https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/8cec8e02901262d9dec6b382398f5f3b.pdf 9b850b2014131e4628d215d6aef9a018 PDF Text Text Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act - Defence W.ttiflffitf&W'kt£/W''""" 6 l'information TOP SECRET Hi Hovember 8 , 1949* MEMORANDUM F O E MR. M v i s o r y P a n e l on Atomic Energy November 9, 1949 m e e t i n g . EXTERNAL AFFA*Ri RECORDS Fife m. 24htf6) 4 teM MM.?l.f\M A. Three-Power Partnership Mr. Robertson wishes to confine the agenda largely to a discussion of the tripartite talks which are to resume in Washingtonpgj about November 20 - not November 14 as we thought last week. ^^ 2. Before we left Washington in September, it was agreed ^-* js-g that we could not go further until we were sure that we had the ^j approval in principle of our respective governments to the conclusion S^ 3 i££j of what amounts to a partnership for thejaost efficient production gy» ^ ^ of, at omicjgeapons that the U.K., U.S. and Canada can achieve together. f»r? J ^ The U.S.'officials are obviously as anxious to escape the restrictive £^S> clauses of the McMahon Act as the British and ourselves are to have a 59 C* much greater flow of technical information. There was in Washington a general recognition, expressed quite bluntly by such American scientists as Dr. Bacher, that the U.S. atomic energy programme «=3 needed the cross-fertilization of ideas that it could only have by going back to the sort of imtimate co-operation that existed during the war and was interrupted by the McMahon Act. Having once had the experience of such a sudden shift in U.S. policy as occurred in 1946, however, the British in particular are most anxious that an agreement for a renewal of the partnership should not take the form merely of a relaxation in the McMahon Act but should be spelt out in some form or other in considerable detail and specifically should give the British and_Canadian scientists access to jaLLl phases of ^eapoa development_and relatecTresearch in atomic energy~in the broaJSest terms." 3. So far as Canada i s concerned, our problem i s a g r e a t deal simpler than t h a t of t h e U.K. because we are not making bombs n o r , as a matter of p o l i c y , do we f e e l t h e "need-to-know". We do want a great deal more information on basic research than we have been g e t t i n g . We also want t o expand, our_at omlc_energy_ pro j ect by t h e construction of a second p i l e . We want t o be as sure as we can t h a t t h e U.S. w i l l buy, at arTeconomic p r i c e , t h e plutonium t h a t our second and"larger p i l e would produee. . . . .2 000218 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a I'information - 2 - m 4. In more general terms, the proposed partnership on atomic energy weapon development would form an important„par,t_pf our contributlon^toJ/he.North Atlantlc_alliance«' We have the finest research pile in the world and our production of uranium ore is still second only to that of the Belgian Congo. In research and supply, therefore, we have played an important part during and since the war in the development of the most potent strategic weapon that the North Atlantic alliance now possesses. It is surely in the interests not only of Canada but of our North Atlantic partners that we should continue to contribute our brains, effort and materials to assure that we retain atomic superiority until some form of international control has been agreed upon. The urgency of the race and the secrecy of the weapon are the greatest arguments for integrating the U.S., U.K. and Canadian programmes, and excluding all others from anything to do with weapon development. 5. The partnership proposed will probably involve certain commitments on the part of the Canadiaa Government. These are discussed in Mr. Wrong's telegram WA-2937 of October 21, a copy of which is attached. 6. I should like to add a few foot-notes to Mr. Wrong's telegram, point by point, referring to the numbers of his paragraphs: y 2. An agreement to employ existing production facilities to their maximum and to limit construction of new facilities in the U.K. will not interfere with the construction of a second Canadian pile. Our plans were frankly discussed in Washington with U.S. and U.K. officials who agreed that we should continue our experiments on a larger scale with heavy water reactors,-experiments which Canada had undertaken at the request of the Combined Policy Committee during the war at a time when the prospect of anything useful being discovered through heavy water piles was not particularly bright. Our second pile will not be regarded as a production pile, although it will be in fact of high power rating, and the U.S. will, we may be sure, continue to buy all the plutonium that we can make and very probably at a favourable price, as the efficiency of our projected pile is greater than the efficiency of any existing U.S. piles. 3. The allocation of raw materials produced in the U.S. and Canada has not been included in the discussion of Congo allocation as it has never come under the terms of the U.S. and U.K. Combined Development Agency Agreement 1m dividing Congo production on a ... .3 000219 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a I'information - 3a*im. 50-50 basis. ThereforeJiirt agreement that the U.S. should receive not less than 90$ of raw materials during the next five years refers to the production of materials from sources outside Canada and the U.S. 4* We have a major interest in seeing that the partnership does not give us 1 7 ori!y> ,c information on atomic energy weapon development in the narrow sense but that we shall have informationon basic research and engineering techniques and civil defence against attack on the atomic weapons, as well as intelligence on Soviet progress. This is particularly important to us as we are not engaged in bomb production. 5. and 6. The question of storage in Canada of bombs made from U.K. plutonium production presents pernap's the most difficult constitutional problem. Presumably the Canadian Government would want to have storage facilities under its jurisdiction and provide the Armed Jbrces and at least some of the technicians for guard duties and maintenance. My impression in Washington was that the U.K. officials were less interested in this possibility than we might have expected, having in mind the inevitable lapse of time necessary between an act of aggression and a declaration of war by Congress. The idea of storing bombs in Canada was in fact put forward, in the first instance, by the U.S. side who, I suppose, felt that it would appeal to the U.K. officials. Not only is the problem somewhat remote as no facilities could possibly be needed in Canada for several years, but I should think that our existing commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty would make it less likely that the U.K. would be involved in a major war for more than a few days before the U.S. and Canada had also declared war, and in the interval the number of bombs stored in the U.K. for immediate use would probably have been sufficient. 7. The provision of base facilities is even less likely to be an immediate problem, although we might have to enlarge the airfield adjacent to our storage depot to enable U.K. atomic bombers to land, load and take off, if we do agree to provide storage facilities in Canada. 8. We have heard nothing further of the Kennan proposal that the President should be given authority by J o i n t ^ ^ of Congress to / Resolution enter into an executive agreement with the U.K. and Canada which would in effect relax the provisions of the McMahon Act, but we would, presumably, agree to whatever procedure the U.S. found politically feasible. ».»*4 000220 �^foWimwmiWrwmmimmwmmSrWmm^^ Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur I'acces a {'informati - 4 - 9. and 10. I think we should give careful attention to the form in which our partnership is presented to the other countries ot the North Atlantic alliance and to the United Nations. To our North Atlantic partners we can, I think, carry convietion when we say that the continuation of our.wartime programme offers us the best chance of keeping our lead. To the United Nations we should, I believe, have some document setting forther in very general terms I the character of the. partnership, and this should be registered (in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter. To say as the Foreign Office officials do that because the sanction provided in Article 102 is not severe surely does not mean that we would be acting in a manner quite contrary to the Charter if we failed to register our agreement. The secret sections of the agreement can, of course, be put in the form of an annex or any other way that would not need to be registered or made public. I suppose an analogy can be drawn between the registration of the North Atlantic Treaty with the United Nations and the secret military planning that is now going forward. B. United Nations. •yN^ ay)p\*f>~iy»Jk 7. It may not be necessary or proper to discuss at tomorrow's meeting the course of the atomic energy debate which began yesterday in the ad hoc committee of the United Nations. Urom a policy point of view, the Eoraulo proposals, of whieh a copy is attached, will force a discussion of possible compromise solutions involving a relaxation of the control proposals of the majority-plan byt no less rigorous inspection* The sort of proposal that is suggested in point 4* of General Romulo's letter would make it impossible to carry on effective research on the power potentials of atomic energy, but it may be considered necessary to forego the benefits of atomie power for peaceful purposes for a number of years in the more immediate interest of securing some scheme on which international agreement could be reached, and the ownership features of the majority plan for control have certainly been the principal stumbling block for the Russians, although I think it is very questionable whether they will ever accept even the inspection clauses of the majority plan. The whole question will require considerably more study from a scientific point of view. 000221 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CDNW05706 Title A name given to the resource CDNW05706 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived "Atomic energy - Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy - Agenda," RG25-A-3-b, vol 5954, file 50219-A-40, part 1, Library and Archives Canada (LAC). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Government of Canada Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Canadian Crown Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF