America's Atomic Plan

Last week, before the U.N.'s Political Committee, the U.S. unrolled its blue prints for President Eisenhower's "atoms for peace" plan. It involved, said U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the setting up of an International Atomic Energy Agency, which would be loosely linked to U.N. (as are such agencies as UNESCO) but not directly under U.N., so as to avoid Russian vetoes. Member nations (eight Western atomic powers) would contribute materials and information, support it with money, make their scientists and facilities available to others.

The original U.S. plan for a kind of atomic bank, owning, storing and doling out its own atomic riches, had been changed after Russia refused to participate. Instead, said Lodge, the agency would act only as a "clearinghouse" for requests made by atomic "have-nots"--more a broker than a banker.

Roses in the Deserts. Able New York Industrialist Morehead Patterson, appointed by President Eisenhower to press negotiations with the other "have" nations, promised to "move fast." But the U.S. was not going to wait for creation of the agency itself. To get Eisenhower's program started in spirit and fact, the U.S. offered a proposition of its own. It was ready, said Lodge, to conclude bilateral agreements with other nations to help them build and operate research reactors; the U.S. would furnish technical advice and help, and supply fissionable materials. In addition, the U.S. would throw open a large part of its research and training facilities to all nations.

Early next year, said Lodge, the U.S. will establish a reactor training school to which 30 to 50 foreign scientists will be invited. The Atomic Energy Commission will sponsor courses, open to all nations, in atomic preventive medicine, disposal of atomic wastes, the use of radioisotopes as tracers. Brookhaven, Argonne and Oak Ridge will open to foreign scientists one-to two-year courses in the use of atomic energy in medicine and biology; 150 foreign specialists will visit U.S. cancer research centers. For cooperating nations, the U.S. has built up ten complete libraries of nonclassified atomic publications totaling 300 feet of shelf space.

But most "have-not" nations seem to be chiefly interested in atomic power. The U.S.'s problem is to calm down the visionary while disproving the cynical. The excitable happily envision a kind of atomic Marshall Plan setting up atomic power reactors on every hilltop, making deserts bloom like a rose. The cynical doubt that anything will come of the plan but an exchange of talk and papers.

Fuel but No Car. In fact, the agency will not build reactors for anybody; it will merely supply advice and nuclear fuel to operate them. Said Patterson: "The agency is not designed to give someone a car. It will give him the gas, help him learn to drive, give him a road map, but he'll have to shop around for the car himself. It might work like this: some country comes along, saying I want to light my principal city with atomic power. What can the pool do? First, we would say that he needed some training--to go to driving school before he got a driver's license. Then there is the matter of health --you must have people who won't burn their fingers. We would tell him: send some of your smartest boys over here for training. Then, get a research reactor built, so that when they get back they will have something to work with. You can get nonclassified designs for it, and the AEC can tell you where. When you get it built, we will give you fissionable material for that." Finally, perhaps five years later, having accumulated experience and skill, the country could buy or build its own power reactor.

There was little real expectation that

Russia would join the agency, now or ever, even though Russia has recently hinted that the possibilities of negotiation "have not been exhausted." Said Lodge: "We are determined that this hopeful enterprise shall not be deterred or delayed or interminably frustrated."

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