INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY Personal Reflections
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IAEA_PersRefl.qxd 10.01.2003 11:03 Uhr Seite 1 International Atomic Energy Agency: Also available: History of the International Atomic Energy Agency: The First Forty Years by David Fischer (18 ✕ 24 cm; 550 pp.) The text of the history covers the period from the time of the "Atoms for Peace” speech by President Eisenhower INTERNATIONAL at the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1953 to the end of 1997. ATOMIC The author assesses the main achievements and setbacks in the history of the IAEA and what can be learnt from them. ENERGY He discusses how far the organization has met its original aims. David Fischer took part in the negotiations on GENCY the Statute of the IAEA in Washington in the mid-1950s and A served on the Preparatory Commission for the Agency. From 1957 to 1976 he was the Agency’s Director for External Relations and subsequently Assistant Director General. In 1981 and 1982 he acted as consultant to the Director General and since then has frequently provided consultant services to Personal Reflections Personal Reflections the IAEA. He is the author of several books on nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation issues. A fortieth anniversary publication ISBN 92–0–102497–5 IAEA_PersRefl.qxd 10.01.2003 11:03 Uhr Seite 2 The ‘temporary’ In 1979, the Austrian headquarters of Government and the IAEA in the City of Vienna the Grand Hotel, on completed construction the Ringstrasse in of the Vienna central Vienna. International Centre The Agency remained (VIC), next to the there for some Donaupark, which twenty years, until 1979. became the permanent home of the IAEA and other UN organizations. Austria generously made the buildings and facilities at the VIC available at the ‘peppercorn’ rent of one Austrian Schilling a year. IAEA_PersRefl.qxd 10.01.2003 11:03 Uhr Seite 2 The ‘temporary’ In 1979, the Austrian headquarters of Government and the IAEA in the City of Vienna the Grand Hotel, on completed construction the Ringstrasse in of the Vienna central Vienna. International Centre The Agency remained (VIC), next to the there for some Donaupark, which twenty years, until 1979. became the permanent home of the IAEA and other UN organizations. Austria generously made the buildings and facilities at the VIC available at the ‘peppercorn’ rent of one Austrian Schilling a year. INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS VIC Library Cataloguing in Publication Data International Atomic Energy Agency : personal reflections. — Vienna : The Agency, 1997. p. ; 24 cm. “A Fortieth Anniversary Publication.” ISBN 92–0–102497–5 Includes bibliographical references. 1. International Atomic Energy Agency—Personal narratives. I. International Atomic Energy Agency. VICL 92-00173 © IAEA 1997 Permission to reproduce or translate the information contained in this publication may be obtained by writing to: Division of Publications International Atomic Energy Agency Wagramerstrasse 5 P.O. Box 100 A-1400 Vienna Austria STI/PUB/1033 ISBN 92–0–102497–5 Printed by the IAEA in Austria September 1997 PERSONAL REFLECTIONS PREFACE by the Director General of the IAEA his set of personal recollections reflect a variety of views from twenty- five people who have played major roles in shaping the policies of the TIAEA or have made notable contributions to its work at different periods of its history. They provide individual insights — often from a rarely available insider’s perspective — into particular aspects of the development of an international organization and thus complement the History of the IAEA written by David Fischer. It is worth recalling that the IAEA occupies a special place amongst organizations in the United Nations family in that part of its work is directly related to peace and security in the world through the verification of com- mitments by States to use nuclear material and installations exclusively for peaceful purposes. It has direct access to the Security Council and it reports directly each year to the General Assembly. This ‘safeguards’ responsibility is combined with a mandate to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy — in such fields as a nuclear power, nuclear and radiation safety, and applications of radiation and isotope techniques in agriculture, human health and hydrology. The articles in this collection illustrate some of the complexities involved in the work of an international organization, where the Governing Bodies consist of over a hundred Member States, with different levels of industrial development, different political outlooks and different interests in the benefits of nuclear energy or concerns about the spread of nuclear weapons. The views expressed in the articles are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the IAEA or of its Member States. I would like to take this opportunity to pay special tribute to my prede- cessor as Director General of the IAEA, Sigvard Eklund, to whose outstanding leadership over a period of twenty years much of the successful development of the IAEA is due — a fact that clearly emerges from the contributions in this book. We hope that he will ensure that his own rich recollections will be pub- lished. I would like to thank all the authors of the articles in this book for their contributions, which I trust readers will find as enjoyable as I have. Hans Blix PERSONAL REFLECTIONS CONTENTS The Origins of the International Atomic Energy Agency 1 Bertrand Goldschmidt Great Expectations: A Diplomat’s Recollections of the Birth and 15 Early Years of the IAEA Donald B. Sole From the East River to the Danube: Preparatory Commission and 27 First Years in Vienna Paul Jolles The IAEA as I Remember it 37 William H. Barton Safeguards: The Beginnings 45 Carlos L. Büchler The Fifth General Conference of the IAEA (October 1961) 53 Oscar A. Quihillalt and Carlos L. Büchler The Emergence of the Group of 77 as a Major Player in 63 the Board of Governors Reinhard Loosch The IAEA Board of Governors During the Years 1978–1982 79 Georges Le Guelte The Suspension of US Participation in the IAEA: 1982–1983 93 Roger Kirk The Spirit of Vienna 107 Emil Keblúš ek The Period 1980–1993 115 Richard T. Kennedy Safeguards and the IAEA Board of Governors: 1991–1993. 127 Iraq, a Necessary Stimulus for Handling the DPRK Michael Wilson Non-proliferation and the IAEA 141 Bo Aler INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY The IAEA and Nuclear Arms Control: Past, Present and Future 157 Roland M. Timerbaev Nuclear Safety: The Public Battle Lost? 169 Lodewijk van Gorkom Evolution of the Radioactive Waste Management Programme 185 in the Years 1985–1993 Jia Lou Zhu Conception, Birth and Growth of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division 195 Björn Sigurbjörnsson The Agency’s Laboratories at Seibersdorf and Vienna 211 Otto Suschny The Early Days of the Monaco Laboratory 221 Rinnosuke Fukai The International Centre for Theoretical Physics 229 Paolo Budinich The Uranium Institute and the International Atomic Energy Agency 241 Gerald Clark Introducing Changes into the Agency’s Scientific and 259 Technical Programmes Tadeusz Wojcik The IAEA at a Crossroads: An Israeli Perspective 271 Gideon Frank Positive Aspects of the Work of the International Atomic 287 Energy Agency Raja Ramanna Major Milestones in the Development of the IAEA 297 Munir Ahmad Khan PERSONAL REFLECTIONS THE ORIGINS OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY Bertrand Goldschmidt 1 INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY Bertrand GOLDSCHMIDT, French pioneer of nuclear energy, was born in 1912 and educated in Paris. After graduating from the Ecole de Physique et de Chimie, he was recruited in 1933, the year before her death, by Marie Curie, as her personal assistant at the Institut du Radium, Paris. Research Associate at this laboratory from 1934 to 1940, he obtained his PhD in 1939. Dismissed in December 1940 from his position at Paris University by application of the anti-Semitic laws of the Vichy Government, he managed to leave for the USA, where he joined the Free French Forces, who seconded him to the United Kingdom Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in 1942. He was first posted to Glenn Seaborg’s team at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, where he contributed to the identification of the long lived fission products and the extrac- tion of plutonium. Transferred to Montreal in November 1942 to the newly formed Anglo–Canadian Atomic project, firstly as section leader in its Chemistry Divi- sion, then in 1945 as Head of this Division, he was responsible for the elaboration of one of the first industrial extraction processes for plutonium. Returning to France in early 1946, he participated in the founding of the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, and was in charge of its Chemistry Division until 1960, and from 1954 to 1978 of its International Relations Division. In 1956, as head of the French delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Statute Conference, he was responsible, with the Swiss delegate Ambassador August Lindt, for Article XII on safeguards, which was accepted as a compromise by the deadlocked conference. From the creation of the Agency in 1957, he was for 23 years the French Governor on its Board as well as a member of its Scientific Advisory Committee. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors in 1980. He was from 1955 to 1970 the French member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the UN Secretary General, as well as the French delegate at the 1975–1978 conference establishing the London guidelines and from 1978 to 1980 at the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation conference. He was finally, from 1982 to 1986, Scientific Advisor to the Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD in Paris. Co-laureate of the ‘Atoms for Peace Award’ in 1967, he is the author of several books on the history of atomic energy published in many countries.