Part II: Further Down the Road

Although the United States attempted to isolate civilian nuclear technology from atomic weapon secrets, the government prioritized maintaining a nuclear arms monopoly over the Soviet Union by increasing its strict efforts to prevent information sharing, thus harming efforts for international control of atomic power. Stemming from the Manhattan Project, nuclear power for civilian use has long been linked to geopolitical issues due to its inherent association with weapons of mass destruction. Although the sharing of peaceful nuclear technologies with foreign countries may have helped the United States gain allies, during the half-decade following the war, the United States prioritized its policy of secrecy regarding all atomic secrets to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining an edge. Indeed, growing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union undermined confidence in each other, increased the allure of atomic weapons, and made cooperation surrounding nuclear energy harder to secure. It led to, in historian John Lewis Gaddis’ words, a “growing sense of insecurity” in 1945 and 1946. However, during the initial phases of the Cold War, the United States did make attempts to isolate civilian nuclear technology from geopolitics. Although the United States first had a monopoly on atomic bombs, most government officials knew that their lead was not going to last. Thus the United States attempted to enter an agreement with the Soviet Union to ban the use of atomic weapons and move towards the complete eradication of atomic bombs.

Bernard Baruch, the United States representative to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC), unveiled the American plan on June 14, 1946. The Baruch Plan was seen as generous by the United States. Although its goal was to stop the Soviet development of a bomb, it would also have placed American technology under international control, thus allowing the Soviets, as well as other nations globally, to reap the commercial benefits from coveted nuclear technologies. However, since the Baruch plan insisted on a survey of Soviet resources as a first step, it would have allowed the United States to maintain a monopoly on the bomb while opening secret Soviet facilities out for inspection. This would have put the Soviets at a great disadvantage, as they would reveal secret information without the United States reciprocating. Thus, the Soviet Union, a non-nuclear power at the time, argued that the abolition of atomic weapons should precede the establishment of an international authority. Negotiations could not proceed fairly, the Soviets maintained, as long as the United States could use its atomic monopoly to coerce other nations into accepting its plan.

The Soviet Union, implicitly rejecting the Baruch Plan, responded with its own proposal a few days later. The Gromyko Plan focused on disarmament rather than controlling the raw materials or the scientific research and development behind nuclear energy, most likely because the United States held a monopoly over both bombs and civilian technology. It called for a complete ban on atomic weapons, which were to be destroyed within three months of the treaty coming into force, and contracting parties were to agree not to make or use atomic weapons. The requirement of early United States disarmament made this proposal completely unacceptable to the United States. Due to the inherent differences in the goals of both superpowers, they were ultimately unable to conceive of a plan for international control and the spreading of commercial nuclear energy.

Beyond aggressive plans for international control of nuclear materials and technologies, smaller acts of scientific exchange and information sharing also suffered due to the secretive stance of the United States. After both the United States and Soviet plans failed in the summer of 1946, Joseph Stalin adopted a cynical attitude to cooperation; to him, “scientific exchange” meant extracting scientific and other insights from the United States, while protecting information about Soviet advances from America. Stalin’s cynicism was not unfounded. The United States passed the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 in August, and provisions restricted not only information on nuclear tech equipment and material but also scientific data sharing. Indeed, Section 10(b)(1) of the act defined “restricted data” — to be controlled by the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) — as all data concerning the manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons, the production of fissionable material or the use of fissionable material in the production of power. Although the AEC was empowered to license the dissemination of nuclear information, there were extremely strict regulations that prevented any significant advances in commercial nuclear technologies internationally. Given the United States’s wariness and its commitment to maintaining its technological advantage, the penalties for disclosing restricted data were also severe: five-figure monetary fines, twenty-year sentences, and even the death penalty, for anyone who “communicates, transmits or discloses [various forms of restricted data], with the intent to injure the United States or with intent to secure an advantage to any foreign nation.” Overall, between 1945 and 1953, progress was extremely limited in the global development of commercial nuclear energy, with Waqar Zaidi and Allan Dafoe from the University of Oxford concluding that “when attempting to solve the global challenge of avoiding the destructive uses of atomic power while reaping its benefits, secrecy between world governments played a harmful role.”