501.BC Atomic/7–947: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Douglas) to the Secretary of State
us urgent
3760. Re Acheson’s letter June 27,1 received July 7. I explained to Bevin the various considerations which it enumerates and in the light of those considerations the importance we attached to maintaining a united front in the matter of international control of atomic energy. Bevin bluntly said that our unsynthesized views and what I called no more than suspicions, were reasonable and fair. He concurred in the opinion that a separate British proposal would offer the Soviet another opportunity to prolong the filibuster.
A special Cabinet Committee will meet on Friday morning2 and discuss a paper on the subject prepared by those with whom Arneson had met on his visit here. He assured me that he would give me on Friday, before he leaves for Paris, the results of the meeting of this Committee. It was probable that this Committee would conclude to send the paper with an able person to “inform and reinforce Cadogan”. It would not, he thought, be the British Government’s purpose in doing this to present a separate proposal but rather to try to attempt to go as [Page 557] far as possible along the lines of our proposal and to effect complete agreement with us on the few matters about which they were doubtful.
He did, however, intimate the apprehension that if our proposal were accepted in toto it might have the effect of retarding the use of nuclear energy for commercial purposes in the United Kingdom and he implied that developments here, of which we had no knowledge, might make the use of nuclear energy for this purpose more immediate than we thought possible. This source of power he thought essential, if it were practicable, to a highly industrialized nation like the United Kingdom if it were to be one of the Great Powers in the world.