REGULATION OF ARMAIMJETNTS


2. Possibleconsolidation of Atomic Energy Commission and Coin-
      nissionfor ConventionalAramaients (Deptel 471, NoVember 3).
   Mr. Nash explained that discussion of this item was attributa;le to
 the President's speech to the Assembly on United Nations Day, Oc-
 tober 24, in which the possibility of establishing a new commission to
 carry forward the work of the Atomic Energy Commission and the
 Commission for Conventional Armaments was suggested. He noted
 that up until the time of the President's address, there was no item
 on the agenda regarding conventional armaments, although "atomic
 energy had beenrscheduled for debate directly in plenary session and
 was expected to ,come up some time early in December. That was one
 place where the President's suggestion, if it came up at all, would
 arise. There were two other places whereý it might possibly be men-
 tioned. The first- was in connection with the Lie Twenty Year Peace
 Plan, and the second was in connection with the "Peace Through
 Deeds" resolution, In which there were provisions relating to
 disarmament.'
   Mr. N-7a sh explained that suggestions for a single commission had
 soveral motivations. One of-the primary motives was ,the desire of the
 President to bring out -in sharp focus the ,fact that the present arma-
 ments program was no choice of our own, but a program we were
 compelled to adopt because the preferable:course of universal dis-
 armament under effective international control had not been followed.
 The speech had made it clear that we preferred disarmazment. This
 was a psychological motive behind the President's remarks. It was
 also thought, that it might be possible to make some progress in the
 disarmnament field with .the new light the esablishment of a single
 commission might bring to the problem. Another motive was to empha-
 size that the field of disarmament was a single unit and could not be
 dealt with piecemeal.
   Referring to the history of the two" commissions, Mr. Nash re-
called that the Atomic Energy Commission was established in Janu-
ary, 1946, while the Commission !for Conventional Armaments was
not set up until February, 1947. It was our position that the best prog-
ress in the "initial stages was to be made through separate considera-
tion of the two fields,I because the atomic energy problems, in particu-
lar, were so unique that there would have been no progress ,at all were,
both fields to have been considered together. Mr. Nash believed that
the 'wisdom of this course was illustrated by the fact, that a workable
plan for the control of atomic energy had been developed, At the same
time we had always recognized that the ,two fields were intimately

  For documentation !on the Lie Peace Plan and the "Peace Through Deeds"
Resolution, see vol. II, pp. 371 IfT.


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