FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I


greater degree. In view of the nature of the scientific personnel and
the materials utilized in this type of design construction and produc-
tion activities, it is doubtful whether they would be needed in this
country. We should scrutinize very carefully the suggestion that there
are alternative lines of endeavor in the atomic energy program in
which this effortmight more profitably be expended in England.
  The cecond interest grows from the-fact that in matters of high
strategic and military importance, it is very seldom possible to have
a "surplus." While we may now say that our program in the U.S.
takes care of our full strategic requirements, these requirements were
not computed by any magic formula. We know that in time of emer-
gency the combined program would rely on all production facilities
which could produce the material to go into weapons and, to that
extent, the combined program is worse off if portions of it are con-
ducted in the relatively vulnerable England. But the alternatives are
not construction of these production facilities in the U.K. or in the
U.S. They are the construction of these facilities in .the U.K. with
British resources or not at all. In view of the fact'that the atomic
bombs that can be effective in war are those which are in existence
at the outbreak of hostilities, and unless we are prepared to resume a
wholesale evacuation of the British Isles of all production facilities
of strategic importance, it is hard to see how an objection based on
this point can be pressed very strongly.
  A third point of view that has been expressed is that in giving the
U.K. information in all fields of atomic energy, the U.S. has an inter-
est in obtaining from the British an agreement to keep their program
to a, minimum, so th t they will not be given a free ride by the U.S.
in the industrial field and be in a superior competitive position with
respect to the U.S. in the field of industrial application of atomic
energy at some later date.
  It must be recognized that what is immediately at issue are not
industrial applications of atomic energy which are immediately useful
in the production of power, but rather the production facilities neces-
sary to assure supplies of uranium-235 (as well as plutonium), which
would be essential for industrial applications if any should be de-
veloped. Information is valuable only if the recipient is in position
to use it, and it is not much of an informational exchange which says
to the British:-"We will give you information concerning industrial
uses, but you must not construct facilities to assure you an adequate
supply of uranium-235, for use in any practicable benefits which might
be obtained in the industrial field." This country might well expect
allocation of effort on the basis of the maximization of advantage to
the combined program.'Such a requirement might be justified to pre-
vent them-in a sense-from developing a program designed to "skim
the cream" off the large amount of past U.S. research. But it is clear


502