LORD SHERFIELD, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO EISENHOWER'S ATOMS FOR PEACE PROGRAM AT THE UN IN 1953?

Well, it was a favorable reaction. It was quite a, an important change in policy from the complete secrecy in which atomic energy matters had been held up until that time to a to a different policy of informing the world about the peaceful uses and the peaceful possibilities of the application of atomic energy.

WAS THERE A FEELING THAT THE BRITISH WERE SUDDENLY BEING DRAWN IN AGAIN HAVING GONE THROUGH THIS RATHER DIFFICULT PERIOD WITH THE AMERICANS?

Well, of course at the Atoms for Peace program was really... had very little to do with the exchange of information which was basically military information between the two governments. And of not only military information but also technological information. What was put out was fairly elementary stuff.

WELL, BERTRAND GOLDSCHMIDT CALLED IT A NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE OUT OF THE NUCLEAR MIDDLE AGES. WOULD YOU AGREE WITH THAT?

A nuclear renaissance... Yes, I can see what he means. I would agree with him, I think, that it was a, it was an attempt to educate and inform the world population of what the implications were for peaceful beauties of this new force.

DID ATOMS FOR PEACE SEEM TO HAVE ANY POLITICAL GOALS AT THE TIME?

No, I don't... think so. I suppose it was an attempt I suppose the United States government and the president felt that it would, redound to the to the credit of the United States that they had made this move to inform the world and to I think it was obviously regarded as... would create a benefit and a good opinion, of, what after all had been a, rather frightening episode in the history of mankind.

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN IAEA AND TO PROMOTE NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT AND ALSO TO CONTROL THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. DID YOU HAVE A POSITIVE REACTION TO THAT?

Well, I think they... the British government was one of the founder members, and obviously I think was very much in favor of the, of the, of the foundation of the, of the IAEA. We certainly played a very large part in its... in its... in the deliberations in the early stages. I used to go at least once a year for a week or so and attend the discussions and meet all my colleagues from all over the world. I, we were very much in favor of it.

DID YOU ALSO ATTEND THE GENEVA CONFERENCES?

I did not. I was doing other things at that time.

ARE THERE ANY STORIES YOU CAN REMEMBER FROM THE ACTUAL IAEA DAYS WHEN YOU VISITED? CAN YOU REMEMBER ANY STORIES ABOUT THE SCIENTISTS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES OR FELLOW DIPLOMATS?

Well, I made a speech there... one year which was rather critical of certain aspects of Russian policy... Soviet policy, and the Soviet delegate Yamilianov, got up and made a violent attack on me. In the in the in the open debate in which he accused me, not directly, of murdering his brother in Baku in 19 or... Now this was apparently a very violent attack but I met him at lunch immediately afterwards and he couldn't have been more charming. So it was just a little bit of propaganda.

THE PART OF THIS WHOLE PERIOD OF ATOMS FOR PEACE, THE IAEA, THE GENEVA CONFERENCES, THE NUCLEAR COOPERATION AS IT WERE IN THIS PERIOD WHICH COUNTRIES DID BRITAIN ASSIST. WHICH COUNTRIES DID BRITAIN GIVE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO IN THESE EARLY DAYS?

Well we had, of course, close links with France, and Belgium, and Holland, and Denmark and Norway and of course with the commonwealth countries. We were, of course, Canada was a partner, and not a signatory but still a partner in the in the a, Quebec agreement and in the combined policy committee which was set up during the war. And we were, of course, quite close to the Australians who were very anxious for information and South Africa was a member of the commonwealth at that time, and India, and Pakistan. We had close relations in the atomic field with all of them but, of course, we could only pass to them the information which had been declassified. And so there were a number of discussions with the United States at that time seeking to declassify a whole lot of information which had been secret but which was really not secret. And it was on the basis of that declassified information that we talked to and negotiated with these many countries.

LET ME JUST GO OVER THIS TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO THE COMMONWEALTH. WHAT KIND OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE DID BRITAIN GIVE TO THE COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES? CAN YOU JUST GO OVER THAT ONE POINT?

Well I think we gave them the information which they asked for insofar as we could. And I don't... whether they were formal agreements I very much doubt. The relations were fairly informal. The Australians were partic... particularly anxious to get information about nuclear power and nuclear power reactors, and we were eventually able to satisfy them I think. But to this day they haven't yet built a nuclear power station. So it was, it was the curiosity was not followed up by action.

CAN YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT THE EARLY INDIAN PROGRAM AND HOW BRITAIN HELPED THE EARLY INDIAN PROGRAM ALONG?

Well, I, was, I was actually present at the opening of the Indian...

WE'RE COMING TO THAT YEAH, BEFORE THAT.

Well, I, don't think we were very interested in collaboration with the Indians on a kind of thorium because it was thought at that time that thorium might be a very important constituent in reactor fuel. And a great deal of thorium comes from India. So were anxious to assure we could get supplies of thorium from the Indians, and there was a very close relationship between Homi Bhabha who was the very remarkable and brilliant head of the atomic energy affairs in India. And he was a fellow of the royal society and was a close friend and associate of Sir John Cockcroft, Sir James Chadwick and all great atomic scientists. So that there was a very close friendship and relationship between them, and I had no doubt that we didn't as far as I remember any formal arrangement. But had no doubt that they helped Bhabha in many ways by giving him information and advice.

LET'S JUST GO OVER THAT CAUSE. HOW MUCH SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION WAS THERE BETWEEN INDIA AND BRITAIN?

Well, I don't think we had a formal agreement with the Indians but Homi Bhabha who was the head of the Indian atomic energy project and was a very remarkable and brilliant scientist was a fellow of the royal society in London. And so he was an intimate friend of our own physicist. And I've no doubt that they gave him all the information that he wanted which they could give. And we were also interested in getting thorium from India. At that time thorium was thought to be an important material for nuclear fuel, and there are large deposits of thorium in South India

DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE... RESEARCH REACTOR. I THINK THAT BRITAIN HELPED BUILD THE...?

Yes, well I saw it.

OH, OKAY. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL US ABOUT THAT?

But I can't remember the... I can't remember the details of it. It was a, it was a small research reactor... I think a small water reactor.

DO YOU REMEMBER BRITISH TECHNICIANS GOING TO TROMBAY. THERE WAS SOME INTERCHANGE...

Well I, don't know, no, I don't remember the details of it.

IN 1964, THE CHINESE EXPLODED THEIR FIRST ATOMIC BOMB. WHAT WAS THE REACTION IN THE... IN BRITAIN TO THE CHINESE EXPLOSION?

I don't remember any particular reaction. We our scientists advised us from the very beginning that countries with the technological experience and know, ledge would certainly be able, to make an atomic bomb. They h, they were not at all surprised when the Russians exploded bomb. They thought that it would take them a little bit longer than it did to achieve success but the time scale was only off by two or three years. And of course, the same would apply to the Chinese who before the war... the revolution had some very eminent scientists.

AROUND THE SAME TIME PRESIDENT KENNEDY TALKED ABOUT UPWARDS OF TWENTY FIVE... THIRTY NATIONS ACQUIRING NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS. DID YOU SHARE HIS CONCERN ABOUT PROLIFERATION AT THAT POINT?

I think we were always concerned about proliferation. But it seemed very unlikely that any, except a very few, countries would want to devote the resources necessary to produce an atomic weapon.

WHILE YOU WERE CHAIRMAN OF THE UK AEC OR AEA AS IT IS PHRASED HERE, YOU VISITED INDIA ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS. WHAT ARE YOUR RECOLLECTIONS OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE CIRUS REACTOR IN TROMBAY IN 1961?

Well, I went there as a representative of Britain with Sir John Cockcroft. The great physicist, who was then the head of Harwall and it was a very interesting visit. The the Indians were put on a good show and they had narrow. The Prime Minister was there and of course Homi Bhabha was his principal adviser. They had the Canadian minister called Gordon Churchill, the Canadians having given the rather large air research reactor which was being inaugurated. There was two very distinguished French physicists Perlin and Goldschmidt . There was a Chinamen who a Chinese physicist an oldish man who studied in the United States and spoke perfect English and was very charming and courteous but not very free with his information. We tried to extract some information about the Chinese program from him but he managed to evade all our questions and then. Oh, well, there was a representative from the Scandinavian countries, from South America, from Yugoslavia. There was a Russian physicist there called Katcherobsky who was I think a very genuine, good scientists. And we over the big opening ceremony which Nehru performed he made a speech, of course the Canadian minister made...

START AGAIN. YOU WERE JUST SAYING THERE WAS A BIG... CAN YOU TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE, THE MOOD OF THE WHOLE CEREMONY?

Oh, it was a, it was a, it was a, very upbeat occasion. Everybody was in good form and the Indians were very hospitable and very pleased with the achievement which was very remarkable. They had they had the, they had two or three small research reactors. They had the Canadian reactor which had which was the occasion for the ceremony. They had I believe if I remember right, they had about two thousand, five hundred people employed there plus a thousand people working on electronics because the Indians had really started off their electronic electronics industry at Trombay. They, they had a large group of people there and of course that was, and they were training them in electronics. So the, now of course the Indian scientists are very good many of them. And they had some very good people there. So it was a, it was a celebration. And we, it we'd, we had this opening ceremony, then we had conferences and we all made speeches and as I said what we were doing. The Russians made a speech and the Canadians made a speech, and John Cockcroft and I made a speech and everybody spoke. And it then there... certain amount of entertainment. And Nehru was there for about three or four days and took a large part in the in the proceedings. And then when it was all over, we sent on tours of India. So it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a very good occasion.

DO YOU REMEMBER ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH THE CHINESE SCIENTISTS?

Yes. Well Sir John Cockcroft and I decided that we would try and find out something about that program. So we cornered him at the tea one day and talked to him for about half an hour I suppose, and asked him all sorts of questions the Chinese is very courteous, very charming fellow but he told us exactly nothing.

DID IT OCCUR TO YOU AT THE TIME OF THE INAUGURATION THAT THE INDIANS' ENTHUSIASM FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY WAS PARTIALLY DO TO THEIR LONG TERM INTEREST IN ACQUIRING A MILITARY OPTION?

I don't think that was in my mind at the time. No, that was a long way off.

I THINK THINGS BEGAN TO TURN AROUND ABOUT FOUR YEARS LATER, ONLY FOUR YEARS LATER. AND HOMI BHABHA ACTUALLY MADE AN ANNOUNCEMENT AFTER THE CHINESE BOMB IN '64 THAT INDIA WOULD ACQUIRE NUCLEAR WEAPONS WITHIN 18 MONTHS.

Well I don't know whether the...

DID YOU GET ANY SENSE OF THAT?

I didn't get any sense of that because I didn't, I didn't think that they had the material at that time. They didn't have any separation plant. They didn't have any I suppose that they did have a metal plant. Certainly they could make uranium oxide. But it would have been a fairly primitive affair I think. I...

IN NINETEEN...

They certainly didn't have any plutonium.

IN 1958, BHABHA HAD ACTUALLY TOLD LORD BLACKETT THAT HE HOPED TO DEVELOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS. DO YOU RECALL THAT?

Well I mean I don't remember being particularly concerned about that at the time, but it was perfectly clear that if the Indians had the scientific information, they had the materials, and they had the resources to develop a full atomic energy if they wished to do so.

CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR REACTION TO THE EXPLOSION OF THE INDIAN NUCLEAR DEVICE IN 1974?

I don't think I had much of a reaction to it. It was just something that I felt sure would happen some time. And the fact that it happened in 1974 didn't, I don't think made much impression on me.

FRENCH ATOMIC ENERGY OFFICIAL, BERTRAND GOLDSCHMIDT HAS SAID, "IF YOU WANTED TO BE SOMEBODY IN THIS WORLD, YOU HAD TO HAVE A BOMB." WOULD YOU AGREE WITH HIM ON THAT?

No. I would say that if you wanted to be something in this world you had to have a nuclear reactor. But it didn't follow that you had to have a bomb. I think I would not agree with that.

ARE YOU CONCERNED THAT MORE COUNTRIES WILL TEST NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND ACHIEVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS CAPABILITY IN THE FUTURE?

Well I'm not sure about that. I mean is it worth it you see. There are a few countries who've got the capability or nearly got the capability now. But what is really the point of having three or four nuclear bombs?

WHAT ABOUT OTHER COUNTRIES?

I'm, I'm a little skeptical about that. I...

WHAT'S YOUR REACTION TO THE NEWSPAPER REPORTS WHEN YOU READ ABOUT ISRAEL AND THE IRAQ REACTOR AND ALL THESE EVENTS IN THE LIGHT OF THE HISTORY THAT YOU'VE GONE THROUGH? HOW DO YOU VIEW...

Well I mean, frankly, I do not have in, at this stage the information about it. I really can't make a sensible answer to that. I, but I would be very skeptical about Iraq. I would be quite skeptical from what I remember about Pakistan. I wouldn't be skeptical about Israel at all because of course, they've they certainly have the they've been working on it for a long time and of course they have the intelligence and the scientific knowledge and the energy to do something of that sort. Whether, what they're doing. I have no idea.

I JUST WANT TO GO BACK OVER ONE QUESTION. AND IT'S BECAUSE OF THE TELEPHONE. CAN YOU JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION WHAT WAS THE EXTENT OF BRITISH-INDIAN NUCLEAR COOPERATION IN THE LATE FIFTIES?

Well, I do not remember that we had any formal agreement. We were certainly interested in the supply of thorium from India from the monazite sands in southern India in Chhatrapur. Because at that time, it was thought that thorium might be an a material for nuclear fuel. Then Homi Bhabha, the head of the Indian project was a fellow of the Royal Society in London. And a very brilliant and distinguished physicist and a great friend of our physicists. He came to London often, attended meetings of the Royal Society. There he would meet Cockcroft and Chadwick and Penny and Blackett and so they were great friends. And it's, I'm, I don't know, but I'm quite sure they talked with him freely in so far as they were able to and that he, they gave him all the information and advice which he needed. Is that all right?

WHEN YOU ATTENDED THAT INAUGURATION, AGAIN JUMPING AHEAD, DID YOU SHARE SOME OF THE PRIDE OF THE INDIANS WHEN THEY'D GONE AHEAD AND THEY'D OPENED THEIR REACTOR? DID YOU FEEL SOME SENSE OF PRIDE TOO?

Well I thought they'd done very well. I don't know that I felt pride. I, in it. I've always been very interested and, in India and very sympathetic with Indians and I felt very sympathetic with them at that time. I stayed with the Governor of the province in the palace and Nehru was staying there and I really enjoyed talking to them both very much indeed.

WAS THERE A CONCERN IN BRITAIN ABOUT THE POSSIBLE USE OF US NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN KOREA?

There was a great concern about it. Partly because of the way in which the question came up. What happened was, as I remember, that the President Truman gave a press conference in which he made a number of remarks which were not particularly well phrased and which were open to misconstruction and to the thought that he might be contemplating the use of the atomic weapon in Korea against the Chinese. Well, it so happened that there was a debate on foreign policy going on in the House of Commons when this information arrived. And the result was that there was a great commotion in the House of Commons. And a great deal of excitement about it. And and so the Prime Minister Attlee had somehow to deal with this commotion and so he quickly arranged that he would go over to Washington to talk to the President Truman about it. And so we all set off to Washington where we spent three days discussing not particularly this subject but a whole range of other subjects of interest to the two governments in the course of that discussion, the President and the Prime Minister went, took went away and talked together for a bit and came back and said that they'd, they'd fixed it. And so the President it was rather difficult to get a form of words because the President had to, reassure the Senate that he hadn't given, away anything to the British and the Prime Minister had to assure the House of Commons that he got the assurances that he needed. And the communiqué was so worded that the President was able to do what he wanted and Attlee came back and told the House of Commons that he'd had a personal discussions with the President. He was perfectly satisfied with the result and he had all the insurances that he needed, and that was the end of the affair.

FROM THE MOMENT YOU WENT OFF ON THE PLANE, CAN YOU SOMEHOW GET IT JUST A BIT SHORTER? PERHAPS IF YOU CUT OUT THE LINE ABOUT THAT YOU DISCUSSED OTHER THINGS. IF YOU COULD JUST MAKE IT A LITTLE BRIEFER BY SAYING THE PRESIDENT AND PRIME MINISTER WENT OFF IN THEIR CORNERS STRAIGHT AWAY.

Well, we had, we had a three day meeting in Washington and discussed a number of matters but the actual question which we'd come to discuss was not dealt with until the very end of the conference. When the President and the Prime Minister went off together and had a twenty minute conversation and came back saying that they were satisfied with the discussion that they'd had. And this was duly recorded in the communiqué of the, of the conference and the President was able to reassure the Senate that the hadn't given away anything to the British and the Prime Minister was able to reassure the House of Commons that he'd talked to the President and got all the assurances that he needed and that was the end of the affair. Is that better?

MUCH. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. LET'S JUST STOP THERE. DO YOU RECALL ANY CONVERSATIONS THAT YOU HAD WITH THE CHINESE SCIENTISTS?

Yes, indeed I do. Because on one occasion Sir John Cockcroft and I took him aside —

THAT'S WHERE WE HAVE A PROBLEM, DO YOU REMEMBER ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH THE CHINESE PARTICIPANTS?

Yes I do. Sir John Cockcroft and I took the Chinese delegate at the conference aside and talked to him in hope to get some information out of him. And we asked him a number of questions and he answered them very courteously in excellent English but he didn't really give us any information of any importance.