ATOMIC ENERGY


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if experiments were successful, all work based on these experiments
would be carried out with beryl in India.
   8. I asked Bajpai if he included France among "friendly countries".
 Bajpai said he was somewhat surprised at my question since he had
 assumed that France was of course "friendly country". I pointed
out
 that although US relations with France were most cordial we had
 in past considered that French AEC was of such character that we
 could repose no confidence in it. Bajpai asked if our attitude was not
 different now that Curie had left the commission. I said that I had
 no information which would cause me to believe that it had changed.
 Curie, being a Communist, undoubtedly had probably filled many
 positions in the commission with Communists and his departure in
 itself would not necessarily indicate that the commission could be
 regarded as secure or even as friendly.
   9. Bajpai said in any event the experimental work which would
 be carried out in cooperation with another country would not contain
 features of a strategic character. GOI was not trying to produce
 atomic weapons; it was merely hoping to be able to have atomic piles
 of its own for commercial and industrial purposes.
   10. Re paragraph 'three of draft B ajpai said Prime Minister still
hoped this paragraph could be deleted because it served no purpose
other than that of possibly misleading readers. Nevertheless, if US
Government insisted that paragraph be retained, or if deletion of
paragraph would give rise to, internal difficulties in US Government
or cause State Department or AEC real embarrassment, he would be
willing to ,allow paragraph remain in agreement, provided it was
understood that India would not be -able to produce 600 tons annually.
  11. We are somewhat hesitant in making recommenda;tions re our
course of action, because we are not acquainted With all factors in-
volved. There is no! doubt that from technical point of view addvantages
to be derived by US from this agreement will be much less ,than what
we had originally anticipated. US will.be fortunate, in our opinion,
to get as much as 100 tons beryl ore annually during next five years,
after having received the 400 tons at present in stock. Furthermore,
in addition ýo certain amount of cooperation re :atomic matters with
US, GOI ,apparently is planning close cooperation, at least in certain
fields, with another country, 'apparently France (although UK can-
not be excluded). On the other hand, even small quantities of beryl
ore to be received under contract might be useful, and our failure to
go along with contract would probably shut off Indian beryl entirely
and would deeply wound certain Indian scientists who desire co-
operate with US, and might even diminish their influence in the