You argue that in this particular case there is an immediate proliferation risk implicit in the operations services for the Koeberg reactors. However, we have been unable to discern any such risks in our long and careful review of these requests. You have also cited two important facts noted in our review: 1) the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant is under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and 2) the services to be provided are readily available from non-U.S. suppliers. We also found that the services to be provided include no classified information or sensitive technology. Further, selection of non-U.S. companies would not only represent a loss to the U.S. nuclear industry, but also reduce U.S. access to and influence on the South African nuclear power program. Finally, denial of these requests to provide services would damage prospects for continuation of the U.S.-South Africa dialogue on nuclear non-proliferation issues. Approval of these services contracts does not diminish in any way the Administration's commitment to achieving movement away from apartheid within South Africa, and an easing of tensions between South Africa and its neighbors. This commitment was explained in some detail before your Africa Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee two weeks ago (on September 14th) by Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Frank Wisner. I do not believe an operating services and maintenance contract for a civil electricity generating power plant could be credibly portrayed as "further proof that the U.S. is implicated in South Africa's military and economic aggression in the region as well as in the intensification of internal oppression against its black majority." On the contrary, approval of U.S. companies to provide these limited services, helping to ensure the safe operation of IAEA safeguarded power plants which serve all of South Africa's people, is fully compatible with our overall objectives. I appreciate your sharing with us your thoughts and those of your colleagues on this important matter. We value your views, and would welcome an opportunity to answer any further questions you may have on this subject. APPENDIX 4 LETTER FROM MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO PRESIDENT REAGAN May 18, 1983 The Honorable Ronald Reagan President of the United States The White House Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: We are profoundly concerned over your Administration's relaxation of efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. The proliferation of these weapons poses a grave danger, rivaling that of the arms race between the superpowers. As the number of nations possessing nuclear weapons grows, so does the likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used. Yet, actions by your Administration to prevent proliferation have been inconsistent and all too often motivated by undue concern for promoting nuclear-export sales. In some instances, the effect of your policies has served to facilitate, rather than inhibit, the spread of technology, equipment and nuclear-explosive materials that can be applied to making nuclear weapons. Pressure and criticism from Congress--from both Republicans and Democrats--finally resulted in your Administration beginning to recognize the need for stronger anti-proliferation controls. The effectiveness of even these belated initiatives has been woefully compromised, however, by your earlier policies and actions that undermined the bipartisan approach to non-proliferation developed during the Ford and Carter Administrations. We, therefore, call for restoration of the bipartisan spirit that always has characterized efforts to combat nuclear-weapons proliferation, and we offer to work closely with you in this spirit. We seek a return to forcefulness and consistency in U.S. non-proliferation policy. We would hope, as in the past, that Republicans and Democrats will join in this endeavor. We are committed to five principles that must guide all U.S. non-proliferation efforts: First, halting the spread of nuclear weapons must become a principal goal of U.S. foreign policy. Attaining this goal requires an emphatic, public commitment by the President to non-proliferation and active Presidential involvement in the formulation and implementation of a consistent U.S. non-proliferation policy. Second, the spread of nuclear-explosive materials--separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium--and of the facilities that produce these weapons materials, constitutes the most fundamental threat to controlling nuclear proliferation and to protecting long-term U.S. security interests. Consequently, the United States must redouble its efforts to strengthen international restraints on the transfer of these materials and on the technology for producing them. The United States must work to reduce the demand for, and otherwise discourage the use of, separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium as civilian fuels by helping to ensure economical and secure supplies of alternative fuels that are not usable in weapons. To set a meaningful world example, the United States should defer its domestic use of separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium in its commercial power program. This is possible since there is no need to use these dangerous materials in this century. Third, the cooperation of other nuclear-supplier nations is essential to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons. A major objective of United States diplomacy must be gaining agreement of these nations to: (A) intensify export controls over commodities that can be (B) suspend all nuclear exports to any nation refusing to To strengthen these diplomatic initiatives, the United States must exert leadership by scrupulously adhering to these principles in the conduct of its own nuclear export activities. Fourth, the United States must work to strengthen the capabilities of the International Atomic Energy Agency by supporting greater access and authority for the agency in conducting safeguard inspections; increased numbers and improved training to IAEA inspectors; development and deployment of upgraded safeguards technology; and greater disclosure of inspection data. Fifth, in keeping with its obligations under the Treaty on the NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and to otherwise strengthen its credibility in persuading other nations to forego development of nuclear arms, the United States must actively pursue efforts to halt the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. As it now stands, your Administration's most troublesome departure from past bipartisan policy is its active promotion of plutonium, a nuclear explosive material, as a civilian nuclear fuel. By strongly encouraging early commercial development of reprocessing plants and breeder reactors at home and abroad, your Administration is paving the way for an industrial process that will produce by the ton materials that can be used by the pound to make atomic bombs. Your Administration is opening the door for exports of the very technologies and materials that can be turned into weapons of mass destruction and used against us. Even though international commerce in these nuclear-explosive materials cannot be adequately safeguarded by the IAEA; even though many studies now show the use of plutonium fuels as uneconomic; and even though an excess supply of uranium, unsuitable for use in weapons, gluts world markets thus making use of plutonium as a reactor fuel unnecessary and unjustifiable for many decades, if ever--your Administration is promoting the breeder and reprocessing at home and abroad and has sought to end the long-standing bipartisan policy of never exporting reprocessing technology. In particular, it is of grave concern that your Administration intends to grant Japan longterm approval to extract plutonium from used U.S.-origin reactor fuel at will. Your Administration is also prepared to offer these major nuclear trade concessions without obtaining any meaningful strengthening of international non-proliferation controls. Your Administration has taken a similarly dangerous stance with regard to the other nuclear weapons material, highly enriched uranium. Your Administration has abandoned the decades-old embargo on the export of the technology for manufacturing this material. Your Administration also has slashed funding for programs to develop a non-weapons usable substitute fuel that could replace highly enriched uranium in research reactors around the world. Since passage of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act in 1978 by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, a key element of U.S. policy has been the suspension of nuclear exports to nations not possessing nuclear weapons that refuse to permit IAEA inspections of all of their nuclear installations ("full-scope safeguards"). Yet, during its first two years, your Administration repeatedly circumvented this restriction. First, it encouraged other supplier nations to step in and provide nuclear fuel embargoed under U.S. law to three countries not accepting the required full-scope safeguards--India, South Africa, and Brazil. Second, your Administration has offered, or indicated a willingness to offer, other nuclear technology, not explicitly embargoed by law, to South Africa and India. In addition, your Administration has allowed sensitive nuclear technology to pass through an intermediary nation to an additional nation that refuses comprehensive IAEA inspections--Argentina. Only because of staunch Congressional opposition is the Executive Branch reconsidering this latter policy and withholding certain exports. In not one of these instances, did your Administration obtain the slightest strengthening of non-proliferation controls in the recipient nation in return for relaxation of U.S. export restrictions. Indeed, since each of the recipient nations involved has developed or is developing the capability to produce nuclear-weapons materials in facilities not under international inspections, this course of action not only undermines the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, but also permits these countries to pursue this most dangerous activity without penalty. From the outset, your Administration also sought to undermine a second key U.S. non-proliferation law, -the Glenn-Symington restrictions in the 1976 Foreign Assistance Act. These restrictions prohibit U.S. military and economic aid to nations not possessing nuclear weapons that import nuclear technology capable of producing nuclear-weapons material. Only strong Congressional opposition prevented the virtual repeal of these restrictions originally sought by your Administration in 1981. We now see all too plainly the unfortunate result of two years of neglect and weakening of U.S. non-proliferation policy by your Administration: the undermining of the legally required U.S. initiative to persuade other nuclear-supplier nations to adopt our tough, full-scope safeguards export treatment. We reject these dangerous and ill-advised deviations from the bipartisan consensus established by your predecessors and in statute. We, therefore, are supporting legislation being introduced today that would remedy many of our concerns. Under this bill, for example, all nuclear exports to nations that have not accepted full international inspections would be prohibited; exports of technology and equipment directly applicable to producing nuclear-weapons materials would be banned; approvals of the reprocessing of plutonium from U.S.-origin fuel for |