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Special Message to the Congress Requesting Ratification of the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

March 22, 1957

To the Senate of the United States:

With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, I am attaching herewith a certified copy of the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency. I also transmit for the information of the Senate a report addressed to me by the Secretary of State in regard to the Statute, together with certain related papers.

When the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency was open for signature at United Nations Headquarters in New York for three months, from October 26, 1956 to January 1957, it was signed in behalf of the United States of America and by seventy-nine other nations. It is the product of almost three years of negotiations beginning with my address to the United Nations on December 8, 1953. There I expressed the profound hope of the American people, a hope shared by people throughout the world, that means could be found to harness the atom to the labors of peace.

Today, in the grim necessity of preserving the peace, the free world must turn to the deadly power of the atom as a guardian of freedom and a prime deterrent to aggression. Yet the true promise of the atom is not for destructive purposes but for constructive purposes. And in America, we can already see in atomic energy an enormous potential for human benefit: electric power, treatment of disease, and extraordinary service to agriculture, industry, and science itself. And this is but the beginning. There is every indication that we can look forward to even greater values of atomic energy in America.

The peoples of other nations also see great hope in the atom for the development of their economies and advancement of their welfare. They devoutly wish for ways and means of directing the atom to peaceful uses. There is widespread appreciation of the role the United States has already played in the great Atoms-for-Peace Program to help many of these nations start their own atomic energy programs.

Now, in our proposal to the United Nations for the establishment of an International Atomic Energy Agency, we have answered the basic desire of many nations for an international body to which all may belong--a body in which all may safely pool their knowledge and skill for the advancement of all; from which all may draw knowledge, advice, and nuclear fuels to aid their individual efforts in developing the atom for peaceful employment.

This promise of increased well-being for the people of the world offered by the International Atomic Energy Agency is a major purpose of our proposal. Another is the extension of our fixed and unending determination to open and widen all possible avenues toward a just and enduring world peace. In promoting these purposes, the International Atomic Energy Agency would provide a practical meeting place--a common ground of cooperative effort among nations. Thus, through shared hope and work, the world would come to realize the immense possibilities of the atom for the benefit of all.

The Statute and the Agency which it will establish hold promise of important progress in that direction. They constitute both a practical approach and a symbol of all that people of good will hope to see accomplished through the use of atomic energy. They offer the underdeveloped nations in particular an earlier availability of the benefits flowing from the constructive uses of the atom, and afford all countries the prospect of mutually stimulated scientific advance dedicated to the welfare of mankind.

To achieve the confidence essential to cooperation among members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, great care has been exercised to insure that fissionable material will be safeguarded to prevent its diversion to any military purpose. A comprehensive safeguard system is provided by the Statute. This will apply to all aspects of the Agency's activity involving nuclear materials. A key part of this system is a plan of thorough international inspection. The United States will provide fissionable materials for Agency projects only as this safeguard system is put into effect. I am satisfied that the security of the United States will not be endangered by materials made available to or through this Agency. I should add that the United States is under no obligation to disclose secret information to this Agency.

Authority for directing the Agency will rest primarily in a Board of Governors. The method of choosing these Governors was considered with particular care. The formula finally agreed upon balances geographic considerations with the capacity of the cooperating nations to supply technical or material support to agency projects. This formula assures the protection of the interests of America and the free world. There is also reasonable assurance against entry into the Agency of nations which are excluded from the United Nations, and which were excluded from the Conference and from Agency membership by overwhelming vote on a number of occasions.

This Statute is the work of many. It reflects the experience of those concerned with our nation's efforts since World War II to relieve the burdens of armament for all people. It is consistent with the policies of our present Atomic Energy Act. It has profited by the addition of suggestions from bipartisan Congressional hearings.

It is my firm belief that this Statute, and the International Atomic Energy Agency provided by it, are in the present and future interest of our country. They have my wholehearted support. I urge early consent to the ratification of the Statute, so that the United States which proposed the establishment of this new instrument of peaceful progress may be among the first to give it final approval.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

Note: The Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the report of the Secretary of State, with related papers, were printed in Senate Executive I (85th Cong., 1st sess.).

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Special Message to the Congress Requesting Ratification of the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/233154

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