CHS-3 March 1984

STUDIES IN CERN HISTORY

Prehistory of CERN : the first suggestions (1949 - June 1950)

Dominique Pestre

GENEVA 1984 The Study of CERN History is a project financed by Institutions in several CERN Member Countries.

This report presents preliminary findings. and is intended for incorporation into a more comprehensive study of CERN's history. It is distributed primarily to historians and scientists to provoke discussion, and no part of it should be cited or reproduced without written permission from the Team Leacier. Comments are welcome and should be sent to:

Study Team for CERN History c/oCERN CH-1211 GENEVE23 Switzerland

© Copyright Study Team for CERN History, Geneva 1984

CERN-Service d'information scientifique - 300 - mars 1984 PREHISTORY OF CERN THE FIRST SUGGESTIONS

(1949 - June 1950)

I The years following the war

II Two proposals of European collaboration in November 1949

III The European Cultural Conference, Lausanne, December 8-12, 1949

IV Attempts to implement the suggestions

a - The European Movement initiative

b - The French attempts

V The fifth General Conference of UNESCO, Florence, June 1950 PREHISTORY OF CERN: THE FIRST SUGGESTIONS

(1949-June 1950) 1

The official date of the foundation of CERN is easily established. The convention setting up CERN, signed on July 1, 1953 was ratified by France and Germany on September 29, 1954. By then nine States had signed, and CERN came officially into being. However, the interest of this date is rather limited. It ended a process initiated several years before and understanding this process is far more interesting than having a date of birth.

In this first article, we will look back into the past, to the years 1946-1950. It is not that we think CERN history begins at that moment and we do not have the search for •ancestors• in mind. But a whole series of events which took place in the years following the war were not without influence on the emergence of CERN at the beginning of the 50's. And if we want to understand how this process developed, it is not without interest to know the atmosphere which prevailed in scientific circles in the late 40's, the feelings then spread throughout the scientific administrators and politicians (as far as international scientific collaboration was concerned) and the networks of relations which linked these various groups of people. This is why we will first describe, as introduction, the circles where scientific cooperation was discussed between 1946 and 1950.

I. The years following the war.

We will begin with the ideas of planning international laboratories which arose, as early as 1946, inside the United Nations Organisation2 . The first proposal about this was submitted by the French Delegation to the U.N. Economic and Social Council on October 2, 1946. The draft resolution invited the •secretary General to consult UNESCO and the 2

other specialized Agencies concerned and to submit to the Economical and Social council if possible during the next session, a general report on the problem of establishing UNITED NATIONS RESEARCH LABORATORIES." 3 Accepted after a long discussion, this resolution led to a "Report of the Secretary General on establishing United Nations Research Laboratories• on January 23, 1948. A wide range of people and organisations had been contacted before writing it. The variety and number of the responses revealed the interest which scientists in many fields of science had in international initiatives at the time, even if some of them did not favour the idea of international laboratories.

In the following years, lists of priorities were established and discussed at length but the only clear result was the proposal to establish an International Computation Center. Our interest is not in describing this rather complicated matter, even less in giving the reasons for the failure. But some remarks are in order.

The first point to stress is that, immediately after the war, a group of people inside the UN agencies was very keen on international scientific cooperation. But not only on the already wellknown "ordinary• cooperation. As the French resolution said, "it would seem that in the general interest of humanity, something more than mere coordination is needed and it may be asked whether certain fields of scientific research ought not to be taken over by the central organs of the UN or by specialized agencies•. That is to say, there was a desire to build new kinds of international scientific structures. Some of the people who wanted to set up such new forms of •work in common• were passionnate personalities who were prepared to spend a great deal of their time and of their energy to convince the reluctant. Among them, let us name Henri Laugier, a French biologist, assistant Secretary General in the UN Economic and Social Council, Julian Huxley, first Director General of UNESCO (1946-1948), Joseph Needham, first Director of the Natural Sciences Department of UNESCO (1946-1948) and Pierre Auger, second Director of that Department. But of course, it would be fair to mention many other people. 4

What were the motivations of these pioneers? What state of mind was reflected by these projects? The Statement of reasons given by the UN 3

E/147 Draft resolution submitted on October 11, 1946 offers us a good way to answer the questions.

First, the setting up of UN research laboratories would help to improve the living conditions of mankind. As the resolution said, •nobody questions today the decisive importance of scientific research in the development of human knowledge, social progress and the improvement of human conditions generally• and "many branches of scientific research connected with the promotion of human knowledge, p~rticularly in the field of public health, would yield considerably more effective results if they were conducted on an international plane"

To be as efficient as possible, the French specified that the collaboration must be rationnally organized. To support this idea, they gave the example of astronomy and astrophysics: •it is quite evident that considerable advantage would be gained by replacing haphazard colla­ boration by systematic international action in order to locate well-equipped observatories at those sites of the globe selected as most suitable for the development of research." In other words, there are fields of science •in which research work can only be organized efficiently and in a rational and disinterested way on an international basis 05

These two reasons given in the resolution - helping science to improve the living conditions of mankind and acting as rationally as possible thanks to internationally planned laboratories - are of course well-known. They are related to the rationalistic and positivist spirit inherited from the Enlightment and the XIXth century, and still very much alive among scientists, and perhaps particularly the French. 6 However a more specific motivation also played a role: the resolution wanted to help in the creation of an international spirit. Behind that, we must read the rejection of war, the determination to prevent any new conflict. Of course these feelings were generally part of the rationalistic vision of science. As the resolution stated: "if all scientists and research workers of the United Nations are given an opportunity of establishing close relationships with one another on the working level, and if every scientific victory is really made a joint 4

triumph, scientific research will have acquired its true meaning.• But the closeness of the awful bloodshed revived those hopes and gave them more weight. 7

A last point is to be stressed about the UN initiatives. A very small place is offered to physics - and to nuclear physics in particular - throughout the various lists of priorities established by the UN or UNESCO experts. Let us for example listen to Pierre Auger in August 1949, during the 5th meeting of the Committee of Scientific Experts convened by the UN: "If physics, which was scarcely mentioned in the report, had not been dealt. with at greater length, it was because that science had reasonably good resources at its disposal and had received considerable assistance from Governments and Foundations, so that its immediate needs were less than those of other sciences.• Consequently, he only proposed the field of cosmic rays as one where co-operation would be of great value, though the reporter concluded: "However, Professor Auger did not think it is necessary to give the proposal high priority, any more than in other fields of physics.•8

So, the idea of close intergovernmental collaboration in the scientific field, the idea on which CERN is based, did not appear for the first time in 1950/51 but on the contrary had part of its roots in the long discussions which stemmed from the war. It relied also on the fierce enthusiasm of several people who as early as 1946 spent their time to make it known and to bring it to fruition. However, CERN is devoted to nuclear physics and we have seen that this field was not often mentioned by the United Nations experts. That leads us to turn towards other circles where the problem of international collaboration, specifically in nuclear physics, was raised.

The UN Atomic Energy Commission was one such circle. Starting in June 1946 with the aim of bringing atomic weapons under some form of international control, this Commission was run by diplomats though their scientific advisers were present at all meetings. As Kowarski commented, "it was a pleasure to watch the diplomats grapple with the difference between a cyclotron and a plutonium atom; we had to compensate by learning how to tell a subcommittee from a working party, and how - in 5

the heat of a discussion - to address people by their titles rather than names. Each side began to understand the other's problems and techniques; a mutual respect grew in place of the traditional mistrust between eggheaded pedants and pettifogging hairsplitters."9

At the beginning, the scientists tended to keep their contacts with their own diplomats (at the national level) apart from their discussions with their scientific colleagues (from different countries). But after a while, bridges between scientists and diplomats of different nations appeared. It is difficult to know how common these bridges were. Only one for the time being seems clearly established. Fran~ois de Rose who was the French representative on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission rapidly became a great friend of Oppenheimer, who used to invite him to spend weekends in Princeton. As a result de Rose thought of organizing meetings between the Oppenheimers and the French scientific advisers who were working with him. During a lunch at de Rose's, Perrin, Kowarski and Auger had the opportunity to discuss with the Americans the particular situation of science in Europe. It was clear for them, according to de Rose and Kowarski, that the various countries of the old continent did not have, on a national basis, the capability to build the big apparatus required by modern science. It would be more worthwhile doing this ir common, at the European leve1. 10

More precisely, they were thinking of equipment in nuclear science. What did that mean at that time? To answer this question, we can recall how Kowarski summarized the framework of those discussions some years later, in 1955: "while never forgetting meson physics as a scientific more worthwhile field, they (the European physicists) usually sought to combine the accelerator and the reactor aspects. In both these fields, the need for European collaboration was obvious; their combination in a single project appeared natural, even though the early promoters were aware of the slight, but possible decisive difference in the public attitude towards the two questions." 11

We have the impression that Kowarski's description reflects rather well the state of mind of the physicists in the late 40's, when they tried to think of what should be done for nuclear physics in Europe. 6

In fact, we must keep in mind that the meaning of "nuclear physics• was different from what it is now. At that time, the spheres of high and low energies were not clearly separated. For example, as far as institutions were concerned, we must realize that the laboratories or institutions created immediately after the war and dealing with nuclear research often had both reactor and accelerator departments. This was the case for Brookhaven on the East Coast of the United States, for the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell and for the French Commissariat a l'energie atomique near Paris. It would also be possible to check this by studying the international conferences held in the late 40's: generally particle physics, field theory, quantum electrodynamics and nuclear physics (as we now call them) were discussed in the same framework. Only the cosmic ray conferences dealt mainly with the high energy field, but at them very few things were said about accelerator techniques. In fact the division betweeen "big science• and science without huge equipment was at least as important as the division between low energy physics and what we now call particle physics. Of course, the situation regularly evolved towards clearer separations between the different fields throughout the late 40's / early SO's. It would nevertheless be a mistake to project backward what will only be true from the mid 50's onwards. 12

So, the problem of European collaboration in the nuclear field understood as a whole was raised around the UN Atomic Energy Commission. We mentioned mainly French people but it is likely that other physicists - and perhaps diplomats - took part in these informal discussions. As

Lew Kowarski said 1 "from Rabi through Bernardini (then at Columbia University) and Amaldi, similar ideas began to be discussed in Italy, through Kramers (himself one of the leading UN experts), in Holland and Denmark." Unfortunately, it is impossible to be more accurate because of a lack of documentation. 13

To conclude with this circle of people, it is of interest to notice that a network of nuclear physicists and of diplomats was knit, that both groups learned from the other how to handle complex situations which combined scientific knowledge, technical skills, enormous amounts of money and the necessary approval of governments and that they were 7

already thinking of European cooperation in nuclear matters. But nothing was actually undertaken, everything remained informal, at the level of talks and hopes.

To end this quick survey of the circles where international cooperation was discussed, it is important to say some words about the people working within the European Movement. The various and numerous attempts to establish certain kinds of European unity which emerged immediately after the war are well known. Let us only recall the most famous ones, the birth of the OEEC in the first months of 1948, the Congress of Europe held in The Hague in May of the same year, a congress which was organized by seven independent movements struggling for a united Europe, and which was attended by 800 personalities; let us recall too the creation of the Council of Europe one year later thanks to the activities of the European Movement which was established in the months following the Congress at the Haque; and from 1950 onwards, the first examples of European community organisms (European Coal and Steel Community, European Defence Community). 14

Among these efforts, those made by the European Movement are of particular interest to us because some important scientific administrators were involved in it. We would like to mention for the moment only three of them: Gustavo Colonnetti, former member of the Italian Constituent Assembly (1946-1948), president of the Italian Centro Nazionale delle Ricerche since 1944; Raoul Dautry, former minister, general administrator of the French Commissariat a l'energie atomique from its beginning; and Jean Willems, Director since its foundation in 1928 of the Fonds National de la Recherche scientifique Belge and first President of the Institut interuniversitaire des Sciences nucleaires, founded in Belgium in 1947. By virtue of their office, they were directly interested in the management of science and by virtue of their ideological and political convictions, they were interested in European unity . It accounts for our finding them, very early, trying to do something for European science, trying to imagine new ways of collaboration for the necessary investments in "big science•. Their importance lay in their power to obtain money for expensive projects and to influence and convince ministers if not a whole government. 15 8

Their more precise involvement in projects for European laboratories was helped by a fourth man, Denis de Rougemont, a Swiss writer. He was at that time one of the most active people in the European circles. In 1947 he had met Einstein in Princeton and discussed with him the interest of "linking the ideas of European unity with the control of nuclear energy.M According to de Rougemont, once back in Europe, he went and saw Dautry to resume the discussion. The brain drain and the needs of Europe were their main preoccupations. The result of these discussions became clear in December 1949: a commission of tha European Cultural Conference held in Lausanne proposed the creation of a European Institute. f or Nuc 1ear Science. . 16

II Two proposals for European collaboration in November 1949.

This introduction brings us to the end of 1949 when, within the interval of a few months, several different proposals aiming at a Europe-wide collaboration in nuclear physics were put forward. To be mere accurate 1 on the 11th of November that year, on the occasion of the inauguration of a Dutch cyclotron in Amsterdam, representatives from Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland got together to discuss the ways of implementing some form of cooperation in the field of nuclear physics. A few weeks later, in a French internal report,Lew Kowarski brought up the same question. In addition to this, during the European Cultural Conference organised in December 1949 by the European Movement, a committee was appointed to look into the possibilities of greater scientific collaboration, particularly in the field of nuclear physics, on a Europe-wide scale. The fact that these three initiatives came at the same time was probably not due to chance and without doubt pointed to a new situation we will have to identify. 17

We will start looking into this set of proposals and resolutions by studying Kowarski's report and the minutes of the Amsterdam meeting. The main reason for this choice is that the proposals 9

made therein are quite similar, that they fit into the same framework of thought, both having been formulated by nuclear physicists. The European Conference on the other hand had quite a different basis and will be dealt with later.

The "Note on European Atomic Cooperation" written by Kowarski in November 1949 constitutes the first written account of the informal conversations which had begun to take place within the French delegation at the UN Commission on Atomic Energy, conversations to which the participants have often alluded and which we have mentioned earlier. The structure of the report itself is interesting: right from the start, it raises the question of certain new factors on the international scene, factors which led, to some extent, to the writing of the report. It starts by referring to the "world situation" as it was after the war, it goes on to show "what Europe could do•, presents the "obstacles" usually put forward to stop all European collaboration in the field of nuclear physics, and concludes on the subject of the "new factors" and the advantages they seem to offer.

Since 1945, international relations with regard_ to nuclear matters have been characterised, according to Kowarski, by the "absence of internati0nal agreement" between the USA and the USSR on the one hand, and by the special position occupied by the USA and GB within the western world on the other. There was indeed an anglo-saxon front which was based on the fact that these two nations were ahead of all the others in the nuclear field and also on their often repeated determination to limit the dissemination of their knowledge even to their European allies. According to Kowarski the British were not as convinced as the American State Department of the absolute necessity of not helping atomic researches in western Europe but "in Practice" they could only "follow the American example" and respect the American policy. That was why they were never able to respond favourably to requests for aid from France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands during the latter part of the 1940's. Thus Kowarski concludes that in the nuclear field, "continental western Europe could only count on its own resources" and that his proposed project should only extend to countries within this geographical framework. Kowarski does, however, insist on the other reason as to why 10

the British could not possibly be interested in collaborating in a European project: in nuclear matters, they were much too far ahead for any collaboration with continental Europe to be worth their while. 18

Having thus situated the geographical framework, Kowarski presents the basic principle underlying his idea: that of taking into account the already existing specializations between countries in order to set up •a rational division of labour• for Europe. As the aim of such a cooperation would be to give Europe the various research tools required by modern science, he suggests that the contribution of each member state be well defined within the context of an overall plan. Thus each country could do its bit towards the realization of the common project by making its best technical facilities available to the others. In this way, the Swiss contribution could be the construction of a •really big synchro-cyclotron" open to scientists of all the other countries, while the French laboratory piles would no longer remain specifically French, nor would the Copenhagen Institute for theoretical physics be restricted to the Danish. National substrata would of course continue to exist but this new "specialized" level would represent each country's contribution to a •supra-national• heritage. For the future, Lew Kowarski also envisaged the possibility of a third level consisting of •super-Saclay or super-Brookhaven" type laboratories but this idea was only barely outlined.

It is interesting to note that the scientists who met in Amsterdam on November 11 were motivated by the same kind of considerations as Kowarski,the aim of both being that of coordinating programmes and building large-scale research tools: "The undersigned, invited by F.O.M. as unofficial representatives of the countries Bel9ium 1 Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, judging that in the field of nuclear physics a joint effort may lead to the realization of scientific programs and the creation of research tools that are outside the scope of each of the countries separately, move that a joint committee be formed containing two reresentatives from each of the countries concerned in order to investigate the possibilities of such a co-operation.• 11

They also suggested appointing an •International Committee • whose main tasks would be to "discuss the possibilities of building in common a small reactor ("a zero-order pile•) or a similar one in each country•and to •study the possibilities of jointly building large accelerators.•19

Kowarski then tried to envisage the inevitable obstacles to such a project, of which he stressed two. The first is inherent in the very nature of the work to be undertaken: in all the countries, nuclear physics is subject to very strict measures of control on the part of governments. As he says, •all national ressources in the atomic field are inextricably connected with defence secrets and with a mentality which is in no way open-minded to large projects and supra-national realisations.• The second obstacle is linked to the international political context and the American attitude: as several countries still hope for support from the USA , they hesitate to get involved in any multilateral collaboration of which the Americans are supposed to disapprove, particularly one with countries like France or Italy where the communists are powerful. Thus, unwilling to risk losing the possibility of American support (describedby Kowarski as "un leurre"), nothing is undertaken and European states continue to dream of bilateral collaboration with GB or USA, which is doomed to failure. Kowarski does however believe that "there has been a considerable change since the announcement made by Truman on September 23", that is since the revelation of the Soviet atomic explosion of that summer. He feels that "the pretence of an important"secret" in the pre-1948 atomic science and technology• can no longer be kept up and that this fact is bound to bring about a more relaxed attitude in the Americans and the British which in turn might lead to a new era of cooperation in Europe. He refers also to the Amsterdam meeting as a positive step in this direction. So it is likely that Truman's announcement gave the impression that the secrecy surrounding much atomic knowledge was to be lifted rather soon, at least for western Europe. 20

The psychological impact of Truman's September announcement also enables us to understand the haste with which people proceeded both in Paris and in Amsterdam. In both cases we are left with rather vague proposals. In fact, not enough time had elapsed since September for any 12

preliminary contacts to have been made: we are dealing with immediate reactions. This also explains why nothing specific was to come of these proposals. Although discussions continued during the next few months,no concrete action was actually taken until May 1950. In so far as the smaller European States are concerned, although we know that in accord with their resolution, some delegates were indeed appointed, as in Sweden for instance, we also know that the collaboration as envisaged by them never took shape. 21

In conclusion we should like to point out certain characteristics relative to these two attempts to foresee some form of multinational cooperation with regard to the authors, it is important to note that these attempts were made by physicists; apparently neither politicians nor diplomats played an important role in these discussions in so far as the geographical context was concerned, we must remember that these proposals were limited to continental western Europe, or part thereof, and had nothing to do with the projects then under dis­ cussion at the United Nations or UNESCO - with regard to scientific aims, we must take note of the desire to build large scale nuclear physics apparatus that could be put to common use, both in the fields of high and low energy physics. This is in keeping with that which was believed imediately after the war, and high energy physics is not yet envisaged as a separate field one consequence, in connection with the construction of atomic piles, is that political considerations continue to be of the utmost importance. Of course Truman's anouncement could have been interpreted as possibly giving the green light for European collaboration in nuclear physics, but there was no way of knowing whether or not the hopes it raised would one day be realized - finally, we must keep in mind that these initiatives, made in haste perhaps, represent only a first step and much remains to be done before any real cooperation can actually be achieved. 13

III. the European Cultural Conference, Lausanne, December 8-12,1949. 22

In May 1948, seven political and ideological movem~n~s struggling for a more united Europe gathered in an important congress in The Hague, Netherlands. In the following months, six out of the seven movements gathered to found the European Movement which planned four specialized conferences to study more precise topics. As a result, conferences were held in Bruxelles and Westminster on economical and political problems, in Lausanne on cultural matters and in Rome on the social situation in Europe. For our purpose, only the Lausanne conference (December 8-12,1949) is of interest since the scientific state of Europe was put on t h e agend a on t his. occasion. . 23

The size of the conference and the social importance of the people who attended it deserve some introductory words. Previously, in Amsterdam or in Paris, we have met small groups of people, mainly of scientists. Here, we are facing a broad conference, well organized and prepared,and attended by 170 people from 22 countries including Germany. Very influential people took part in it, Paul-Henry Spaak and Duncan Sandys for example, but also some former ministers and several senators, members of Parliaments, rectors of universities, deans of faculties ... During this five day meeting, three commissions were set up, one of them called the Commission of Institutions having a sub-committee of about 15 people whose role was to discuss scientific matters and to present a draft resolution.

We have no list of the people who attended this sub-committee but from a general list of participants and helped by an article published in 1975 by the European Cultural Center, it is possible to have a rather good idea of the members. Raoul Dautry, Gustavo Colonnetti and Jean Willems were there. Important science administrators, we have already mentioned their power in their own countries. In addition to them, some scientists: at least Max von Laue, physicist, Nobel prize winner; Paul Monte!, mechanician and mathematician, former dean of the faculty of Sciences in Paris; Cyril Darlington, Fellow of the Royal Society, Director of the John Innes Horticultural Institution; Charles Manneback, theoretical physicist, professor at Louvain University; and Andre George, 14

French physicist and philosopher, student and friend of Louis de Broglie, Nobel prize winner. These are obviously powerful and respected people but not one is a high ranking physicist in nuclear science, and not one is at the head of a decisive field of research in physics. Max von Laue and Paul Montel are rather old, Andre George is more of a philosopher than an active physicist and Dautry, Colonnetti and Willems are administrators rather than scientists.Only Charles Manneback is still an active ph ys1c1st.. . 24

A general report presented by Denis de Rougemont was submitted to the conference. The report identified the two main questions which formed the basis of the discussion. •First'the material and moral conditions of cultural life in Europe' and secondly, a consideration of the 'institutions and reforms' which are desirable with a view to the development of a European outlook•. Studying the obstacles and limitations to the exchanges which existed in Europe, the report spent some time discussing the particular situation in the scientific field. Here, "discoveries of immense importance are kept as secrets( ... ). The State exercises a tight control over researches in the field of nuclear physics, and regards them with a suspicion which suggests the policeman. The interests of the scientist are entirely subordinated to political and military considerations.• For this reason the report suggested •the drawing-up and adoption of a limited number of practical resolutions, all aim,:ing simply at the suppression, pure and simple, of all obstacles to freedom of movement.• Among others, it proposed the preparation of •plans for European collaboration (and not merely controlled and reticent relationships between national bodies)•, •the immediate creation of a European Fund for scientific research, which would be under the direct control of the competent organs of the Council of Europe• and the creation of a •European Center for atomic research connected with the fund. •25

The same day, Raoul Dautry read a message from Louis de Broglie who was unable to attend the meeting. It was a rather general message about the interest of gathering the forces to develop science in Europe. But Louis de Broglie suggested the possibility of establishing •un laboratoire ou institution ou il serait possible de travailler 15

scientifiquement, en quelque sorte en dehors et au-dessus du cadre des differentes nations participantes. Resultat de la cooperation d'un qrand nombre d'Etats europeens,cet orqanisme pourrait etre dote de ressources plus importantes que celles dont disposent les laboratoires nationaux et pourrait, par la suite, entreprendre des taches qui , par leur ampleur et leur cout, restent interdites a ceux-ci. Il servirait a coordonner les recherches et les resultats obtenus, a comparer les methodes, a adopter et a realiser des proqrammes de travail, avec la collaboration des savants des diverses nations." As a model, he qave the International Bureau of Weiqhts and Measures set up in Sevres, near Paris. He noted that the state of the world at that time did not allow the establishment of research centers on a world scale but that it should be possible and useful to establish them at the European level. He concluded with the hope that this kind of cooperation- easier in the scientific field than in others because of the true nature of science would show the way towards what should be realized in other spheres of cultural activities.26

Raoul Dautry, who probably had personally asked Louis de Broqlie to write this messaqe, made two more concrete proposals after havinq read it. He proposed that the Conference study the ways of strenqthening collaboration in two fields, in atronomy and astrophysics by building powerful telescope(s) and all the necessary auxiliary material, and in the field of atomic energy by setting up a center with all the required modern apparatus. And he concluded: "what each European nation is unable to do alone, a united Europe can do and, I have no doubt, would do brilliantly.•27

Of course, the words "atomic energy" having been uttered, everyone was on his quard. Let us listen to Denis de Rougemont remembering those days 25 years later:

"La veille de la premiere seance et ceci fera sentir !'atmosphere de l'epoque - j'avais soutenu une tres vive discussion avec les dirigeants du Mouvement Europeen, qui patronnait la Conference. L'un d'eux, radicalement hostile a toute discussion publique des problemes nucleaires, en vint a me dire: "Vous voulez done livrer tous nos secrets 16

atomiques aux Russes?" Parler de recherches atomiques en ce temps la, evoquait immediatement la possibilite de faire sauter la Terre, ou au moins la preparation d'une troisieme guerre mondiale, les grandes manoeuvres de l'espionnage et des secrets d'Etat ... Et de fait,des journalistes qui avaient entendu la lecture du message de Louis de Broglie et le discours de Dautry, harcelaient les membres de la Commission scientif ique et devenaient une telle nuisance que je me vis oblige, le deuxieme jour, d'enfermer nos quinze savants dans une salle du Tribunal Federal ou se tenait la Conference, et s'ils voulaient sortir, il leur fallait telephoner au secretariat ... •28

Nevertheless,at the end of its work, the scientific sub-committee submitted a resolution which was unanimously accepted. Two levels of collaboration were recommended. On the one hand, the directors of the national research organisations •should meet periodically in a spirit of disinterested collaboration" and on the other hand "specalized European Institutes in close touch with the corresponding national organisations and with those of UNESCO" should be created. As illustration "the Commission suggest(ed) that the foundation of an Institute of Nuclear Physics in its application to daily life should be immediatly taken into consideration.•29

In conclusion, we would like briefly to compare what occured in Paris and Amsterdam on the one hand with the events in Lausanne on the other. A difference is worth stressing. In November we were dealing with nuclear physicists who tried to improve their equipment in fundamental research. They were aware that some forms of collaboration were required to give them back the capability of reaching international standards in the major fields of big science. Alone, no single country would have the money, the knowledge, the manpower to compete with the giants such as America and even the United Kingdom. That is why they tried to find allies. For various reasons, the small countries of Europe were thinking of working together and the French planned to share the work between (some) continental European nations. But the aim of the collaboration was given beforehand: providing the ~ for fundamental research in nuclear and corpuscular physics. The geographical framework on the contrary was to be found and the answer was not definitive: it may be Europe but not 17 necessarily the whole of Europe.

In Lausanne, the problem was posed in the opposite way. What was given was the will to build Europe, to go towards a more united Europe. In other words, the geographical framework was taken for granted and the way to reinforce unity, to implement the task was to be found. And science was mainly seen as one ~, among others, to do this. Perhaps it was a particularly good one because of the •true nature" of science as de Broglie said,which is, in its essence, without national boundaries, and because of the tradition of the scientific community which always worked openly in the past, without taking national rivalries into account. But for the majority of the people who attended the meeting, science was essentially a means. So one might limit oneself to the mere coordination of the national policies, and another might think of European centres, in physics, in biology as in other fields of science.

However only nuclear science was mentioned in the final resolution. This was of course not a matter of chance. For most delegates the reason is mainly to be found in their •social consciousness•: the words "nuclear• or •atomic" were flags around which to rally the forces with enthusiasm; they belonged to the mythology which surrounded "the Atomu, they alluded to the power of science and of the scientists over nature - they meant the New Science. A collaboration in the field would also be the best symbol of the success of the European ideal: as was said during the conference, nuclear physics was strictly controlled by the national States and a European unification in this field would be · a wonderful victory for the •Europeans"; it would show in fact the irresistible strength of the European idea. And the interest shown by the journalists for the scientific sub-committee is the best illustration of such feelings.

Not to be one-sided,we must add that for people like Colonnetti, Dautry or Willems, other considerations played a role. In their own countries, they knew the difficulties faced by scientists and scientific administrators to build the big apparatus required by the new science. The financial, scientific, technical and industrial aspects were well-known 18

and the advantages of collaboration were clear to them. As science administrators, they knew what "big science• meant; for them, the word •nuclear• had probably a less mythological significance.

However, it is noteworthy that they were oriented as much towards the industrial and economical needs of Europe as towards those of fundamental research. The latter were not absent from their minds - Dautry for example thought of astrophysics but applied research remained of paramount importance. The resolution proposed an Institute •devoted to applications to every day life•, Dautry was alway speaking of nuclear energy and he concluded his speech saying •un jour, peut-etre avant 20 ans, la vie materielle de l'Europe ne sera plus assuree par des millions de tonnes de charbon mais par quelques tonnes d'uranium. Ce jour-la la physionomie de l'economie mondiale sera changee et si les industries europeennes se trouvaient condamnees au seul emploi des sources energetiques actuelles elles n'auraient plus qu'a fermer leurs portes."30 What's more nobody mentioned the high energy field or particle physics during this conference. In Paris and Amsterdam on the contrary, fundamental research in both low and high energy physics was the primary concern.

It is therefore possible to say that, on the one hand, we have nuclear physicists whose project was essentially scientific and who wanted to put their capabilities together to build research tools; on the other hand we had intellectuals and managers determined to reinforce Europe, scientifically, technically and economically, and particularly in the field of nuclear energy.

IV. Attempts to implement the suggestions

In the first half of 1950, both the French and the European Movement people tried to follow-up what they had discussed at the end of 1949. It seems that both actions were undertaken independently even if some connections existed between the two groups.

Before studying what was done by these two groups, it is worth pointing out that we have no specific evidence of any other initiatives. 19

Apparently, some Italian physicists were thinking along similar lines. According to Edoardo Amaldi, •the idea of the European laboratory was further discussed among Italian physicists and in letters between Bernardini and Amaldi during the winter 1949-1950•. Nevertheless, it is impossible to know exactly how the problem was handled and which solutions were suggested since, for the moment, we have no documents about this. We only have the Rollier correspondence (letters between Rollier and Ferretti, Amaldi and several Italian officials) and it only deals with domestic atomic energy matters. 31

a.The European Movement Initiative

It may be remembered that in 1948 , the European Movement decided to set up a European Cultural Center. In the months following the Lausanne conference Denis de Rougemont, Director of the Bureau d'etude for the European Cultural Center, again contacted the main scientific administrators who attended the conference in December 1949. On March 10, 1950 he wrote to R. Dautry asking for a short meeting with him: •I believe" he said •that there is no more time to waste if we want to put into practice what was decided during the Lausanne Conference, particularly in the field of scientific research.• Four days later, they agreed to write first to Colonnetti, George and Willems. Thus commenced an important exchange of letters between these five people. 32

To study this exchange, we will not follow a chronological order because doing this would lead to numerous repetitions; we prefer in fact to present what occurred in a thematic way.

All the letters deal with a central point: how to organize the next meeting of "the people responsible for scientific research in their own country and convinced of the necessity of the project proposed in Lausanne•. According to Denis de Rougemont this group would have to "set up a concrete project which could be submitted, either to the Council of Europe, or to the various governments." Three problems were then regularly discussed: Who was to be invited? Which concrete proposal should be put forward? When should this meeting be?33 20

Who was to be invited? Some expressions used by Dautry and de Rougemont show what kind of people they had in mind. In March, Dautry spoke of •the group of people responsible for scientific research" in their own countries and in April de Rougemont suggested finding usome scientists and research administrators",some "people actually responsible and capable, in the future, of making the project a success in their domain." 34 Asked to give some names in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, Jean Willems and Gustavo Colonnetti answered along the same lines. On April 25, Jean Willems proposed to invite for the Netherlands, H.A. Kramers, one of the leading European physicists and then President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), and J.H. Bannier, Director of the Dutch Organization for Pure Scientific Research; for Great Britain, Sir Ben Lockspeiser, Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Alexander King, former Director of the Scientific Secretariat of the Lord's President office and, failing them, Sir John Cockcroft, Director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell; for Switzerland, P. Scherrer, the most influential swiss physicist. One week later, Colonnetti gave his own list: Perez, Director of the French CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), Sir Simon, •Head of the Service for Scientific Research for the UK" and M. Kreuit, "President of pure scientific research in the Netherlands•. If we put all these names together, we get a list of important managers of science in Belgium (Willems), France (Dautry, Perez), Great Britain (Lockspeiser, King, Simon), Italy (Colonnetti) and the Netherlands (Bannier). Some scientists were also suggested, specifically those who had a leading role in their country and in the international physicists community (Kramers, Scherrer) or were at the head of a big scientific center (Cockcroft). In any event high ranking scientific administrators were to play the leading role in this European Study Group. 35

Wbi~h ~QOCtgt~ etQeQ~gl ~boylg bg eYt !QtHgtQ tQ bg ~Ybmitt~g to th~ ~gtiQYS ggvgtnment~ QI tQ the Cgyn~il Qt EYtQeg? It seems that this question was never actually solved in spite of de Rougemont's efforts to get clear answers. However it is possible to notice two different approaches, two different kinds of proposals. 21

On the one hand, Dautry thought that the main aim of the meeting should be to study the possibilities of setting up European scientific Institutes. Our documents suggest that, unfortunately, Dautry never developed his idea.

Thus on April 18, de Rougemont asked Dautry to propose some suggestions for the agenda of the meeting. •rt will be easier• he said •to invite people if we have something precise to put on the table.• Apparently Dautry did not send anything more detailed and a letter written five months later by de Rougemont to Scherrer was still rather vague, and did not give any agenda. Furthermore as late as October Dautry wrote to Auger in the following terms:

•cher ami, Le Mouvement Europeen vient, la semaine derniere, dans la reunion de son Centre Culturel tenue a Geneve, de mettre au premier rang de ses preoccupations la question des Centres Scientif iques europeens (energie nucleaire, astrophysique, mecanique des fluides, etc ... ). Une autre reunion se tiendra le 12 Decembre. J'aimerais bien savoir d'ici lace que l'UNESCO veut faire et ne pas contrarier son action. Si un jour vous avez quelques minutes de libre, pouvez-vous passer rue de Varenne pour que nous en parlions? cordialement. R. Dautry"

Obviously, Dautry was repeating what he had said in Lausanne ten months before and he did not have new ideas, particularly about how to implement the resolution.

Finally, a report written by M.P.Levy, representative of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on the meeting held for the inauguration of the European Cultural Center on October 7 and 8, 1950, gives us additional evidence. He wrote to the Secretary general:

" Le Groupe Scientifique est dirige par MM. Colonnetti et Dautry. Il s'attache principalement a promouvoir !'entente inter-europeenne pour l'etude en commun des grands problemes 22

scientifiques. J'ai pose, en seance, a M. Dautry la question de savoir quels etaient les problemes que son groupe avait mis a son ordre du jour, mais la reponse a ete fort vague. De Rougemont m'a remercie en prive d'avoir pose cette question en m'assurant que lui-meme n'arrivait pas a obtenir de precisions de ce groupe au travail un peu nebuleux."36

Dautry was not the only person consulted on this matter. Colonnetti and Georges gave their own opinions at the beginning of May and their projects were rather different. For Colonnetti, "the fundamental problem is that of the relations to be established between the research centers of different countries with the idea of exchanging researchers and of coordinating the efforts. My ideal would be the foundation of an International Office for Research in the framework of

the European Cultural Center. 0 ~o mention was then made of European laboratories. As far as Andre George was concerned, he proposed to proceed with caution, not to be too ambitious. The idea of European laboratories seemed to him very good in principle but only applicable in the long term. In the particular case of a center devoted to nuclear physics, the obstacles seemed to him even more enormous. This is why he proposed to begin with a short term project, a project "easily realisable" - for example, building a documentation center, or an office for the exchange of ideas. As de Rougemont said when sending the short text written by A. George to Colonnetti, it "expresses very well the opinion of the "moderates" about this problem of coordination of researches. It seems to me that his suggestions are in accordance with those proposed by you for an International Office for Research."37

It is therefore possible to conclude that: this group was not at all homogeneous as far as the concrete proposals to be put forward were concerned. Some people were merely thinking in terms of coordination of the already existing national institutions, at least at the beginning. Others would have liked, on the contrary, to discuss the establishment of new structures, of European laboratories. We must also remember that this difference was already present in Lausanne.

- nevertheless, nothing was clear, for either group. No real progress had been made since December 1949 and everybody was more or less repeating 23

what had been said several months before. The positive counterpart of this is that these people remained open to all suggestions.

only one thing is sure: Denis de Rougemont was eager to set-up the Scientific Committee of the ECC. And for that, he worked ceaselessly. The others, while agreeing to do what they could, were probably too busy and overwhelmed with other tasks to really face the problem.

When should the meeting be? Not surprisingly de Rougemont encountered difficulties in trying to fix the date of the meeting. The first one proposed by Colonnetti for May was postponed to the end of June: Andre George and Dautry were not free and some time was needed to contact the people recommended by Willems and Colonnetti. For the same reasons, the June meeting was postponed to October but apparently it did not take place even then. We have the impression that only a short discussion occured (during the first meeting of the ECC on October 7 and 8) when the reports of the various working groups of the Center were presented. In the proceedings, it is simply said: •M. Dautry (group of scientific researches} recommends to go quickly. He has made contact with UNESCO and will inform the Center how rapidly things are proceeding". 38

b. The French attempts

Two reports and a few letters written between April and July 1950 lead us to think that several people in France went on discussing the possibility of setting up a European structure devoted to atomic research. We have already discussed the November 1949 report by Kowarski. Obviously, it was not the end of an idea but a step towards a project to be worked out in greater detail.

A short letter by Lew Kowarski to Pierre Auger dated June 20,1950 gives us the names of some of the people involved:

"Moncher Pierre [Auger], Francis [Perrin] a du te parler du papier ci-joint que j'ai compose a l'usage de Rose et qui, depuis, a ete adopte par nous quatre comme une expression officieuse des idees des "Services Scientifiques du 24

Commissariat". Dautry est au courant et de Rose a fait circuler un certain nombre d'exemplaires dans son entourage. Bien a toi, Lew [Kowarski]"

At least four people discussed the matter: three scientists (Kowarksi, Perrin, Auger) and a diplomat we have already met,

Fran~ois de Rose. Apparently Raoul Dautry is in a slightly different position: we do not know if he was invited to discuss the text and if he was, to what extent he was involved in drafting it. The expression "Scientific Services of the Commissariat" seems to indicate that he was only informed without taking an active part in the writing. 39

We turn now to the reports. They have the same title: "note on the creation of a cooperative organism for atomic research in occidental Europe", they are both signed by Kowarski and they are dated April and April/May 1950. 40 The first text, which seems already to be the result of exchanges of ideas which took place beforehand, looks like a draft version of the second which is built on exactly the same model. The latter is only a little more detailed (whereas the former is shorter and not particularly well-written), and a long •discussion des motifs" written in a classical diplomatic style and trying to convince the laymen of the necessity and the importance of the project is added at the beginning.

The preamble of the second text (the "discussion of reasons") raises again the considerations exposed in November as far as the USA and the UK are concerned: The USA is now at the head of research in fundamental physics - and particularly in the big science domain; Great Britain, "partner of America during the war• is successful in maintaining an independent effort which allows her to keep abreast of the progress in atomic science, but because of "the international situation", she must stand apart and cannot be a leader for continental Europe. The latter has therefore to make its own way if it wants to catch up with the top level and not to lose its best scientists.

Even if some successes (the French pile, the Dutch cyclotron) show that the building of one fairly modern apparatus is still within the 25

capabilities of a single European country, the construction of a big center equipped with several such machines transcends them. Thus the need to collaborate. But two ways exist: either sharing the work between the various countries as was suggested by Kowarski himself in the November report, or establishing inter-governmental Center(s). And now, in both 1950 reports, only the second is said to be promising: the division of the tasks envisaged in the former approach would be difficult to set up, the result might be too strong a specialization of the countries (and of the scientists themselves), no enthusiasm would be engendered from it and anyway some apparatus would be too great a burden for each country alone.

A last point is stressed in the introduction: the aim of the laboratory must be "essentially scientific", if need be dealing with "some problems such as the production of power from an atomic pile but all the particular studies for immediate applications should be left to other organizations•. This statement is important because if the projects previously mentioned agreed on the principle of having no connection at all with military purposes, they didn't face the problem of possible industrial applications. And of course, in the framework of international collaboration in nuclear science (including reactors), this question is of paramount importance. Here, for the first time, the problem is raised and the choice is suggested to avoid everything dealing too closely with immediate applications.

After this preamble specially written for some French officals and people outside the CEA, the laboratory to be set up is described.

The apparatus should be an accelerator in the 500 MeV- 1 Bev range and a research reactor of 10 to 20,000 KW. A radiochemical treatment unit should be added. Lew Kowarski comments that with this laboratory, "the west side of the European continent would still be far from being able to compete with the USA", but "the danger of a complete lack would be avoided."

A budget is also foreseen. Five to ten billions of French francs per year during 4 or 5 years would be required. Lew Kowarski suggests that France should pay three tenths, i.e. around 3 billions a 26

year. He adds: •tet us note that England spends around 30 billions per year for atomic research and production and the us 300.•

Finally, an administrative structure is proposed. A •senat" formed with delegates of the governments would have the final decision-making power; an •executive structure• would deal with the daily management and a "Council of scientific experts• would propose the scientific projects.

Having read these documents two remarks can be made. The first is that the French, and mainly her nuclear physicists, were thinking seriously of what should be done. These reports indicate that regular discussions had taken place in some circles since November 1949 and that some results were achieved, that a project was defined. The second remark is that they were still thinking in terms of both low and high energy facilities. They considered nuclear physics as a whole and high energy physics was not seen as a possible autonomous candidate for the laboratory. In other words, the apparatus required by meson physics was still perceived as part - if not an annex - of more general equipment centered around a reactor41

In any event the French were eager to have their proposal discussed in Europe. The question was first raised at the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs. Fran~ois de Rose met Alexandre Parodi, Secretary General of the Ministry and his former head in the United Nations Organisation in New-York (1946-1948). According to de Rose, Parodi was in favour of having France contact some other European countries to study the possibility of establishing such a nuclear centre. According to Kowarski's reports, three scenarios were considered: • soit saisir la commission des recherches de l'OECE ou bien adresser, sous couvert du Quai d'Orsay, une invitation aux savants europeens, ou bien faire une demarche aupres des differentes commissions atomiques nationales".

After other discussions and probably because none of these suggestions appeared to be really satisfactory, de Rose and the physicists of the CEA thought it would be better first to test the ground by meeting privately some well-known European scientists. Their main 27

reason was that the opinion of such people would be decisive, in particular to get the agreement of the various governments. As de Rose put it, "after canvassing the possibilities, it was decided that Kramers was the most important man to contact first; so Francis Perrin and myself went to see Kramers in Holland[ ... ] We had a long discussion with him. We expressed our view, we said that the French Government would be ready to take an initiative but we wanted to know what his reaction would be. I cannot remember whether he immediately voiced reservations or whether he decided that he would have to think it over. Anyway, I know that his final view was negative". Disappointed by this answer, de Rose said that they more or less gave up the idea and felt that there was nothing that could be done: •it was a great pity but that was that."42

In fact, another initiative took place more or less inde­ pendently. The May report was probably sent to several people, to several officials around the French government. A copy of it arrived on the desk of the minister of finance. Interested and advised by F. de Rose or Raoul Dautry, he took the opportunity at the 102nd session of the OEEC Council, on July 7, 1950, to make a speech, part of which dealt with scientific research. Mentioning the increasing role of science in modern production, and considering its increasing cost for every nation, he suggested that one should consider the advantages that scientific cooperation would give. He proposed two ways of doing this: either by creating a European Center, or by signing an agreement •aux termes duquel chacun d'entre eux [des pays participants] conviendrait de se consacrer a un domaine particulier, tous acceptant d'echanger le resultat de leurs travaux." Without mentioning the nuclear field, he took over the proposals made by . 43 Kowars k i. Apparently, this speech had no concrete results and the French initiatives at this time were stillborn. This leads us to ask a last question: what were the reasons for the failure? There are two kinds of answers.

On the one hand and fundamentally, the project proposed by the French included cooperation in the field of nuclear reactors. So the considerations we have already noted about the links of this field of research with military and industrial activities are still relevant: the 28 controls of the USA over scientific and technological knowledge were still in force and the hopes for bilateral collaboration with America or Great Britan still attractive to some European countries like the Netherlands. It is also likely that cost arguments played a role. According to Fran~ois de Rose, Kramers' answer was partly due to his feeling that the European laboratory could have the money only at the expense of existing national laboratories. And this was seen as unthinkable because these were already starved of resources. 44

It should be added on the other hand that the presence of influential communists in the French CEA (an argument constantly used by the Americans) as well as the fear of having a Center dominated by the French (in the absence of the British) did not encourage Kramers, for example, to answer favourably. And anyway the links (and particularly the scientific links) of the Netherlands (and the Scandinavian countries) were stronger with Great Britain than with France.

We see then that the situation for those favouring European cooperation seemed rather bad. Despite three different attempts, there was no reason to be optimistic; despite Truman's announcement, nothing had changed - as far as western Europe was concerned. However, June 1950 was to prove a turning point.

V. The fifth General Conference of UNESCO. Florence. June 1950.

A new protagonist appeared in the prehistory of CERN in June. At the time, the fifth General Conference of UNESCO was being held in Florence (Italy). Nothing dealing with European collaboration in nuclear physics had been put on the agenda of the conference (even though, by this time, responsibility for studying the establishment of international scientific laboratories had been passed from the United Nations to UNESCO). Nevertheless a resolution of that sort was voted unanimously on June 7th, at the suggestion of an American Nobel prize winner, Isidore Rabi, who was a member of the American delegation to a UNESCO conference for the first time45 .

It is particularly difficult to study this resolution and the 29

debates it aroused. As often happened at UNESCO, the writing up of a text which was to be put to the vote required a great deal of caution whereas the considerations mentioned during the public discussion went further and can give us some idea of what was really intended. But there is also here a third level of information: all the protagonists claimed that during the private talks which surrounded the writing up of the official resolution some further explanations were given which, in no way, were alluded to in the report of the meeting. Unfortunately, these additional pieces of information were provided later (from six months to as much as twenty years in some cases) and so we must treat them with caution.

For this reason we shall try to work by stages, first by establishing what is reliable, and having done this, by taking into account what is more hypothetical. At that level, the traditional criteria of internal consistency and plausibility of the various pieces of information will have a decisive importance.4 6

Isidore Rabi has briefly told how he got to the point of proposing a resolution on June 7th, 1950. As member of the American delegation, he was surprised to notice that the programme of his delegation did not propose any really constructive action. Thinking the conference was an appropriate moment, he proposed a resolution to the head of his delegation. Its nature was so controversial that it was decided to phone the USA before presenting it. Quickly Washington gave the green light. As Rabi did not know how to proceed to put an item on the agenda of the conference, he took advice from his fellow scientists, particularly from Auger, Sir George Thomson and the Swiss von Muralt. He also spent a long time with Amaldi discussing several points with him.

Eventually, without the help of the rest of the rather hostile American delegation, the resolution was written and discussed on June 7th in the presence of (among others) Sir John Maud, Chairman of the Executive Board, Huxley (GB), Kruyt (NL), von Muralt (CH), Severi and Colonnetti (I) and Auger (UNESCO). Unanimously voted, the resolution was registered as no 2.21. 47

As we have said, the text of the resolution which Isidore Rabi 30

submitted appears quite neutral, and detecting in it some very original proposition is difficult. This text allows the Director General "to assist and encourage the formation and organization of regional research centers and laboratories in order to increase and make more fruitful the international collaboration of scientists in the search for new knowledge in fields where the effort of any one country in the region is insufficient for the task•.

When the resolution was presented, Professor Rabi was more specific about some points. At first he underlined the fact that his initiative "was primarily intended to help countries which had previously made great contributions to science• and that the •creation of a center in Europe where many experts in the various branches of science were available would be a small beginning which might give the impetus to the creation of similar centres in other parts of the world." In other words he thought primarily of Europe when suggesting the creation of •regional research centers and laboratories." Then, making it clear that he was •acutely aware that in certain fields of research the United States and perhaps the United Kingdom held almost a monopoly• he expressed the idea that •the initial venture might take place in the field of physics•. Thus he suggested that this first laboratory, which would be the fruit of a predominantly inter-european collaboration could primarily focus on research in physics, in a field which demanded a lot of money and in which Europe had been forced to give up the leadership to the United States and the United Kingdom. In the following weeks some of the participants in the conference ref erred to this resolution and to the discussions it provoked. These documents will give us further details about what was really proposed. We suggest to begin by presenting successively these (seven) different items and to make our comments only at the end. This will enable the reader to assess what happened at Florence for himself.

1- On July 15, in a memorandum sent to Ivan Matteo Lombardo, Italian minister of Foreign Trade, Mario Rollier wrote:

•nuring the recent UNESCO conference held at Florence from the 22nd of May to the 18th of June a proposal was approved which demanded of 31

the governments participating in this international organization, the finances necessary for the installation in continental Europe of a center for nuclear energy studies which would have the capability of similar institutions now existing in America and Great Britain, institutions which no state in continental Europe could possibly finance alone. The proposition was accepted in principle and it remains to decide whether the Center will be located in Holland or in Switzerland.•

2 - On July 21, having to sum up Isidore Rabi's proposition, Pierre Auger spoke of •the creation in Europe of a regional laboratory dealing with corpuscular physics•. He made it clear, shortly thereafter, that the contribution of the different European countries to this laboratory could consist for some •in production knowledge; for others in costly material such as providing uranium or· building an isotope separator; and finally for others (e.g. Denmark) in providing specialized scientific personnel.• Furthermore Auger gave as title to a note he had quickly written to keep track of the contacts he had had from June to September: •conversations about the physics laboratory.•

3 - On October 23, Sir George Thomson, presenting his report to the British Committee for Cooperation with UNESCO in the Natural Sciences said: •the conference had given favourable consideration to a proposal from the US, intended primarily for Western Europe, that a regional laboratory, possibly for nuclear physics, should be set up by groups of states to enable scientists of those countries to enjoy the use of expensive apparatus which each would be unable to purchase independently.•48

In the months following the conference, the discussions began around Rabi's proposal. This means that after its presentation, the resolution was examined, amended, modified and finally refined in several aspects. Two meetings in particular were held where the problem of the Florence text was raised, on September 7 and 8 when the project was referred to in the IUPAP Executive Committee held in Cambridge (USA) by Edoardo Amaldi and on September 7 to 13 during the Harwell International Nuclear Physics Conference held in the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford (GB) where Auger was invited to explain what he intended to do as Head of 32

the Exact Sciences Department at UNESCO after the Florence vote. Unfortunately in both cases, it is impossible to get any proceedings of the talks or the discussions then held. 49

Nevertheless some documents hint at them (and at the resolution passed at Florence), but before giving these we must stress that the quality, the reliability of the information we now present is not as good as in the previous documents (numbered 1 to 3). This is because they are given in documents written later and because they are provided at a moment when the project has a more precise and specific aspect. Thus we must be cautious about possible retroactive interpretations.

4 During the IUPAP Executive Committee, Amaldi proposed to the Union that a discussion be held about what could possibly be done to put into practice the June 7 proposition which aimed at "the building of a European Laboratory in Nuclear Physics•, to use the terms of the letter he sent to Auger on October 3. In this letter Amaldi commented: "After some discussion, the Executive Committee decided to have two reports prepared on this issue: one to be written by Rabi who should make his thoughts as clear as possible, the other one by me who has been given the responsibility of getting in touch with European physicists so as to get, if possible, an agreement on several fundamental points."

5 - During a meeting in Geneva on December 12, 1950, Auger mentioned the discussions held in Oxford. In the official proceedings one reads: "M. Auger points out that at a recent meeting of physicists in Oxford, two tendencies arose:

- not to limit too severely the field of research at the beginning,

- as proposed by Niels Bohr, to begin by building a big apparatus to accelerate particles (a thousand million volts) and to gather people around it"

6 - Reporting to the Council of the Centro Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy) on December 18, 1950 about the same meeting held in 33

Geneva on December 12, Bruno Ferretti wrote: "Regarding the project [advocated in Florence] which received the support of important American scientific personalities, different tendencies emerged during international congresses [held later]. The first, supported by the French, would like the laboratory to contain, not only big equipment for nuclear physics, accelerators etc, but also atomic piles. The second, supported by Bohr, envisaged the construction of big accelerating machines but without the installation of atomic piles, of which the construction implies a complex of economico-political questions which escape the grasp and the competence of scientists".

7 - To finish with these documents dealing with Rabi's proposition and some of its consequences, we would like to mention what Auger said in the Geneva meeting in December 1950 about what occurred in Florence. According to the proceedings of this meeting dated 18 December 1950 one reads: •curing this conference in Florence, Professor Rabi had specified orally that he envisaged, particularly for western Europe, the creation of a nuclear physics laboratory for studying particles of high energy.•50

It is time now to compare these different texts. Of course, a particularly interesting issue is to know what was precisely said about the scientific aim of the laboratory. So we will begin with this. Let us immediately note that a ustandard version• of the June events exists, a version which derives from the last sentence we have quoted: in June, it was already clear that the laboratory had to be an accelerator-based fundamental physics laboratory. Just to give two examples, let us read Kowarski. In 1962, in an article entitled "An account of the origin and beginnings of CERN", he wrote: "( ... )meson (or high-energy) physics was the most obvious and attractive candidate, clearly recognized as such by June 1950, and discussed as such between Amaldi and Rabi on the eve of the latter's official statement at the General Conference of UNESCO held in Florence." In 1967, he repeated this version of the Florence resolution: "In the peculiarly abstract language of international proceedings, any mention of what field of research, or even what region, were expected to be given prior attention, was again scrupulously excluded; but neither Amaldi (with whom Rabi had a long discussion on the 34

eve of his declaration) nor Auger - at that time Director of Natural Science at UNESCO - needed to be given any further hints. A major doubt had been removed, and an official framework was found for the first concrete steps to be taken; accelerator-based fundamental physics was the obvious first target•. 51

In fact two hypotheses can be made about what was said during the private talks which surrounded the writing up of Rabi's resolution. The first one is: Auger was right in saying in December that already in June a high energy particle physics laboratory was contemplated. The second would be: it is unlikely that the scientific objective of the laboratory had been clearly defined in June and in particular that it had been clearly specified that the laboratory would be a high energy physics laboratory.

If we assume the first one is right, several questions appear. To begin with, why did Rollier mention a "center for nuclear energy studies"? Without being able to explain precisely why this report only mentioned nuclear energy, we can put forward two suggestions. On the one hand, we do not know exactly how far Rollier was involved in the private conversations held in Florence. Neither Amaldi, nor Auger, nor Rabi mentioned having had a talk with him and he did not speak during the official debate, according to the proceedings. So his report might have been his own interpretation of a text in the writing of which he played no role. On the other hand, Mario Rollier was at that time mainly interested in the development of nuclear energy in Italy. This is why he wrote this letter, as personal adviser in this matter to Matteo Lombardo. So he might have slightly distorted what happened in Florence so as to urge his government to set up an official body responsible for domestic nuclear energy in Italy.

If we agree that Rollier's reference to nuclear energy is not to be taken literally, a second question remains: why Thomson and Amaldi never said clearly that it was a laboratory for particle physics. Thomson mentioned a laboratory •possibly for nuclear physics" and Amaldi •a European laboratory in nuclear physics". If we accept the first hypothesis (roughly, the 'standard version') it is possible to answer that these 35

formulations are mainly a matter of vocabulary. We know that words have a particular inertia, that they change only when the new facts they have to describe are without any ambiguity. And in 1950 there is no obvious word, no universally accepted word for what we IlQli! call high energy physics. Even particle physics was not a standard phrase. People working around accelerators were said to do nuclear physics (or from time to time meson physics), those working with cosmic rays were called cosmic ray physicists. This may explain why Thomson and Amaldi used the words "nuclear physics". On the other hand, if it was clear to them that they did not want a reactor, it would have been wiser to say it. As Bohr is supposed to have said, •the construction [of piles] implies a complex of economico-political questions which escape the grasp and the competence of scientists", which of course may ruin a project with piles.52

A third question remains granted that we are still in the framework of the same hypothesis. Why did Auger •mention• in July •uranium• and "isotope separator•? It is possible to answer that he did not write the proceedings personally and that these are not very reliable; but this is a weak answer. It is better to assume that if Auger had clear ideas, he did not want to impose them and rather wanted to raise all the possibilities. In other words in the private talks in Florence, it was only suggested that there be a laboratory centered around a big accelerator but everything had to be discussed, a consensus had to be reached and nobody wanted to impose the decision.

It is now possible to summarize this hypothesis. If, as it suggests, the scientific project was clear in the minds of some people, we must conclude that they did not know how (or did not want) to express their idea explicitly, they wished to have a broad discussion and anyway no clear consensus was reached between the various delegates to the UNESCO conference (Rollier at least).

Let us now consider the second hypothesis, namely, it is unlikely that the scientific objective of the laboratory had been clearly specified as having to be the study of the high energy particle field. According to this version, a laboratory •possibly for nulcear physics" to use Thomson's words would have been thought of, each person giving a 36

special meaning to this expression according to his own scientific concerns. For some, it may have meant research on nuclear energy (Rollier), for others fundamental corpuscular physics(?) (Auger), for others nuclear physics but without the use of reactors (Rabi and Amaldi, according to their interviews). It should also be said that excluding a reactor did not leave as Q.ll.l..y alternative an accelerator-based laboratory. The field of (nuclear) physics at that time offered other possibilities: consider what Auger contemplated in July (isotopic separator for example) or let us remember that it was felt necessary to ask Rabi to make his thoughts as clear as possible.53

It must also not be forgotten that the private conversations in Florence were of course informal. Rabi spent two days with Amaldi, but Thomson was not present during them and there is no evidence that Auger and Thomson, for example, met Rabi on the same day. Therefore the conversations were not necessarily centered on the same aspects of the project, the different protagonists did not necessarily focus on the same topics. After all, they had other things on their minds, not only regarding the resolution itself (were eastern European countries to be excluded? how could the text submitted to vote be integrated into the general programme of UNESCO? ... ) but also regarding the other subjects discussed during the 26 days. For these reasons some points may have remained implicit or left open for further investigation.

Moreover if we recognize that these men had rather different concerns, that Auger for exemple perhaps favoured a European collaboration in the terms of Kowarski's report (what Ferretti called "the French") whereas Amaldi was likely to be more interested in high energy physics, we can more easily understand the variety of the impressions the participants kept in their memories. And some people who did not take part in the discussion kept their own ideas. This occurs for example in the case of Kowarski who went on defending his report in the July 21 meeting in the CEA in Paris and, according to the reports written about the Geneva meeting, during the Harwell conference in September. So the second hypothesis leads us to a slightly different description. Perhaps for some people, it would have been better to avoid the building of a pile, perhaps for some of them, it would have been preferable to 37

focus on the construction of accelerator(s), but everybody had more or less his own idea, his own vision of the laboratory and everything had to be discussed within the international scientific community. If this interpretation is the right one, a final question remains: how to explain the statement of Auger in December (item no 7)?

We would like to suggest two possible answers, both of them psychological. We know that the human mind tends to simplify complex events which occurred in the past, that it tends to reorganize them, often unconsciously, in order to make them more rational. When one knows how events turned out, one tends to make what happened more logical, to give more coherence than necessary to the account, to reread the past in the light of the present. And in Geneva, in December 1950, the project to have a laboratory centered only around a giant accelerator was explicitly formulated. So it is perhaps possible to imagine that Auger took a short cut in summarizing in December 1950 what happened in Florence six months before, giving the paternity of the specific idea to have a laboratory devoted to particle physics to Rabi. But another kind of consideration may have played a role. Reading the proceedings of the Geneva meeting, one is struck by the way in which the name of Bohr was used to sustain the idea of a laboratory centered around a big accelerator. We know (from what occurred in 1951 and 1952) that Bohr was not very enthusiastic about the construction of enormous equipment in Europe. Even if he had said to someone (Auger) in September that the building of an accelerator would be a possibility, he was probably not an ardent champion of the idea. In fact,if his name is mentioned in both reports we quoted, it is probably because he is Bohr, a prestigious authority in scientific circles. In other words, we could say that his name is mainly used as a guarantee: if Bohr agrees, it is probably a good idea.

The same kind of thing may have happened with Rabi. Everybody knows he was a brilliant scientist, but what is more important in this context, he was also an American. And that was of paramount significance because his proposal meant that the United States, or at least some of its top senior physicists, were no longer against European collaboration in nuclear matters. We are reminded of the fears of Kowarski at the end of 1949 about a possible American veto, we recall the distrust of the 38

physicists of the small countries of Europe. A~:te' Flg,en!;;e :thQSe feelings had no reason to exist an? longer. And accordinq to all the protaqonists, the Rabi proposal was immediately understood in these terms. This is probably why, in February 1952, when siqning the first aqreement at the qovernmental level, the European deleqates sent Rabi the following letter:

"We have just signed the Agreement which constitutes the official birth of the project you fathered at Florence. Mother and child are doing well, and the Doctors send you their greetings•54

This may also explain why the Europeans stressed, perhaps somewhat misleadingly, that it was Rabi's idea to have a laboratory for studyinq particles of hig energy.

To end this point, we would like to add that if America's blessinq was essential, other considerations (more motivated by self-interest) also played a role in the ready acceptance of Rabi's resolution (and of Rabi's paternity). Many people knew that the execution of an . ambitious project would probably require technical knowledge and skills exceeding those th·en available to the Europeans. So they thouqht the proposal might mean that help could be expected from the United States. And it is true that, at least as far as money was concerned, Rabi told some people during the conference "that special US funds might be available for this purpose'" and that he tried to get these. Later on, he and his American colleague:s supported the Europeans also at the scientific and technical level. One can see then all the implicit implications of resolution 2.21 and one can grasp why it is so frequently referred to as the true beginninq of CERH's history.55

Three outstanding questions about the meeting in Florence remain to be studied. Wha~t was the proposed geographical framework? What links did this proposal have with the initiatives we have already met (European Movement,Itali~ns and French)? What particular importance did Rabi's resolution have?

As we said, the qeographical framework was Europe, and to be 39

more precise Western Europe. This was explicitly said by Thomson and was clear to everybody according to the interviews. It is also easily understandable in the context of the cold war and some days before the outbreak of the Korean war. However, a small point remains unclear: was the United Kingdom to be part of the project? Mario Rollier was speaking of •continental Europe" and in presenting his resolution, Rabi said he was aware that in certain fields of research •the United States and perhaps the United Kingdom held almost a monopoly". So, if his resolution was intended to ameliorate this situation, the United Kingdom was perhaps not included in it. And the advance of the British in nuclear physics which we have already mentioned, as well as their traditional reluctance towards any involvement in Europe might explain this fact.

As far as the context in which the resolution was proposed is concerned, we must be accurate. 56 On several occasions, Isidore Rabi claimed he had the idea of his resolution on the boat when sailing to Europe. The fact that the American delegation had to phone the United States to get permission to submit it seems to prove him right. But this does not mean that he, alone, on the boat, discovered the value of cooperation in scientific matters for Europe. On this point, everybody agrees that previous discussions had occurred. What is probably to Rabi's credit is that he had the idea to use the opportunity of his presence in Florence to draw up and present a resolution. Probably he had contacts with Italian immigrants like Bernardini, probably he had also discussed in previous years the dramatic problem of European science with Oppenheimer and others. But the idea of submitting, in the framework of UNESCO, in June 1950, a proposal to help European scientists build a center for physics equipped with expensive machines was certainly his own idea. So that resolution was not without links with the other initiatives and, like the others, it reflected the state of mind, the atmosphere of the moment. But at the same time, it was Rabi's idea to give it that particular form, in that context, at that moment. Without him, the fifth general conference of UNESCO would not have voted resolution 2.21.57

We have said that the resolution was of paramount importance because it was submitted by the American delegation. Behind this, one must read the American's blessing and possible help in the future. 40

However, a second reason gave this resolution a particular importance: during Rabi's speech, a man was explicitly mentioned as having to implement it: Pierre Auger. And as van Muralt said, the interest of resolution 2.21 was that "that project was coupled with a man's name. [He felt] that the first step in setting up an institute was to find a scientist to take the lead otherwise probably nothing would be done.•58 And he was probably right in saying this. After all, many resolutions were voted in the United Nations or in UNESCO without any tangible consequence. Here, and it is not usual, "marching orders• were given to someone who accepted them with pleasure and tried to avoid the project becoming bogged down in the bureaucracy of UNESCO. The important point we would like to stress is that, if subsequent history tells us that the Florence resolution was essential, it is because a group of people felt themselves responsible for it and because one of them was officially in charge of its implementation, had officially the administrative means to do it (as Director of the Natural Sciences Department of UNESCO), had the capability to act directly at the governmental level. In this respect, the difference is important with the initiatives we have previously met (ECC, French, Italians) which were, from that point of view, more private.

In other words, it is the encounter of a proposal suggested by an American (and we have seen that this fact had a particular im­ portance), a proposal which might not have been formulated at that moment, with a man, Director in UNESCO, already convinced of the interest of the resolution and ready to make it one of his main tasks in the future, it is this encounter which gives the June resolution its particular value. In the absence of one of these two factors, the project would probably not have developped so quickly in the following months. This shows, at least in one example, that History needs, from time to time, some help from chance.

It is now possible to draw conclusions about these first initiatives which began in November 1949.

The first point to remember is that a ~ seems to underlie the proposals, a model we can summarize with Kowarki's words: building 41

for Europe a center "type super-Brookhaven•, i.e. a center for nuclear science, built up in common around heavy equipment.

The aspects "in common" and •around heavy equipment• are easy to understand. The interest of such a center lies as much in the sharing of the necessary financial means as in the pooling of scientific and technical knowledge and skills.This implies the construction of expensive and sophisticated machines which no single European state can afford alone .. The fear then often expressed is that, if such equipment is not quickly set up in Europe, the brain-drain - already particularly severe in some countries - will get worse and spread throughout the continent.

Among the apparatus to be set up, a reactor is generally thought of. If it is possible to use two anachronistic abbreviations, we would say that people thought more of ten in terms of a mix of EURATOM and CERN rather than in terms of CERN itself. This conception is easy to understand if we bear in mind the existing institutions in nuclear science at the time, the state of the science and the situation of Europe. But thinking along these lines leads to a trap: he who speaks of reactors alludes to military potentiality, he who speaks of reactors evokes important economical interests, and it is to be expected that such national and industrial interests interfere enormously with the wishes of the scientists to have a collaborative research facility.

The second conclusion we would like to mention is that these several independent initiatives aimed at more or less the same goal. While European nations made several attempts at bilateral agreements with the USA or the UK in the previous years (1946 - 1949), we find four or five proposals for multilateral collaboration in Europe in only eight months around the end of 1949 / beginning of 1950. In this matter, there is no •behind-the-scene conductor• and everybody puts forward his own ideas independently of the others. So it seems rather pointless to look for The Father of the project. The image to keep of those first moments is not that of a chain of successive events, one coming after the other but rather of parallel events, more independent than consciously connected together. This explains why the balance of the reasons which lead to the various proposals varies from one project to the other: scientific 42

considerations, political ones - relations between the USA and Europe, the European ideal - , economic considerations. However, a conjunctural element served probably as catalyst for the sudden blossominq of proposals the explosion of the Soviet bomb. It alerted the Western countries and showed the poverty of the expert's predictions. Suddenly, some •secrets• seemed not as important, and the role of Europe alongside the United States in East-West conflict was seen as havinq to be increased. In particular the necessity arose of associating her with the best developments in science. Here we probably have one reason for the approval of Rabi's suggestion in Washington.

DP December, 1983 43

(1) Several archival sources have been used in this article.

1. A collection of documents issued by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (referred to below as UN ECOSOC). A copy of them is available at the library of the United Nations, Geneva. 2. A collection of documents issued by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (referred to below as UNESCO), Paris. 3. The archives of the European Cultural Center (referred to below as ECC) in Geneva. M. de Rougemont allowed us to consult them. We would like to thank him here. 4. The archives of CERN, in Geneva and particularly the papers left by Lew Kowarski. 5. Different collections of personal papers collected by our team in Geneva in 1983. In particular, personal documents of E. Amaldi, P.Auger, M. Rollier (referred to below as CERN History Study (or CHS), Amaldi, Auger, Rollier files, CERN archives).

Several interviews were made and copies of the transcripts are available in the CERN archives: 1. Edoardo Amaldi by M. Gowing and L. Kowarski, 25 July 1973. 2. Pierre Auger by A. Gunther and A. Hermann, 10 December 1982. 3. Isidore Rabi by L. Kowarski, 6 Novembre 1973. 4. Isidore Rabi by E. Amaldi, 2 March 1983.

5. Fran~ois de Rose by M. Gowing and L. Kowarski, 4 January 1974. 6. Denis de Rougemont by M. Gowing, L. Kowarski, M. Senft, 16 January 1975.

I also had several conversations with P. Auger in 1983, and one with F.de Rose (October 1983}. A.Hermann, J.Krige and I met D.de Rougemont in 1983.

Some articles have already been written about the beginning of CERN: 44

E.Amaldi, "Personal Notes on Neutron Work in Rome in the 30's and Post-war European Collaboration in High Energy Physics•, in Rendiconti della Scuola internazionale di fisica Enrico Fermi, LVII Corso, Storia della fisica del XX secolo, Academic Press, NY and London, 1977, p.294-351; Deux initiatives du CEC, Documents sur les origines du CERN et de la fondation europeenne de la culture, Centre Europeen de la Culture, XIV annee, 4, hiver 1975, Geneve ?; L. Kowarski, "the Making of CERN. An Experiment in Cooperation•, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XI, 10, Dec. 1955, p. 354-357 and p. 381;L. Kowarski, Origine et debut du CERN, CERN 61-20, Juillet 1961, Geneve; Robert Jungk, The Big Machine, Charles Scribner's and sons, New York, 1968, is a more journalistic story even if it is a worthwhile book to read.

(2) The main documents which we used here are: ECOSOC, Draft Resolution submitted to the Economic and Social Council by the French Delegation on the Establishment of United Nations Research Laboratories, doc E/147, October 2, 1946. ECOSOC, Report of the Secretary-General on Establishing United Nations Research Laboratories, doc. E/620, January 23, 1948 356 p. ECOSOC, Committee of Scientific Experts on International Research Laboratories, Summary table of proposals regarding the Establishment of United Nations Research Laboratories (Prepared by the United Nations Secretariat), doc E/CONF.9/PC/3, August 4, 1949. ECOSOC, Meetings of the Committee of Scientific experts convened by the UN Secretary General held at UNESCO House, Paris, from 16-24 August 1949, doc E/CONF9/PC/SR1-SR11.

(3) ECOSOC, E/147, p.4.

(4) Pierre Auger, "Henri Lauqier•, in Cahiers Rationalistes, 1973, no 300, p.309-319; Julian Huxley, Memories, 1970 and MemoriesII,1973, Allen and Unwin, London; see also Walter H.C. Laves and Charles A.Thomson, UNESCO. Purpose, Progress, Prospects, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 45

1957, p.294-296 (on J. Huxley); 0 La cooperation scientifique, de la guerre a la paix," interview with J. Needham, in Proton, CERN staff association, II-1976, no 110, p.12-16; Pierre Auger, Notice sur titres et travaux, Paris; for a more detailed list of people, see for example ECOSOC,E/CONF. 9/PC/SRl - SRll

(5) ECOSOC, E/147, p.1 and 2.

(6) This rationalistic spirit (in the sense of the spirit which prevails in the French Cahiers Rationalistes) can be well observed in an article written by Pierre Auger in 1956: NScience as a Force for Unity among Men", in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XII, June 1956, no 6, p. 208-210. See also my study of the scientism and of the rationalism of the French scientists in Physique et Physiciens en France, 1918-1940, Editions des Archives contemporaines, Paris (a paraitre en 1984), in particular chapter 6, •tes convictions culturelles et epistemoloqigues des physiciens francais, etude d'un socle archeoloqigue"

(7) ECOSOC, E/147, part IV •creation of an International Spirit", p.3.

(8) ECOSOC, E/CONF.9/PC/SR5, p.6.

(9) Kowarski, Draft version of an article: "The making of CERN: memories and conclusions• dated March 1967, unpublished, CERN archives, 17p., here p.2-3.

( 10) Kowarski, Ih~ making Qf ~ERN. I I I op.cit. note 1, p. 355; F.de Rose, interview, p. 12-13; In 1958, F.de. Rose had already mentioned what he had done in New-York in a Note QOUr le Ministre, 25 juin 1958, archives of the French Ministry for External Relations, Paris, Affaires atomiques, Box.75. Having recalled the ideas of Oppenheimner about the situation inherited from the war, he added: "Au cours de mon sejour aux 46

Etats-Unis (1946-1950), il (Oppenheimer] m'en a frequemment entretenu et j'ai pris !'initiative d'organiser de nombreuses rencontres entre lui et des hommes tels que Pierre Auger, Francis Perrin ... •, p.2.

(11) Kowarski, •the making of CERN ... • op.cit.note 1, p.355.

(12) For the institutions, see for example, N.F. Ramsey, ~ History of Associated Universities and Brookhaven national Laboratory, Brookhaven Lecture Series, 55, March 1966, BNL 992 (T-421), General, Miscellaneous, and Progress Reports-TID- 4500; Harwell. The British Atomic Energy Research Establishment. 1946-1951, 1952, London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office; Commissariat a l'Enerqie Atomique. 1945-1958, Paris, sans date. See also •A Historian's View of the Lawrence Years; Lawrence and his Laboratory: Nuclear Science at Berkeley, by J.L. Heilbron, Robert W. Seidel, Bruce R. Wheaton, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California, Berkeley, L.B.L. News Magazine, vol. 6, no 3, Fall 1981.

About the Scientific conferences, see Amaldi, •personal Notes ... •, p.326-335; See also interview of Hans Bethe by Ch. Weiner and J. Mehra, October 27, 1966; of W.K.H. Panofsky by Ch. Weiner, March 6, 1974; of R.E. Peierls by Ch. Weiner, August 11-13,1969; Victor Weisskopf by Ch.Weiner and G. Lubkin, September 22 and December 5, 1966; Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics, New-York City. A study being prepared by Ulrike Mersits will try to show how and when particle physics emerged as an autonomous field of physics.

(13) Kowarski, "The making of CERN ... •, op.cit.note 9, p.3; or Amaldi "Personal Notes ... ", p.336. (14) See for example, P.H. Teigen, •tes Etapes de l'idee europeenne•, in Etudes et Documents, no 17,1963; Jean Lecerf, Histoire de l'unite europeenne, NRF, Gallimard, 1965. 47

( 15) Gustavo Colonnetti, (1886-1968), in =A ______r~i~c~o~rd~o~~d=i Gustavo Colonnetti, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Metrologia •Gustavo Colonnetti", Torino, (no date); Raoul Dautry (1880-1951), booklet edited by the Cite Universitaire, Paris, on September 15, 1952 (copy for example in CERN archives, DIRADM/01); Jean Willems (1895-1970), Recueil de souvenirs, no date, no editor, Imp. Lielens, Bruxelles.

( 16) Deux initiatives du CEC.' 'I p.7-8; interview of D.de Rougemont, p.1-3. The quotation is from D. de Rougemont speaking at the XXth anniversary of the ECC, Deux initiatives du CEC .. , p.7. A study to come (A. Hermann, The European spirit and the Centre Europeen de la Culture) will explore this further.

(17) About the Amsterdam initiative, see Resume du compte-rendu de la reunion tenue a Amsterdam le 11 noyembre 1949 par la FOM. ECC archives; Stig Nyberg and Kent Zetterberg, Sweden and CERN I, the decision-making process, 1949-1964, The Committee on Research Economics CFEK), Stockholm, Report 9, 1977. About Kowarski's report, L. Kowarski, Notes sur la cooperation atomigue europeenne, novembre 1949, in Kowarski papers, CERN archives. About the Lausanne conference, discussed in part III, see note 22.

(18) The passages in quotation marks are from Kowarski's report. About the relations between continental Europe and Great Britain or USA, see Margaret Gowing (assisted by Lorna Arnold), Independence and Deterrence, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945-1952, vol.I, Policy Making, vol.2, Policy Execution, Macmillan, 1974, particularly, vol.l, •The Rest of the Commonwealth, and Europe", p.329-348. She shows the attempts at bilateral cooperation proposed by the French, Norwegians, Dutch and Belgians to the Americans or British between 1946 and 1950 and explains why they failed. 48

(19) Quotations from Resume du compte-rendu ... , op.cit.note 17. In his own text, Kowarski suggested for the laboratory "genre super-Brookhaven ou super-Saclay", a 10,000 kW pile.

(20) About the hopes raised by the Truman speech, let us just quote what the correspondent of Le Monde sent to Paris on September 23 (the day of the Truman declaration). Under the title: "Premieres consequences a Washington, Communication des secrets "atomigues• au Canada et a la Grande-Bretaqne", he wrote: "Une premiere consequence apparait certaine: la disparition de toute opposition parlementaire a la communication des secrets atomiques a la Grande-Bretagne et au Canada. Le leader democrate au senat, M. Lucas, a declare que c'etait desormais ' une question purement academique' et il a declare qu'une cooperation allait s'etablir dans ce domaine." So it was possible to hope also for the release of some secrets for the countries of western Europe.

(21) Zetterberg and Nyberg, op.cit. note 17,p.11.

(22) The main documents about this conference are: General Report submitted by the E.C.C., 19 pages; Presentation du Rapport General par Denis de Rougemont, 8 decembre, 8 pages; Message de Monsieur de Broglie, lu par M. Dautry, 9 decembre, 3 pages; Discours de Monsieur Dautry, 10(?) decembre, 3 pages; Liste des membres de la Conference, 9 decembre, 11 pages; Resolutions proposees par la Commission des Institutions, 11 decembre, 8 pages. Those documents are in ECC archives. To these must be added: Mouvement Europeen, conference Europeenne de la Culture, Lausanne, 8-12 decembre 1949, Resolutions et declaration finale, edited by Bureau d'Etudes pour un Centre Europeen de la Culture, 1950(?); Deux initiatives du CEC ... , op.cit,note l; interview de Denis de Rougemont.

(23) See Relazione del Prof. Mario Rollier al Congresso Culturale per l'Unita Europea, La Commissione di Cooperazione 49

scientifica del Centro Europeo della Cultura et il Laboratorio Europeo di Fisica Nucleare, Milano, 18-19 marzo· 1951, 5 pages, in CERN History Study, Rollier files, CERN archives.

(24) A list of the people who attended the sub-committee for natural sciences is given in Deux initiatives du CEC ... , p.12-13, but apparently some mistakes were made on that occasion (the book was written in 1975). Mario Rollier and •1e physicien Ferretti, representant du Professeur Amaldi• are said to have been there. But neither Rollier nor Bruno Ferretti are on the lists we have and they never claimed to have been in Lausanne. A Giovanni Ferretti is on the list but anyway he was not sent by Amaldi who was not involved in the Lausanne Conference. We have the impression that a confusion has arisen between this meeting and the meeting called by the ECC about the same topics in Geneva in December 1950. In 1950, both Rollier and Bruno Ferretti took part and Ferretti was there as representative of Prof. Amaldi.

(25) General Report ... , p.1,8-9, 11,12,18; Deux initiatives ... , p.12.

(26) Message de Monsieur de Broglie, p.1-2.

(27) Discours de Monsieur Dautry, p.1-2.

(28) Deux initiatives ... , p.13

(29) Mouvement Eµropeen. Conference ... , op.cit.note 23, p.5-6 (our translation from the French).

(30) Discours de Monsieur Dautry, p.2.

(31) See CERN History Study, Rollier files, CERN archives; E. Amaldi, Notes for CERN History, received by CERN archives

on January 29, 1981 1 CERN archives, p.1. 50

(32) Letter from de Rougemont to Dautry; Personal Diary of de Rougemont, March 1950; ECC archives.

(33) The quotations are from a letter by de Rougemont to Gustavo Colonnetti on April 3, 1950, ECC archives.

(34) Personal Diary of de Rougemont, March 14, 1950; letter from de Rougemont to J. Willems on April 18, 1950; letter from de Rougemont to R. Dautry on April 18, 1950; ECC archives.

(35) Letter from J. Willems to de Rougemont, April 25, 1950; letter from Colonnetti to de Rougemont, on May 2, 1950; ECC archives.

(36) Letter from de Rougemont to Dautry, April 18, 1950; letter from de Rougemont to Scherrer, September 22, 1950; ECC archives. Letter from R. Dautry to P. Auger, October 14,1950, CERN History Study, Auger files, CERN archives. Rapport au Secretaire general sur la mission a Geneve du 6 au 8 octobre 1950, dated October 9, 1950 by M.P.Levy, 8 pages, Council of Europe archives, Strasbourg, quotation p.4.

(37) See letter from A. George to de Rougemont, April 23, 1950; letter from Colonnetti to de Rougemont, May 2, 1950; Note sur les obiectifs du groupe de travail Recherches Scientifigues, by A. George, May 5, 1950; letter from de Rougemont to Colonnetti, May 16, 1950; ECC archives. It is interesting to notice that Colonnetti used the 5th general conference of UNESCO to make a similar proposal in June. According to the proceedings, he presented a resolution (5C/35) •to establish international relations between research centers in different parts of Europe which had hitherto managed to make bilateral arrangements for the exchange of persons and documentation.• The proposal was withdrawn before a vote. See Records of the General Conference of UNESCO, fifth session, Florence 1950; Summary Records of the Meeting of the Programme and Budget

Commission, 16th Meetin9 1 7/6/1950, p.m, section 2.2,p. 365. 51

(38) According to several letters (de Rougemont to Scherrer, September 22; to Dautry, Andre George, Jean Willems, September 23; ... ), it was planned to gather the working group on

"Scientific Researches 0 in the afternoon of the 8th of October. We have no hints that this group met, either in the ECC archives, or in the report written by M.P. Levy for the Council of Europe. We only know that the problem was raised during the plenary session of the "Conseil Superieur du Centre Europeen de la Culture• which met on October 7. The quotation is from the proceedings of this session, p.4, ECC archives. Of course, the discovery of new documents may change this conclusion.

(39) The letter from L. Kowarski to P. Auger accompanied a report written by L. Kowarski dated April/May 1950. The expression Nadopte par nous quatre" is not clear. We have the impression that it implies four scientists of the CEA including Francis Perrin (high commissioner) and Lew Kowarski. In this case the others would be Goldschmidt (chemistry) and Gueron (physical chemistry) who were the two other Directors of Departments with Kowarski (piles and accelerators). If this assumption is right six people were involved and de Rose played an important role in asking for the writing of this kind of document.

(40) Kowarski papers, CERN archives. All the quotations in the following pages are from the April/May report.

(41) It would be interesting to answer a question: why were the French (but also the Italians and the Belgians through the ECC) so eager to collaborate in nuclear science? Two hypotheses can be proposed. On the one hand, it is noteworthy that a feeling we have already met and which is due to the war, was widely spread throughout the French elites at that time: the future of the world requires mutual understanding, the future of Europe requires unity. Numerous illustrations of this state of mind can be found in the projects proposed by 52

the French political leaders to reinforce European Unity in the second half of the 40's. The situation is obsiously very different in Great Britain for example. However, in the particular field of scientific cooperation, another kind of reason must be stressed: the level of Belgian, French and Italian science is rather low compared with most of the Northern European countries (and

Gr~at Britain of course). The war had left enormous damages, laboratories were still partly destroyed or badly equipped, the budgets for science were meager and industry had difficulties in helping build modern apparatus. This is particularly the case in the technology linked with accelera­ tors. See for the first hypothesis, Alfred Grosser, La !Ve Republique et sa politique exterieure, Armand Colin, Paris, 1961; for the second one, Albert Chatelet, La France devant les problemes de la science, Notes et etudes documentaires, no 2552 (June 20,1959), no 2580 (October 20, 1959), no 2671 (May 28, 1960), or Le collogue de Caen, Les cahiers de la

Republique, 1957; for Italy, see E. Amaldi, "The I~~t§ Qf Reconstruction", in c. Schaer£ Ced) Perspectives of Fundamental Ph~sics (Chur, Switzerland, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1979), pp.379-461. About the accelerator programmes, see Rapport sur l'Activite et sur la Gestion du Commissariat a l'Enerqie Atomique, annee 1951, p.24-26; letter from Amaldi to Mussard, June 30,1951; memo 240168 from E. Regenstreif to P. Auger, Rappott §Ur mon voyage en Belgique C4-7 juillet 1951>; UNESCO archives. There were in 1951, only one small accelerator (built in 1937) in Italy (Istituto superiore di Sanita, Roma),two in Belgium (less than 1.2 MeV) and two under construction (12 MeV deuterons; 25 MeV, protons), some others in France, the biggest one being a cyclotron of 25 MeV (protons), which was ready in 1952.

(42) Interview with F. de Rose, op.cit.note 1, p.13-14, quotation p.13. Quotation from April Kowarski report, p.3. 53

(43) Extrait du discours prononce par M. Petsche, ministre des finances et de l'economie nationale au Conseil de l'OECE le 7 juillet, sent by F. de Rose to P. Auger in a letter dated July 8, 1950; Mussard file, CERN archives.

(44) F. de Rose interview,op.cit.note 1, p.14.

(45) Records of the General Conference of UNESCO. fifth session. Florence 1950; Resolutions, section B, resolution 2.21, p.38; Summary Records of the Meeting of the Programme and Budget Commission, 16th Meeting, 7/6/1950, p.m,section 2.2, p. 364-65.

(46) Some documents referred to this meeting in the following months: Mario Rollier, Promemoria sull'urgenza di predisporre una legislazione italiana sull'energia nucleare, sent to on.Ivan Matteo Lombardo, Ministro del Commercio Estero, Roma, on July 15, 1950; CHS, Rollier file, CERN archives; Proces-Verbal de la seance du 21 juillet 1950 au CEA a Paris, point I, Examen d'une collaboration sur l'initiative de l'UNESCO; point II, Point de vue officieux francais sur la creation d'un orqanisme cooperatif europeen; CHS, Auger files, CERN archives; Sir George Thomson, Report on the 5th General Conference of UNESCO, October 23, 1950; see minutes of the 7th meeting of the British Comittee for Cooperation with UNESCO in the Natural Sciences, doc. NS (50)21 dated January 3, 1951 in file ED 157/301, Public Record Office, Kew, London. See also interviews of Amaldi, Auger, Rabi (note 1) and the interview of Prof. G. Bernardini by L. Kowarski and S. Newman, Pisa, July 3, 1974, CERN archives.

(47) This is written according to the interviews of Amaldi (p.3-7), Auger (p.11-15) Rabi (interview with L. Kowarski, p.1-6), Rabi (interview with Amaldi, p.1-3), and the letter Rabi sent to Amaldi after this interview, May 30, 1983.

(48) Documents given note 46; handwritten note by P. Auger, 54

Conversations au sujet du Laboratoire de Physigue, 3 pages, without date, probably written in September or October 1950, CHS, Auger file, CERN archives. We give here our translations from the Italian and from the French originals.

(49) In spite of several attempts we have not found the proceedings of these two meetings. For the Harwell Conference, we have found a document called •international Nuclear Physics Conference, September 1950, Harwell, Atomic Energy committee, Proc. of Harwell Nucl. Phys. Conference, edited by E.W. Titterton, reference AERE-/M/68• but without the talk of Pierre Auger. In Nature, No.4226, October 28, 1950, p.709-711, an article written by Titterton gives a short account of the conference but without mentioning Auger's speech.

(50) Letter from Edoardo Amaldi to Pierre Auger, October 3, 1950, reproduced in E. Amaldi, Personal Notes ... , p.349-351; Centre Europeen de la Culture, Compte-rendu analytigue de la reunion du 12 decembre 1950, dated 18 December 1950 and signed Jean-Paul de Dadelsen, ECC archives, p.3 for both quotations; Centro Nazionale delle Ricerche, Consiglio, seduta del 18.12.1950, p.154-159, copy in CERN archives, p.155 for the quotation. In all three cases, we give our translation.

(51) Lew Kowarski, An account of the origin and. beginnings of CERN,

CERN 61-10, April 10, 1961, Geneve, p.3; Lew Kowarski, ~ making of CERN, draft version quoted note 9, p.4

(52) After all, its name Organisation Europeenne pour la Recherche Nucleaire was given to CERN at a moment when it was already absolutely clear the laboratory would deal only with high energy physics.

(53) This last idea was suggested to us by Pierre Auger in April 1983. According to him, if the idea of building a nuclear reactor was regarded suspiciously in Florence, it did not imply that what should be done was positively defined: heavy 55

equipment (other than acelerators) were worth considering and were in fact discussed in the following months.

(54) Letter sent to I. Rabi on February 15, 1952 and signed by more than twenty people including Amaldi, Auger, Casati ... , UNESCO archives.

(55) See John Krige, The Influence of Developments in AD\erican Nuclear Science on the Pioneers of CERN, CERN CHS-1, June 83, Geneva. Rabi said he went to Paris some time after June 1950 to try to get money from the Marshall Plan (interview,p.8); this is confirmed by Thomson's report in which one can read the quotation reproduced here.

(56) The reason is that Professors Amaldi and Rabi seem to disagree on this point. See interviews of Rabi and Amaldi (note l) and the letter sent by I. Rabi to E. Amaldi on May 30, 1983. We have the impression that both accounts are not necessarily contradictory. We try to show this here.

(57) See also de Rose interview about the connection Rabi-Oppen­ heimer, op.cit.note 1, p.13.

(58) Summary records ... , op.cit.,note 45, p.366. 56

ADDENDUM

Since writing the preceding text, we were allowed to consult the personal papers of Raoul Dautry. We also had a long conversation with Denis de Rougemont. As a result we would like to add some precisions to our description of the first stage of the prehistory of CERN. 1

1 - Denis de Rougemont stressed that the Lausanne Conference in December 1949 was carefully prepared in the previous months and that Raoul oautry played an essential role in this, which is confirmed by Dautry's papers (see point 2 below). He also insisted that during the first half of 1950, Dautry tried seriously to convince other people of the necessity to implement the Lausanne resolution and that he managed to contact American scientists, in particular Isidore Rabi. 2

2 - About the Lausanne Conference In order to prepare the conference, Dautry wrote to three people in France in the middle of November 1949: Auger, Gueron and Kowarski. We do not have the letters he sent, but we have found the replies in his papers.

Kowarski answered by sending a four page report which was a shorter version of his november 1949 report we discussed in part II. In particular, the analysis of the •world situation• and the proposals he put forward are identical in both texts.

- Auger answered on the 21st of November showing interest in the project suggested by Dautry of a •European atomic research Center•. He wrote to Dautry: •11 me semble que la premiere chose a faire serait de prendre contact avec le Directeur General aussit6t que la Commission de Lausanne aura pris une decision. Je me chargerai volontiers d'expliquer au Directeur General de quoi il s'agit et qu'elle est !'importance du probleme ainsi souleve.• 57

- Gueron answered on the 6th of December, saying: "Tant qu'on n'a pas atteint l'etape de production d'energie utilisable, et tant que l'on ne vise pas la production d'explosifs atomiques, les usines elaborant les ingredients des machines nucleaires ne peuvent etre utilisees a pleine capacite par un seul pays[ ... ] Une seule serie d'installations peut done suffire a tout un groupe de pays.· As examples, he gave the "growing stock of norvegian heavy water", "the fabrication of calcium [in France, which] will have to stop if there is no outlet", etc. His conclusion is that it would be of great interest for the European countries to collaborate in this domain. 3

Three remarks should be made: What we called "The French inititative" in 1949 was not independent from the attempts made under the auspices of the European Movement: Dautry was the link between them, he was at the origin of both. However, after having sent the Lausanne resolution to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, nothing official seems to have happened.

- It appears also that in Dautry's mind - and in Gueron's and Kowarski's - the main issue was to establish some form of cooperation in atomic energy matters.

- In the second half of 1950, what Dautry did in connection with the European Movement on the one hand and what the scientific services of the CEA did on the other, seem to be rather independent even if some connections existed (Dautry for example). On this aspect, we think that nothing has to be added to what we have written, according to the new documents we discovered. 4

3 - About the Florence resolution

We have found in Dautry's papers a press release from UNESCO dated June 9, 1950 which is mainly an interview with Isidore Rabi. It throws some light on Rabi's intentions. 5 Three points are worth stressing: 58

- about the aim of the laboratory We will first quote the passage of the press release dealing with this point because it is not perfectly clear:

•professor Rabi said he hoped the centre in Western Europe would be able to afford a large Cyclotron of the type which exists in the United States in such places as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, Columbia University in New York, and Berkeley, California. He thought it should also have a synchrotron: material for expensive biology such as exists at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and elaborate computing laboratories such as the one at Harvard University.•

This text confirms that in Rabi's mind, nothing dealing with reactors was involved; however, he did not think of only a high energy particle physics laboratory. Furthermore, he did not propose a huge apparatus (a big proton synchrotron for example as the cosmotron or the bevatron then under construction in Brookhaven and in Berkeley), but several pieces of medium-sized equipment. He seems to have thought of a rather big center - like Brookhaven - and diversified in its activities (accelerators, material for biology, computing systems). This fact may explain that room was available for discussion, that it was possible to propose other activities for the center. In this sense, Rollier's interpretation, for example, is understandable even if it is not in full agreement with Rabi's preferences. - about the geographical framework The only point we would like to make at this stage, is that the UK was definitely not covered by Rabi's resolution: •rt seems to me•, Rabi said, "that Western Europe could have a Centre as good as the best in my country if France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and West Germany got together under UNESCO auspices to form it.• This is easy to understand in the light of the equipment which was to be built, which was already available or under construction in Britain.

- about the motivations of Rabi He had in mind •to get the most vigorous competition of our fellow - scientists in Europe and elsewhere in the world in creative work 59 on behalf of peace•, he wanted •to preserve the international fellowship of Science, to keep the light of Science burning brightly in Western Europe•, and he thought the centers would be •one of the best ways of saving western civilization•. It may mean a willingness to help friendly Europeans; it may also mean a desire to link as closely as possible Western Europe and the USA in the context of the cold war, which had been the general policy of the United States since 1947. The fact that Rabi •expressed the opinion that some money could come from the United States•, the fact that the UK delegate suggested that financial help could come •from the United States Economic Cooperation Administration• would sustain this interpretation. However, the alternatives are not contradictory: in helping (in a really disinterested way) the scientists of Western Europe, the American scientists would reinforce the interests of the USA in their conflict with the USSR.

DP 20 March, 1984 60

Archives Raoul Dautry deposees aux Archives de France, 307 AP, Serie Mouvement Europeen, box 209-214.

2 Denis de Rougemont pointed out that Dautry never was explicit about the way he did it.

3 These three replies were together in the same folder in box 212.

4 See part IV of the previous article

5 Archives Raoul Dautry, Box 212.