ATOMIC PLAN OF EISENHOWER

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27683, 13 June 1955, Page 11

ATOMIC PLAN OF EISENHOWER

U.S. Help To Build

Reactors

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 9 p.m.l UNIVERSITY PARK (Pennsylvania), June 11. President Eisenhower proposes that the United States provide money and knowledge to help free nations build atomic reactors for research and power. He said he would soon submit to Congress a dual atonis-for-peace proposal under which the United States would:— (1) Furnish half the cost of building research reactors for free nations which could use them for “peaceful atomic progress.” (2) Provide the technical knowledge “within prudent security considerations” for construction and operation of power reactors by friendly nations. Mr Eisenhower unveiled his new plan in a speech at Pennsylvania State University after inspecting a new atomic reactor on the campus, the first of its kind built under university auspices. During the day, the President received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the university, which is headed by his youngest brother, Dr. Milton Eisenhower. The President said his new proposals offered “the gateway to a broad avenue of world progress in the peaceful uses of atomic energy.”

The offer, an extension of the atoms-for-peace plan he proposed in a United Nations speech on December 8, 1953, was addressed only to “free nations.” He said he still hoped thfe Soviet would join in “an international effort to harness the atom for man’s good.’’ “But,” he added, “I have such unlimited confidence in the creativeness of free minds and in the capacity of free men that I know we will—with or without the Soviets—achieve a more abundant life for those who join in this historic venture.” The offer to provide money was limited to reactors for research. The President said the United States also would provide the nuclear material needed for fuel. Mr Eisenhower said that if any single nation lacked the technical or material resources to make effective use of a research reactor, “we would support a voluntary grouping of the resources of several nations within a single region to acquire and operate it together. “The research reactors acquired under this programme will be fertile seeds for the progress sown in the receptive soil of the free nations,” he said.

“The cost to the people of the United States will be small indeed when measured against the certain returns, tangible and intangible.” The President’s second proposal was to provide the know-how for building and operating power reactors and he said this applied to countries who were prepared to invest their own funds. He proposed that the United States provide “access to and training in the technological processes of construction and operation for peaceful purposes” of reactors.

This proposal would be of immediate interest mainly to “power-short areas of the world where atomic power may be economically feasible, even today.” Knowledge Lacked

Mr Eisenhower said some of these countries lacked the knowledge and experience needed to construct and operate a commercial power reactor. “This we can share for constructive purposes with friendly countries without real risk to our national security,” he said. “Such sharing is expressly contemplated in the new Atomic Energy Act.”

Mr Eisenhower said the two proposals, taken together, were designed, within the limits of prudence, “to clear away some of the obstacles that have impeded progress in nuclear science and to permit its peaceful application by all who propodse to make rt serve mankind.”

He said the United States built atomic bombs for war because it was compelled to, but, he said, the nation would build atomic-powered ships for peace and would develop other peaceful uses for a more prosperous life. The President said pacts for the exchange of atomic information already had been signed with 10 nations— Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Columbia. Brazil and Argent’na.

He said others were being negotiated. Recalling his atoms-for-peace speech before the United Nations Mr Eisenhower said the Soviet Union still had indicated no willingness to share any part of its atomic stockpile with the proposed international agency.

“But we cannot wait on Soviet decisions,” he said.