Canberra, 9 October 1974
3265. Confidential
Non-Proliferation
We too have had difficulty in discovering what practical measures the United States has in mind to contain nuclear proliferation. It appears to us that there is an active debate going on between the various US agencies concerned and many fundamental questions remain unresolved. Kissinger’s statement at UNGA has at least revealed something of the general direction of American thinking.1
- For your own background information, we are somewhat concerned that the Americans have also been so unforthcoming in their discussions with the Japanese. However we wonder whether the Americans may have put to the Japanese conditions on nuclear co-operation of which we are as yet unaware. The Americans have told us that, while of course not abandoning the NPT, the US and Soviet Union were seeking to work on lines parallel to it, aimed at creating a network of bilateral undertakings covering the transfer of nuclear materials. We assumed that Japan would be included in any such arrangements.
[matter omitted]
[NAA: A1838, 919/10/5 part 43]
- 1 Kissinger announced the need for additional safeguards that went beyond the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. A number in Congress were aware of the dangers of the ‘Atoms for Peace’ arrangements but Kissinger wanted to avoid unilateral American action, preferring a multilateral control mechanism which ultimately found form in the Nuclear Suppliers Group the next year. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 191.