Evening star., 1950-02-08
Partnership and Security

Representatives OF tne atomic agencies
of the United States, Canada and Britain
the historic partnership that produced the
A-bomb during the war-are scheduled to
meet for three days this week at Harwell,
England. The purpose of the meeting is
to promote continued uniform applica-
ton" of the security measures being fol-
lowed by the three countries in handling
information on the atom. Obviously, in
the light of recent events, nothing could
be more timely than an effort to improve
such measures.
The impending meeting, of course, has
not been called all of sudden. It is part
of series held from time to time since
November, 1947, when the three countries
first got together to develop the uniform
Dissatisfaction Guides" under which they
have been following common standards
in determining what phases of their atomic
work should be published and what should
be kept under wraps. But this weeks
sessions, though not directly related to the
case OF Doctor Klaus Fuchs, have taken
on special meaning. For at Harwell-
the center of Britain's nuclear-energy re-
written large because of his key work
there prior to his recent arrest on charges
of. having given the Russians vital and
highly secret information on A-weapons,
including the hydrogen bomb.
Accordingly, although limited in author
ity to the task of developing the "Declassi-
flcation Guides" the representatives of the
three countries will have reason to ask
themselves a lot of broad questions about
atomic security in general. Even though
it may be altogether outside their province
to deal with such matters, they will cer-
tainly discuss the case of Doctor Fuchs
and what seem to have been the shocking
laxities that made 1t possible for him to
get in on the innermost secrets. Like the
rest of us, judging from all the reports on
his arrest, they must be startled to know
that man with his political background
was allowed to occupy key wartime posi-
tion In Britain's and our own most
guarded nuclear-energy projects. 1t must
Startle them, too to realize that he ap-
parently remained unsupported as recently
as November two years ago, when he was
here in Washington as member of the
British delegation taking part in the orig
inal work on setting up standards for
classifying and declassifying information.
1t need hardly be added that all this
has strengthened the hands of those
Americans who have been opposing recent
proposals for revival-in at least limited
form-of the wartime three-power atomic
partnership. In keeping with the law
passed by Congress in 1946, that partner
ship has been pretty much dissolved by
numerous restrictions against which very
strong case can be made, particularly be-
cause Britain and Canada control large
sources of uranium, because they are key
members of the Atlantic Pact and because
their nuclear scientists (ameng the worlds
best) can offer us considerable help In our
own projects. Nevertheless, the Fuchs case
undoubtedly has set back the effort to
revive close cooperation, the fear being
that such cooperation may play into the
hands of other men of the same sort who
have not yet been detected
= What this situation suggests is that the
United States, Canada and Britain need,
in addition to uniform "Declassification
Guides" uniform and effective screening
system to bar the actually or potentially
disloyal The conferees at Harwel may
not be authorized to do anything about
the matter, but some such group ought to
be named to tackle it. Certainly, as long
as a Doctor Fuchs finds it easy to operate
in one or another of the three countries,
the partnership idea is likely to have hard
going. An all-around tightening of security
safeguards obviously would seem to be in
order.