Control of Proliferation and the Challenge of Sensitive Nuclear Technology

For more than a half century the world has struggled with the challenge of reconciling the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes with preventing states using their nuclear knowledge, technology, and assets to acquire nuclear weapons. The first means proposed to address this challenge was the U.S. Baruch Plan in 1946. Based on the conclusion of the Acheson- Lilienthal report of March 1946, that safeguards on nationally owned and operated facilities alone would not be adequate to achieve the objective of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, the Baruch Plan proposed establishing an International Atomic Development Authority for international ownership or managerial control of nuclear fuel cycle activities that were judged to be potentially dangerous to world security. That plan was too ambitious to gain the support necessary to make it a reality and it remains so today, although ideas along similar lines have recently emerged.