Date

Oct 1, 1960

Description

When the General Conference met, the United States had won the support of fourteen other governments, including Mexico, Japan, Brazil, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, for a resolution taking "note of the principles and procedures provisionally approved by the Board" in GC (IV)/108 and inviting the Board to take into account views expressed at the Conference. To mitigate charges of discrimination, McCone offered to subject four U.S. reactors to Agency safeguards.

Opposing the fifteen-nation resolution was an "alternative approach" to safeguards prepared by India and introduced jointly with Afghanistan, Burma, Ceylon, and Indonesia. The resolution included "a simple undertaking by recipient Member States that source materials or special fissionable material, or fissionable material produced therefrom, received through or from the Agency would be used solely for peaceful purposes." Only "special fissionable material of weapons strength" would require inspections.

The United States prevented the Indian resolution from being brought to a vote and the fifteen-nation resolution, with an Austrian-Swedish-Swiss amendment, prevailed in plenary session, 43 to 19. Voting against the U.S.-supported resolution was the Soviet bloc, Afghanistan, Burma, Ceylon, Cuba, India, and Indonesia among others.

Source

RG 59, Central Decimal Files, 1960-1963, 398.1901-IAEA/1-561

Document published in following posting(s):

60th Anniversary of the International Atomic Energy Agency

Oct 26, 2017