favour of such an agency, it is perhaps realistic to assume that it will not be established in the near future.

For the moment, therefore, my Government would prefer that the Secretary-General of the United Nations be given the fact-finding powers which we need in this convention. The Secretary-General could be assisted by experts coming from the relevant specialized agencies and scientific organizations. I may remind the Committee that proposals of this kind were also made during the negotiations on the Biological Weapon Convention but were not generally approved by the Committee. Keeping this in mind, I may perhaps make the suggestion that a committee, consisting of parties to the treaty, could perhaps assist the Secretary-General in his fact-finding task. The powers of this committee need not be spelled out too much in the treaty itself. Parties could direct their complaints to the SecretaryGeneral and/or the committee and all parties would accept the obligation to co-operate with the Secretary-General and the committee. The committee would take decisions by a majority of votes or, if that is to be preferred, by a two-third majority. The committee could also advise the Secretary-General on the steps to be taken after the complaint is investigated, for example to report to the Security Council. The committee could also make preparations for the regular review conferences and report to these conferences on the implementation of the treaty. I may point out that in other multilateral agreements, for example in the field of human rights, committees of parties also oversee the implementation of the instruments involved. I may also refer to the standing Consultative Commission provided for in the SALT-I ABM-Treaty.10

It seems impossible to lay down the composition of the committee. in the treaty itself, since it will not be known beforehand which States will become a party to the treaty. Thus, the committee can only be established after the entry into force of the treaty. To this end, the depository Power(s) would convene a short conference of the parties, within a specified time after the entry into force of the treaty, with the sole purpose of electing the committee and establishing some of its basic procedures. The committee could, for example, consist of 10 or 15 States, including the permanent members of the Security Council which are a party to the treaty. Composition of the committee could be changed during regular review conferences, which seem needed in any case to take into account new developments in the field of environmental modifications. An alternative solution would be that the committee consists of those parties which are also members of the Security Council. This solution has the advantage that the composition of the committee would be fixed by the treaty itself and that the membership would change more often. However, in that case we run the risk that at times the committee could be rather small when not many parties would be members of the Council.

10 Ibid., 1972, p. 200.

I would sincerely appreciate your comments on such a solution which is perhaps not the most ideal one but in our opinion better than the procedure in the present draft.

As I already indicated several times, we see a need for regular review conferences, in conformity with other treaties in the field of arms control and disarmament. In particular with respect to environmental modification techniques it is rather uncertain what kind of developments can be expected in the future. In review conferences we can take new research into account and review the operation of the treaty, including possible conflicting situations vis à vis peaceful applications of environmental modifications.

My Government agrees with article VII of the draft, that is, a convention of unlimited duration. It is also happy with the absence of any withdrawal clauses in the Soviet-United States draft convention.

Having made these detailed observations, I would not like to leave the floor having left the impression that we take a negative attitude towards the draft before us. Indeed, we do not. We hope therefore that the co-sponsors will look at our remarks as constructive ones, in which way they were meant. We hope that our deliberations will have as a result that the CCD will produce in 1976 a worthwhile convention on the prohibition of hostile use of environmental modification techniques. Such an instrument could be a small but significant step towards further measures in the field of arms control and disarmament.

ACDA Responses to Questions by Senator Glenn: Nuclear Exports and Nuclear Safeguards, March 12, 19761

1. QUESTION: Dr. Theodore Taylor testified that "there is a greater than even chance that before the end of this century nuclear explosives will again be used for destructive purposes." He cited as reasons the nuclear behavior of the superpowers, the spread of nuclear weapons capability to other nations, and the threat of nuclear terrorism.2 Do you agree with Dr. Taylor? Please explain.

ANSWER: Such an estimate is purely subjective and speculative, since there is no analytic basis to support the alleged probability. If Dr. Taylor meant that, if effective arms control measures are not undertaken, the risks of nuclear conflict will probably be greater in the future than has been the case since 1946, I would agree. 2. QUESTION: You cite the need for strengthening our intelligence capability to ensure that international nuclear agreements are being

1 Export Reorganization Act of 1976: Hearings before the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, Second Se8sion, on S. 1439 to Reorganize Certain Export Functions of the Federal Government to Promote More Efficient and Effective Administration of Such Functions, pp. 576-587. Sen. Glenn's questions were sent to Dr. Iklé on February 11. 2 Ibid., pp. 213–216.

observed and to monitor the dangers from nuclear technology. (a) In what specific ways should our intelligence methods be strengthened in this regard?

ANSWER: I am consulting closely with the Director of Central Intelligence in connection with the development of a proliferation intelligence report and on other special intelligence needs in this

area.

3. QUESTION: You state that "we do not have good data on stocks of nuclear material usable for nuclear weapons, or even where such stocks are located."

(a) Please submit for the record the present data, by country, on stocks of weapons-grade nuclear material, indicating the type and quantity of material, the type of safeguards, if any, and whether the data for each country listed is considered complete.

ANSWER: (a) The quote in this question from my testimony is "Nuclear material usable for nuclear weapons," while the term "weapons-grade" is used also. The first phrase includes plutonium extracted from spent fuel from current nuclear reactors and avoids classification problems of the term weapons-grade. Almost all of these reactors are under IAEA safeguards and IAEA information on spent fuel is not released by IAEA. However estimates of the amounts of plutonium can be made from reactor characteristics and their operating history. Recent estimates are included in the publication Facts on Nuclear Proliferation, a recent Library of Congress Report prepared for the Senate Committee on Government Operations. Similar estimates can be made for unsafeguarded reactors such as those in Israel and India, although these are probably less accurate. A draft report on this subject by the Pan Heuristics Company, prepared under an external research contract for this Agency, is currently being revised and can be supplied at a later date. Specific information on nuclear material usable for nuclear weapons is classified."

3

4. QUESTION: In the statement of purpose of the Committee handbook, Facts on Nuclear Proliferation, Senators Ribicoff, Percy and I state: "The main gap in the literature appears to be the absence of a complete nation-by-nation breakdown of all bilateral agreements for nuclear cooperation."

(a) Please submit for the record the most complete information available on nuclear bilateral agreements among nations, including, if possible, descriptions of the facilities and materials transferred or proposed to be transferred under these agreements, and the safeguards that apply to these transfers, where applicable.

Facts on Nuclear Proliferation: A Handbook Prepared for the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress (Com. prt.; 94th Cong., 1st Sess.), Dec. 1975.

'Pan Heuristics, a Division of Science Applications, Inc. Moving Toward Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd? (ACDA/PAB-263). Excerpts reprinted in Export Reorganization Act of 1976: Hearings pp. 588-643.

ANSWER: The requested information is being compiled and will be supplied to the Committee when available."

5. QUESTION: You state that "in many instances, intent is the only factor distinguishing peaceful nuclear activities from the preparation of an arsenal of weapons."

(a) Assuming that our intelligence detects a shift from peaceful to military intent by a nation using U.S.-supplied nuclear facilities or materials, what specific steps should the United States take in response? Are there now plans for such a contingency?

(b) To what extent can we now rely on the IAEA inspection and reporting system to promptly detect and make known such a change in intent? In what ways can the system be improved?

ANSWER: (a) Specific steps to be taken in such a contingency would greatly depend on the facts of the particular case. Many factors would be considered in arriving at such a decision, among which the degree of U.S. influence with the foreign government involved and the role of the other nuclear suppliers in dealing with that government would be of great importance.

A tangible shift of intent, as evidenced by a violation of safeguards, would of course also involve a violation of our agreement for cooperation. As such, this violation would support a decision to suspend the supply of nuclear fuel from the United States to the government in question.

(b) The question indicates a possible misinterpretation of the purpose of IAEA safeguards. The IAEA is not expected to determine what a country's intentions are. Rather, IAEA safeguards are designed to assure a high probability that diversion of nuclear materials from peaceful purposes will be detected on a timely basis. Such detection might be indicative of a shift in intent, but is not the only such indication. There is no way, for example, that the IAEA could reasonably be expected to detect the attempts of a given country to acquire the services, clandestinely, of an expert in the design of nuclear weapons, nor has the IAEA been given any authority to take on such a task. Matters such as this can only be detected through the application of intelligence-gathering techniques.

6. QUESTION: How do you respond to the testimony of a chief negotiator of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Adrian Fisher, that the present U.S. practice of exporting to nations that have not ratified the treaty "is inconsistent with the purposes of the NPT” and "has the effect of being a serious discrimination against nonnuclear states that are parties to the NPT?"

Subsequently ACDA submitted United States Agreements for Cooperation in Atomic Energy: An Analysis Prepared for the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress (Com. prt. ; 94th Cong., 2d Sess.), Jan. 1976.

(a) Mr. Fisher also stated that while exports to non-NPT nëtions do not violate Article III of the treaty, this practice "tends to undermine the effectiveness of the safeguards system itself, in light of the fact that safeguards are more effective when applied to all nuclear facilities within a state." Please comment, particularly as to why we do not require safeguards on all nuclear activities in a non-NPT country as a condition of export.

ANSWER: Nuclear exports to non-NPT states do not violate the letter or the purpose of the NPT when the safeguards conditions called for by Article III are observed. The U.S. Government requires the application of safeguards to all its nuclear exports; safeguards on nuclear activities within the importing state which are not supplied by the U.S. Government are not required by the NPT. I agree with Mr. Fisher that safeguards are most effective when applied to all nuclear facilities within a given country, though I would not go so far as to state, as Mr. Fisher does, that for that reason nuclear exports to non-NPT parties "tend to undermine the effectiveness of the safeguards system." The U.S. is not the only supplier of most nuclear equipment, and even our primacy as a supplier of enriched uranium is no longer absolute. For the U.S. to require, unilaterally, that all of the facilities of a given country be subject to particular safeguards as a condition of sale would, in some cases, have the probable effect of driving that country to some other supplier which would not impose the same conditions. Moreover, if that supplying country did not impose safeguards as stringent as those the U.S. would require, the net effect would be to reduce not increase the effectiveness of safeguards.

However, it should also be recalled that at the 1975 NPT Review Conference, the United States joined the other NPT parties in urging, in the Conference's Final Declaration, that

(a) in all achievable ways, common export requirements relating to safeguards be strengthened, in particular by extending the application of safeguards to all peaceful nuclear activities in importing States not Party to the Treaty;

(b) such common requirements be accorded the widest possible measure of acceptance among all suppliers and recipients;

(c) all Parties to the Treaty should actively pursue their efforts to these ends.R

That being said, I believe that we must provide countries with increased incentives to become parties to the NPT. While some progress has been made in providing such incentives, I believe more can be done, and within ACDA, we have this question currently under study.

See Export Reorganization Act of 1976: Hearings before the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, Second Session, on S. 1439 . . pp. 143-144.

7 For text of the non-proliferation treaty, see Documents on Disarmament, 1968, pp. 461–465.

Documents on Disarmament, 1975, pp. 146–156.