EURATOM, the United States and Nuclear Safeguards Options

This chapter addresses several questions associated with nuclear safeguards that are inherent in the United States-EURATOM nuclear transfer agreement. The communique, issued following the visit of ‘Three Wise Men’ to the United States in early 1957, had outlined the basis for the nuclear transfer agreement between the interested parties. In normal circumstances the United States would have insisted, under the terms of its bilateral nuclear transfer agreements, that its personnel be allowed access to EURATOM’s nuclear industry so that the necessary verification checks could be made. But the countries involved in the formation of EURATOM were far from keen to allow the United States such extensive safeguards rights over the proposed nuclear transfer agreement. Instead, they wanted to set up a regional safeguards system of their own.