Battle was the principal sponsor of the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951, which authorised suspension of US economic aid to nations supplying strategic materials to Soviet bloc countries.