Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 60 Part 2.djvu/392

 INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS OTHER THAN TREATIES [60 STAT. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, AND THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA, have issued the following statement. 1. We recognize that the application of recent scientific discoveries to the methods and practice of war has placed at the disposal of man- kind means of destruction hitherto unknown, against which there can be no adequate military defence, and in the employment of which no single nation can in fact have a monopoly. 2. We desire to emphasize that the responsibility for devising means to ensure that the new discoveries shall be used for the benefit of mankind, instead of as a means of destruction, rests not on our na- tions alone, but upon the whole civilized world. Nevertheless, the progress that we have made in the development and use of atomic energy demands that we take an initiative in the matter, and we have accordingly met together to consider the possibility of international action :- (a) To prevent the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes (b) To promote the use of recent and future advances in scien- tific knowledge, particularly in the utilization of atomic energy, for peaceful and humanitarian ends. 3. We are aware that the only complete protection for the civilized world from the destructive use of scientific knowledge lies in the prevention of war. No system of safeguards that can be devised will of itself provide an effective guarantee against production of atomic weapons by a nation bent on aggression. Nor can we ignore the pos- sibility of the development of other weapons, or of new methods of warfare, which may constitute as great a threat to civilization as the military use of atomic energy. 4. Representing as we do, the three countries which possess the knowl- edge essential to the use of atomic emergy, we declare at the outset our willingness, as a first contribution, to proceed with the exchange of fundamental scientific information and the interchange of scientists and scientific literature for peaceful ends with any nation that will fully reciprocate. 5. We believe that the fruits of scientific research'should be made available to all nations, and that freedom of investigation and free interchange of ideas are essential to the progress of knowledge. In pursuance of this policy, the basic scientific information essential to the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes has already been made available to the world. It is our intention that all further information of this character that may become available from time 1480

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