INTERNATIONAL INSPECTIONS IN THE U. S.

Since 1962, under an Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria, four reactors in the United States have been inspected by that Agency. Periodic accountability and operating reports were submitted by the United States to the Agency. In August and September, 1967, the Nuclear Fuel Services, West Valley, New York, the privately ovrned chemical processing plant, was subject to resident inspection by a ten-man IAEA team while safeguarded fuel from the Yankee reactor was being processed. There are presently three international organizations which carry out safeguards inspections and other control measures. They are the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna; Euratom, Brussels; and the European Nuclear Energy Agency in Paris. Safeguards have been applied bilaterally by the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Of the systems listed, only the IAEA has carried out inspections within the United States. The Atoms for Peace program was initiated by President Eisenhower in an address to the United Nations General Assembly, December 1953. The President proposed the establishment of an International Atomic Energy Agency to which the Governments would make contribution from their stockpiles of source and fissionable materials. The Agency was established in October 1956 and its Statute was adopted the following June. The Statute provides in Article II that the Agency \"shall ensure so far as it is able that assistance provided by it ... or under its supervision and control is not used to further a military purpose\". Article III .A.5 authorizes the Agency to establish and administer safeguards toward that end. In January 1961 the IAEA Board of Governors approved the Agency safeguards system which was published as INFCIRC/26 limited to reactors of less than 100 MWt. The United States adopted the provisions of this document (and of its successor INFCIRC/66) as the principles and procedures to be applied bilaterally where appropriate. It was of course one thing to devise a technically viable safe- guards system: its broad acceptance was another. To promote the acceptance of the safeguards system, the U. S. in July 1961 proposed to submit four of its reactors not otherwise subject to any inter- national commitments (safeguards or otherwise) to IAEA safeguards.