States and Euratom should participate on a non-discriminatory basis and there should be a complete exchange of resulting knowledge. The gains to Euratom were to be the ability to share in the results of years of research and the development in the United States on atomic energy. The advantages to the United States were to be that it would gain useful experience in constructing and operating nuclear reactors for power purposes (for which Europe appeared to have a more immediate market than the United States) and Europe would share in the costs of a demonstration program for nuclear power.1/ The basic authority for United States cooperation, the Euratom Cooperation Act, became law on August 28, 1958, and the Agreement for Cooperation between the United States and Euratom came into effect on February 12, 1959. The original Euratom Agreement established an industrial development target of six nuclear power plants to produce 1,000 megawatts based on proven United States reactors fueled with enriched uranium. The United States promised to supply the necessary enriched uranium, provide as much as $135 million in long-term credits, and grant other fringe benefits to participants. An exception to standard United States practice in cooperation agreements was made concerning safeguards. Instead of providing for inspection by the 1/ Report on Euratom by the Department of State, printed in the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy print, "Background materials for the review of the international atomic policies and programs of the United States," October 1960, p. 807. United States or, as in later agreements, by the IAEA, the agreement provided for a safeguard system operated by Euratom itself, subject to United States verification of effectiveness by mutually aproved scientific methods and consultations. In addition, the agreement established a research program under which the United States and Euratom would each contribute up to $50 million for research aimed at improving United States reactors and rendering them more efficient, with the results available to both. This agreement which was approved by Congress in S. Con. Res. 116, August 23, 1958, was amended in 1960 to extend the uses of the materials supplied; in 1962 to substitute leasing for deferred payment of enriched uranium and for extending the diversion of fissile materials to projects not under the joint program and in 1963 to increase the quantities of enriched uranium the United States would make available. In 1967 the Euratom Cooperation Act was amended again, increasing the amount authorized for transfer to Euratom from 70,000 kilograms of contained U-235 to 215,000 kg. and of plutonium from 500 kilograms to 1,000 kilograms. In addition, the new act authorized the performance of uranium enrichment services for Euratom, stating "The Commission may enter into contracts to provide after December 31, 1968, for the producing or enriching of all, or part of, the above-mentioned contained uranium 235 pursuant to the provisions of subsection 161 v. (b) of said Act, as amended, in lieu of sale or lease thereof." The amounts were increased because surveys had indicated that the previous limit would not be sufficient to meet the long-term fuel requirements. U.S. Cooperation with the Soviet Union In a special category is United States cooperation with the Soviet Union. On January 27, 1958, the United States and the Soviet Union concluded an agreement on exchanges in the scientific, technical and cultural field. While this agreement contained no special mention of atomic cooperation, in 1958 and 1959 some exchange of information (such as the exhibition of a Soviet display in New York and the exhibit of a U.S. atomic display in Moscow) did take place, and in 1959 a memorandum of understanding was signed which provided specifically for cooperation in exchanges in the field of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. A 1964 agreement called for cooperation in desalination through 1968. At the present time the United States Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S.S.R. State Committee on Atomic Energy exchange monthly unclassified reports relating to the peaceful nuclear energy. In addition, under the exchange agreement Soviet scientists visit unclassified AEC facilities and participate in AEC-sponsored conferences and symposiums in the United States and American atomic personnel attend conferences and visit nuclear energy facilities in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. |