The Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference, "Sixty Years Later," will be held on November 7- 8, 2005. Below is the first in a series of analyses on proliferation milestones.

In June of 1945, the Franck Report was ignored, the moral concerns of its scientific authors over the use of nuclear weapons dismissed. Sixty years later, the report seems a prescient warning of proliferation dangers. Still largely overlooked today, it typically shows up as a few paragraphs amidst the hundreds of pages written about the Manhattan Project. Yet interestingly, the report’s warnings of a nuclear arms race and recommendations for the international control of nuclear energy resonate with contemporary concerns. The proliferation challenges of today were clearly foreseen by some of the bomb’s creators.

A small group of scientists at the Metallurgical Lab in Chicago were, in the spring of 1945, increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled spread of atomic energy and the moral implications of using the atomic bomb. While A-bomb research was conducted primarily in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the Chicago lab focused on the production of fissile materials that would form the core of the explosive device. In December of 1942, the first test nuclear reactor went critical in the squash courts under the stadium at the University of Chicago. In June of 1945, while the Los Alamos raced to finish the bomb, work at Chicago had slowed and scientists were drawn to thoughts of the future. Nobel laureate James Franck formed a committee to consider the implications of the bomb, including Eugene Rabinowitch, the ultimate drafter of the report, and Leo Szilard, one of the first scientists to advocate the development of an atomic bomb but who had become concerned about its use on Japan after Nazi Germany’s defeat.

The final report warned of a dangerous nuclear future. First, the United States could not rely on its current advantage. Nuclear research would not be an American monopoly for long, and secrecy would not be protection. Staying ahead in production was also a false security, as a "quantitative advantage in reserves of bottled destructive power will not make us safe from sudden attack." If no international agreement were developed after the first detonation of the bomb, then there would be a "flying start of an unlimited armaments race."

The report argued that the manner in which nuclear weapons were revealed to the world would be critical to the future trust and desire for agreement that would develop between both allies and adversaries. The use of the bomb on Japan without warning would have both moral and political repercussions:

It will be very difficult to persuade the world that a nation which was capable of secretly preparing and suddenly releasing a weapon, as indiscriminate as the rocket bomb and a thousand times more destructive, is to be trusted in its proclaimed desire of having such weapons abolished by international agreement.

Instead, the scientists recommended a demonstration of the bomb before representatives of the United Nations.

Sixty years ago, the Franck Report clearly identified nuclear materials as the critical choke point for the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The scientists explained that the rationing of uranium ores may be the simplest way to control nuclear technology. Under an international agreement, uranium would be accounted for, and there would be a check on the conversion of natural uranium into fissile material. The scientists argued that an international agreement must be backed by controls: "No paper agreement can be sufficient since neither this or any other nation can stake its whole existence on trust in other nations' signatures."

The extent to which the Truman administration discussed the Franck Report is unclear. The eight-member Interim Committee - chaired by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and composed of top government officials- handled atomic bomb policy. At its June 21, 1945 meeting, the committee concluded the bomb should be used on Japan without warning. This determination echoed recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Panel to the Interim Committee –Manhattan Project physicists Enrico Fermi, E.O. Lawrence, Arthur Compton, and J. Robert Oppenheimer. After a discussion of the Frank Report in mid-June, the Scientific Panel expressed their view that "no technical demonstration [was] likely to bring an end to the war." Neither group seriously considered the report’s recommendations on international control of atomic energy.

But the Chicago scientists had hit upon a core truth: preventing proliferation had to be a political solution; the science of nuclear technology could not be otherwise contained. In its closing paragraphs, the Frank Report was explicitly forward thinking:

We urge that the use of nuclear bombs in this war be considered as a problem of long-range national policy rather than military expediency, and that this policy be directed primarily to the achievement of an agreement permitting an effective international control of the means of nuclear warfare.

The problems of controlling fissile materials and restraining a nuclear arms race were questions before mushroom clouds ever rose over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, the same questions linger unresolved. We should not have to wait another sixty years before the scientists’ plea for a "long-range national policy" is answered.

Jane Vaynman is the Project Assistant for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment. She is a graduate of Stanford University.

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Related Links:

"Report of the Committee on Political and Social Problems," Manhattan Project Metallurgical Laboratory, University of Chicago, 11 June 1945, (The Franck Report)