Part IV: Downfall and Politicization

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency was created to rise above Cold War divisions and manage nuclear materials and sales, the IAEA was increasingly politicized and ineffective in the process of spreading commercial atomic energy globally. At first, the IAEA seemed to be immensely capable of fulfilling its mission to regulate fissile materials and promote the peaceful use of atomic power. On September 22nd, 1958, in a far-reaching and optimistic report to the second general conference of the IAEA, the director general, Sterling Cole, forecasted a future where scientific discoveries— “just as in art, literature, and music” —will no longer be the exclusive property of the nations producing them. Cole’s optimism was not unfounded—at a then-recent conference in Geneva with both Eastern and Western nuclear scientists in attendance, ideas on atomic energy were exchanged with extraordinary frankness.38 Within one year of the agency’s founding, seven countries headed by the United States pledged to donate fissionable material to the IAEA, a total of 5000 kilos. The IAEA also received inquiries and requests for technical assistance that covered a wide range of atomic activities, while also promoting more specialized scientific and technological gatherings to deal with specific areas to more precisely meet the needs of particular geographic regions.

While Eisenhower portrayed the IAEA as “a technical agency in which geopolitics is either extraneous or inappropriate,” this separation of technology and politics was never enacted in practice. Indeed, Early negotiations over nuclear safeguards within the IAEA were heavily driven by Cold War tensions. The United States served as a very vocal advocate for strict safeguards, ensuring they could oversee most transfers in material and technology in detail. Considerations surrounding safeguards strongly shaped the approach to the distribution of commercial fissile materials; recipient nations did not appreciate that their end use was being controlled, and countries such as India argued that regulating technological access through safeguards defeated the purpose of the IAEA. Furthermore, to secure information on the Soviet Union’s advances, the United States and the United Kingdom originally wanted to control every stage of the process, from the sale of fissile material to the manufacture of the end product. This act was highly impractical, constraining the process and increasing bureaucracy. IAEA’s goal was to rise above East-West divisions, yet even officials within the agency acknowledged that there were “intrinsic” politics that dealt with nuclear matters, such as the American-Soviet negotiations over nuclear safeguards. However, despite the constant political struggles within the agency, by 1975 there were 373 research reactors in 55 countries globally.

The politicization of the IAEA culminated in the United States boycotting the Annual General Conference in Vienna, in 1982, when the agency voted to withdraw Israel’s credentials. The vote to withdraw was precipitated by Arab, African, and Soviet bloc nations attempting to expel Israel permanently from the agency, accusing Israel of ''genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people'' and of developing atomic weapons. The United States, the European Economic Community, Canada, and Japan withdrew their delegations and withdrew from the final sessions of the annual general conference of the IAEA in Vienna in protest. The political purpose of the walkout is fully demonstrated through its ceremonial nature since the conference had completed the week of meetings. The move by the Western bloc was in part a culmination of the increasing political confrontations between industrial and developing nations in the IAEA. Indeed, the walkout reflects a deeper disenfranchisement of American officials with the organization, since when the agency was founded, it consisted only of industrialized countries with direct involvement in the development of nuclear energy for peaceful uses. By 1982, the agency had 111 members. However, many of the countries had little to no technical or economic interest in nuclear energy but instead had political interests in acquiring atomic energy and technical assistance. The U.S. Department of State issued a statement following the walkout:

The United States believes that great damage has been done to the integrity of the I.A.E.A. and the whole United Nations system by the introduction of strictly political issues into a credentials procedure. Continued politicization of the I.A.E.A, of which the rejection of the credentials is a symptom, cannot be allowed to go unchecked if the I.A.E.A. is to remain a credible tool for the furtherance of our nuclear nonproliferation objectives.

However, the United States created a problem for itself when it urged third-world countries to join the IAEA to advance America’s influence on the world stage, even when the countries had no practical interest in nuclear reactors. Indeed, there was a tacit bargain implied by the United States: if developing countries join the IAEA and guarantee to open any nuclear installations to inspection, then the gate to technical assistance would be open. However, the United States failed to recognize that third-world countries would bring their own political attitudes and interests towards how the agency was run, thus inadvertently creating an increasingly political climate within the IAEA.