UNITED NATIONS: No-Progress Report

A dozen times in the last three months, representatives of the U.S., Britain, Canada, France and China met with the Russians behind closed doors at Lake Success; they were having another try at reaching agreement on international atomic control.

The U.S. stood firmly by its plan for international control, which last year was approved by a vast majority of U.N.’s General Assembly, the six Red-bloc nations dissenting. The plan provides for 1) a cooperative international agency to own and control all atomic energy, including production for peaceful use; 2) inspection by representatives of the control commission, who must have “unimpeded rights of ingress, egress and access . . . into, from and within the territories of any participating nation”; 3) majority rule in the control commission, without a veto.

The Russian counterproposal also calls for international control and inspection, but it contains a number of sharp little gimmicks: 1) atomic energy research and production facilities for “peaceful purposes” would be owned by individual nations; 2) inspection would be only “periodic,” confined to plants, mines, etc. that have been declared officially by the government which controls them; 3) the international body would merely make recommendations to the Security Council on how to deal with offenders, thus subjecting enforcement to the veto.

Last week, in a report to U.N.’s General Assembly, the Negotiators revealed what progress they had made trying to reconcile the two plans: exactly none.