The New Dark Age

30 June 2015 — National Security Archive

Beginning in 1950s, U.S. Sought to Control Uranium Enrichment Technology that Iranians Are Using Today

In 1954, Washington Ruled Against Brazilian Attempt to Purchase West German Centrifuges for Its Nuclear Program as Contrary to U.S. “Interests”

In 1960, U.S. and Allies Agreed to Put Gas Centrifuge under Secrecy Controls

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 518

Edited by William Burr

Posted June 29, 2015

For more information contact:
William Burr at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu

Washington, D.C., June 29, 2015 – Long before Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities – based on gas centrifuge technology – became the center of international negotiations, the U.S. tried to deny that same technology to any country that sought it. In 1954, Washington prohibited a company in occupied Germany from selling gas centrifuges to Brazil, according to declassified documents published today for the first time by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP). These centrifuges had marginal capacity and it would have taken them many years to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear bomb. But – as many in the U.S. government and elsewhere today believe with respect to Iran – the State Department concluded that Brazil’s access to gas centrifuge technology was “contrary to U.S. interests.”

The Brazilian case is an early example of what became a broader U.S. policy of denial of gas centrifuge technology. In 1960, Washington began to consider the technology as a significant nuclear proliferation risk when the latest innovations indicated a significant potential to produce HEU for nuclear weapons on an industrial scale and in secret. According to another document published today, a senior State Department adviser argued that “Should the gas centrifuge process be successfully developed on an unclassified basis it could be utilized in a number of countries either openly or secretly and in either event complicate the problem of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.”

In 1960, concerns about nuclear proliferation led Secretary of State Christian Herter and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman John McCone to spearhead a little known initiative to put the latest and future gas centrifuge R&D under secrecy and export controls by working with Western European allies who were also developing the technology. Although McCone and others understood that it was difficult to stop scientific-technological advance and that secrecy controls might not work, he believed it was “worth trying,”

Documents published today by the National Security Archive and the NPIHP shed light on the step-by-step process by which the Eisenhower administration came to be concerned about the potential of the gas centrifuge, reached the conclusion that secrecy and export controls were necessary, and sought an understanding on classification policy with the British, Germans, and Dutch. Such an understanding has in fact been effect since 1960 although it could not stop the infamous A. Q. Khan’s theft of the technology and its spread to Iran and North Korea.

* * * * *

Check out today’s posting at the National Security Archive – http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb518-the-gas-centrifuge-secret-origins-of-US-policy-of-nuclear-denial-1954-1960/index.html

Find us on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/NSArchive

Unredacted, the Archive blog – http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/

________________________________________________________
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.