Agreement on the Atom

A year ago, President Eisenhower momentarily diverted attention from the peril of the atom with his "Atoms for Peace" speech before the United Nations. His proposals for an international agency to aid in the development of atomic energy for peaceful use set off an immediate wave of popular enthusiasm throughout the world.

During most of 1954, that enthusiasm seemed decidedly premature. After several weeks of reflective silence, Moscow greeted the Eisenhower plan with the frigid statement that the Soviet Union could not even consider participating without a prior prohibition of all atomic weapons. With each reiteration of this standard Soviet demand, the possibility of genuine international cooperation on the plan seemed to dwindle a little more. As late as November 12, Soviet delegate Andrei Vishinsky told the United Nations that the Eisenhower plan means only that "those who thirst for substantial assistance would be given crumbs from the rich man's table."

Then the Russians underwent a surprising change of heart. In the few remaining days of his life, Vishinsky continued to grumble but no longer denounced. Last Saturday the Soviet Union climaxed this apparent policy reversal by joining the United States and all other members of the General Assembly in unanimous approval of the Eisenhower proposal for an international agency. The resolution also provided that an international scientific conference be held next summer to explore methods of developing peacetime use of atomic energy.

In accepting the resolution, the Russians made at least three major concessions to the West. They entirely abandoned their demand that the formation of the international agency remain contingent on the prohibition of atomic weapons. And they voted for the resolution despite the defeat of two significant amendments. One would have placed the proposed agency under the jurisdiction of the Security Council, thus raising the threat of deadlock by veto. A second amendment would have opened the international scientific conference to all nations, not just United Nations members, a proposal presumably designed to include East Germany and Communist China.

But the new enthusiasm over this unexpected Russian willingness to compromise may prove to be as extravagant as that which followed Eisenhower's original proposal. Not a change of heart, but the very nature of the plan seems to provide the most plausible explanation of the Russian action.

The Soviet Union simply could not afford to give a flat rejection to the Eisenhower plan. At first, the Russians apparently under estimated its world wide appeal. But they finally realized that it has aroused strong response in many of the world's underdeveloped areas--countries which the Soviet Union is so strenuously cultivating. These underdeveloped areas, in search of higher living standards, have come to regard atomic energy as their best hope for producing the quantities of power needed for large-scale industrial development. The main function of the proposed international agency would be providing atomic training and research facilities and, above all, fissionable materials for use in experimental nuclear reactors. In short, the plan would enable underdeveloped countries to take their first halting steps toward industrial application of atomic energy. Whatever doubts the Russians had about the plan's appeal must have been resolved on November 15, when the United States announced that it would give the proposed agency a substantial 100 kilograms of fissionable material as an initial contribution.

But compulsion was probably not the only factor in the Soviet decision. For the Russians could safely afford to give their approval without fear of committing themselves very deeply. As a Soviet delegate was careful to point out, Russia in its favorable vote was supporting "the principle of international cooperation," rather than specific proposals. The international agency is still on the diplomats' drawing boards. Years of negotiations may pass before the Russians actually consent to join it, if they ever do. The international conference is still more than six months away and in any event cannot obligate its participants to take specific actions.

Vishinsky's phrase, "crumbs from a rich man's table," provides a key to the Russians' own thinking on the program--as an atomic "rich man," Russia can easily afford to drop a few crumbs of fissionable materials into the atomic pool. But so far the Soviet Union has not even offered to match the United States' contribution.

Although verbal agreement is at least a start, for the present, Soviet policy on the atomic plan must be placed only in the category of words, not of deeds. There is no indication yet that the Russian action is more than another move in the game of atomic power politics.