COULD YOU FIRST OF ALL TELL US ABOUT THE INCIDENT DURING THE WAR WHEN DE GAULLE WAS FIRST MADE AWARE BY THE FRENCH SCIENTISTS WORKING ON THE ATOMIC PROGRAM ABOUT THE ATOMIC BOMB?

You see we had double allegiance. We had promised secrecy to the British, and we were seconded (?) to the British by the Free French forces. And when in the spring of '44 we learned that de Gaulle was coming to Ottawa for a few hours during his first visit to North America, we felt it was our duty to warn him of this new weapon whose consequences, political and military would be it would be enormous, and it was invaluable for him and for France to know about it. So the three of us, Pierre ( ), Jules...and myself, we asked the delegator of the Free French in Ottawa to give us to allow us to have an appointment with de Gaulle, but we wanted to see him alone. And finally it was only one of us ...who had already met the General, who gave him our message. There was going to be in one year from then a new weapon. It would allow to end the war with Japan, or with Germany if Germany was still in the war, and all after, all the peace afterward would be influenced by this new weapon and we should start as early as possible and we should keep ( ). That's the only wrong thing we said, because that's a place where we thing there's uranium resources in the French Empire.

AND WHAT WAS THE CONSEQUENCE OF THAT? WHAT ACTIONS DID DE GAULLE TAKE?

He understood very well. He never mentioned it to anybody, but he saw...and...later, in mid-'45, and I think if he started the (?) so early it is a little bit because of that intervention. And you know the...was the first civilian organization created in the world dealing with atomic energy.

BEFORE THE BRITISH AND THE AMERICANS.

Before the British. The British still had the it was a ( ). And in America, it was still an organization which was dealing with the militant (?) civilian side.

JUST TO GIVE US AN IDEA OF THE ATMOSPHERE THAT EXISTED TOWARD ATOMIC POWER AND ATOMIC WEAPONS AFTER THE WAR, COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THE TIME YOU VISITED THE TEST AT BIKINI AND THE AFTERMATH OF THAT.

There was an extraordinary prestige atomic energy. It wasn't at all a sort of repulsion you have today. And I was one of the two Frenchmen out of 22 foreigners, two...members of the Security Council of the United Nations, who had been reluctantly invited by the American Navy under the instruction of the State Department. And when I came first of all there was 40,000 observer in (?). I, you, one can't realize it if one didn't live in those times, the publicity that was about...in the papers. All over the world. The Navy wanted its revenge because it hadn't been at all involved during the war. It was either the Army with General( ), or the aviation, the Air Force with the bombing. And when I came back to France, I was extremely popular. I was, I was lunched and dined out during three months. Everybody wanted to see me because I had seen an atomic explosion. And during the test there was 40,000 observers. Naturally among those, there was all the crews of the boats which had come to Bikini.

WHAT SORT OF A SITE WAS IT?

It was...and the most...explosion, underwater explosion is, I'm ashamed to say, is surely the most impressive and the most beautiful natural site I saw in my life. Because you had now, we see here the Eiffel Tower, and the sort of enormous upsurge of water was seven times, eight times the height of the Eiffel Tower. And it was twice as large as the Eiffel Tower in full sun. It was marvelous. It was like a fairy tale picture. And naturally, when you think it was a bomb that's something awful. But the rest, when you think of the picture, you saw it was a most impressive thing.

DID YOU ALWAYS THINK THAT FRANCE MUST HAVE A BOMB? DID YOU EVER HAVE ANY HESITATION ABOUT THAT?

For a long time we didn't think that France could have a bomb. But by 1950 -- first of all, the condition, the absolute condition was to have a natural supply of uranium. And this was found by the end of 1948. Otherwise we couldn't have a bomb. All the uranium was in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon countries, who had made an agreement at the...in 1943 to put their hands on all the available uranium. So by the early '50s, we had a very, we had a combination of a very young minister... and a general manager of our commission who was Pierre...to whom we owe really our industrialization and our militarization. And they decided to give the...um, a five year plan which would allow us to produce about fifty kilos of plutonium a year. From that moment, it was quite reasonable for us to have a bomb. There was no reason at a time where the British, from '52 on, the Americans and the Russians were making all tests, more and more tests of more and more powerful weapons. There was no reason that France would be out of it. And from 1954 on, it was the difference with Germany because as a condition of re--of the rearmament of...Germany, had been obliged to renounce ( ), for Germany to...or test atomic weapons.

AND YOU THINK IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR FRANCE THAT IT SHOULD BE DIFFERENTIATED FROM GERMANY?

You see, we just had been occupied by Germany. We had to have, it was a kind of revenge, if you want from this humiliating occupation. We had to have...differentiation.

WHAT WAS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TECHNICAL AND MILITARY LEADERSHIP OF THE, ASSOCIATED WITH THE CEA, AND THE POLITICIANS AT THIS TIME? WHO WAS REALLY DRIVING THE PROGRAM FORWARD?

You see, it was a really extraordinary period. You'll remember how unstable our governments were. The governments would last three months, six months, and for that reason, the real power was in the hands of the permancy (?). And a man like Pierre (?) who was the General Manager of the...was much more powerful in practice than the ministers, because they came and, they came and went and he was always there. And he was the driving force behind the effort to have a bomb. And curiously, the Army was rather against it. By and large, I don't say all the Army, but the a big part of the generals were against it because they were afraid that it would cost a lot of money. And it didn't cost so much to have a few bombs, and they were afraid that all that money would be, they would be deprived of all that money that they needed to keep Algeria. Algeria was an obsession at that time, in the French army.

WHAT WAS THE INFLUENCE OF THE MILITARY STRATEGISTS?

There was no people in the Army lobbying for the bomb. It was curiously, the bomb was slowly decided by reaction to the people who were working toward the integration of Europe. If you want, the most fascinating example I can tell you was these two tête-à-tête ...with ( ), who everybody knows in America as the Father of Europe. The more...had the following reason. There is no problem more important than the unification of Europe. There won't be a unification of Europe if there is discrimination between France and Germany. Soviet Russia will never allow Germany to own weapons, atomic weapons. Therefore, France must...to have weapons. And if you will, it is this force, which was pushing France to ( ), from '52, let's say to '55 or '56, which created as a reaction the, as a counter effect, the decision to go ahead, first in secrecy inside the...and later, especially after the Suez affair in publicly, to go ahead and to make the necessary research to have at least one weapon.

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT HOW THE MEETING OF DECEMBER 1954, WHERE...HAD A MEETING ON THE SUBJECT...THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT?

Curiously,...had been to New York to plead the Americans and the Russians to cease testing in the atmosphere. You remember it was time where there had been these Japanese fisherman hurt by, following a hydrogen bomb test in Bikini and it, a hundred miles away. And he came back. He called that meeting in the ( ), where he was also foreign minister. There was about forty people. I was present. And he had about half a dozen or more speaking against the bomb and half a dozen speaking in favor. And then he said it very clear, "we are nothing in international relations without the bomb. If we want to have an influence on disarmament, we should have the bomb. And furthermore, it is this which differentiates us from the Germans ( )." And then he turned toward ( ), who was finance minister and he said, "You will find the necessary funds to start work toward a submarine engine and a bomb."

WHAT ABOUT SUEZ. HOW IMPORTANT WAS THAT IN...?

What happened that...government fell and then the next government was ( ), the finance minister, and of...and he hesitated. He didn't know if he had to do a bomb or renounce whatever was popular. He was sort of wavering. He however, gave us more credits to allow us to produce more plutonium and he allowed us to start setting (?) a submarine. Then came a socialist government presided by (?). And...was very European and was convinced that France should renounce, and announced it in his introductory speech, and immediately he saw that there would be neither a common market nor the atomic equivalent of the common market called (?), which were in negotiation if we renounced. And so he made a 180 degree switch and he became in favor of the bomb. And then after the Suez affair, he was fanatically in favor...

WHY WAS THAT?

Because he had been humiliated by the fact that we had been let down in the middle of the action where we were, we were two days to get rid of ( ), and at that time we had the impression that Egypt was behind the Algerian rebels and therefore that if...went we would keep Algeria, probably it was wrong, but that was the feeling prevailing. And therefore, we felt that just at the time we were going to succeed in perhaps saving Algeria by this con--by this getting rid of...and his clout in Egypt, the Americans in agreement with Russians, the two superpowers stopped us abruptly, as you know. And therefore,...probably by the action became quite favorable to the fact that we should have a bomb.

AND HE ALSO WENT AS FAR AS TO HELP THE ISRAELIS AT THAT POINT, DIDN'T HE?

At that time the Israelis were our close allies and when they asked us, and it was pre-safeguard days, safeguards (?) hadn't yet been invented to have, to have research reactor which would learn...a lot about atomic energy. We did ( ).

LET ME ASK YOU ABOUT WHAT YOU REMEMBER YOURSELF OR WHAT YOUR FEELINGS WERE ABOUT YOUR FORMER COLLEAGUES IN BRITAIN...

No, we had, if I may say, been brought up atomically speaking in Great Britain. I mean the few Frenchmen who had worked in Canada and Britain during the war were very impregnated, very admiring of the British policy and therefore, we, at that time, we were following with about a three year delay, the British policy. Whatever the British did, we felt was what we should do. And we were trying to catch them up, which finally we did with ( ).

TELL ME WHAT WAS THE STORY OF EISENHOWER'S PROMISE IN DECEMBER OF 1957 OF THE SUBMARINE AND THE SUBSEQUENT EVENTS AND REACTION TO THAT.

That followed the shock of the Sputnik. And Eisenhower came to Paris for a NATO meeting and offered any NATO country who was interested the technology of the ( ). And the two countries who were interested were Britain and France. As you know the British submarine was, the first British submarine was under an American license. Now when we sent our mission to America it had to, an agreement had to pass in front of the joint committee of Congress and Senate on atomic energy. And there...obtained that the committee rejected the agreement. He said that if...gave us information the information would go to Russia. And during that he rendered us the greatest service one could imagine, because fortunately the Americans at that time couldn't completely refuse everything except to give us if we purchase from them a certain number of kilograms of...uranium-235, and said, now you have to do the engine entirely by our—yourselves. So he didn't give us any know how. The same thing had happened during the war in between the Americans and the British on plutonium. And so we had to learn how to make a pressurized water reactor and a difficult one because a small one all by ourselves. We succeeded. By '64, we had the submarine engine and if today seventy percent of the electricity, which you are using actually, to interview me, is nuclear, it is because we learned to do by ourselves the American light water type of reactor. Now the second reaction was a political reaction. De Gaulle was very hurt. And it was the, he took out from the military, European military command our Navy, at that time, the fleet of the (?). And that was the first step of his slowly retreating outside NATO from a joint command point of view.

DID YOU FEEL PERSONALLY INSULTED IN A SENSE THAT THE AMERICANS BELIEVED THAT THE INFORMATION WOULD GO STRAIGHT FROM YOU TO THE RUSSIANS?

SO WHAT WAS THE REACTION OF THE PEOPLE INSIDE THE COMMISSARIA(?) WHEN THE AMERICANS REFUSED COOPERATION?

Oh! We had been accustomed...since from 1944, one knew that there was no danger that the Germans would have the bomb. From that moment, even General...was obsessed should information go to the Russians. So this has been a constant of American nuclear policy, even during the war and especially after the war.

BUT THE FACT THAT BY 1958 THEY WERE GIVING INFORMATION TO THE BRITISH, WHO AFTER ALL HAD HAD AT LEAST FIVE MAJOR SPIES IN THAT PERIOD, BUT NOT TO THE FRENCH, WHO UP TO THAT TIME HAD HAD NONE. DIDN'T THAT UPSET YOU A BIT.

No. We'd been accustomed to that. And but I don't know where ( ).

WHAT WAS THE EFFECTS OF PRESIDENT DE GAULLE WHEN HE CAME IN? I MEAN, HOW WAS THAT FELT AT THE CEA?

See, the...thing is that the young Minister who had given us the money in 1952 for a five-year plan became the last, long-lived Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic. It was Félix Gaillard. And he decided in early '58, that the first test would be the -- during the first trimester of 1960. And so when de Gaulle arrived, everything had been decided. He just had to give his OK. Which he did. And so there was no influence, if you want, for the first year, as we were just continuing plans which had been decided by the Fourth Republic and, curious enough, by some of the most leftist or the most leftist government of the Fourth Republic. Then, after some time, after the successful first test, de Gaulle decided to pass from the qualitative -- just one or two bombs to see if we knew how to make them or two explosions -- to the quantitative, and to all kind of weapons usable in a submarine, in from a plane or with missiles. And that was the first low (?) program, as we call it,...program in 1961. At that time, there was a great opposition from the left. And curiously, during the debate, there was a kind of understanding: that de Gaulle didn't like to be remembered -- to have it remembered that they hadn't decided the bomb, and the left didn't like to having -- to have been remembered that they had -- they were responsible of the qualitative step.

DO YOU THINK, THOUGH, THAT PEOPLE HAD ASSUMED -- I DON'T KNOW IF THEY THOUGHT ABOUT THIS AT ALL IN THE CEA, BUT DID YOU ASSUME IN THE EARLY YEARS THAT THIS BOMB WAS GOING TO BE A PART OF THE NATO ALLIANCE IN SOME WAY, OR WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE INCREASING STRIDENCY OF THE DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN DE GAULLE AND EISENHOWER AND LATER KENNEDY, OF COURSE, MORE SO?

I don't think--you know, when you are too much involved in the secret-- the secrecy, I was involved in making the plutonium, I don't think you think, at that stage and at, in that part of the game at the major political consequences. We knew that, because of our experience in the war, that even between the Americans and the English there was a tendency of the Americans to keep the monopoly for themselves, and that's why we were in favor of breaking that monopoly. But the long-term effect on the alliance was difficult to predict.

FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT WERE ACTUALLY WORKING ON THE PROGRAM, IF ONE LOOKS AT THE MANHATTAN PROJECT, EVERYONE SAYS THERE WAS A GREAT SENSE OF URGENCY BECAUSE OF THE GERMANS, AND WE MUST GET THIS THING BEFORE THE GERMANS, IT WAS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, ESPECIALLY FOR A LOT OF THE HUNGARIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN PEOPLE. BUT BY THE TIME WE GET TO THE LATE FIFTIES, THE RUSSIANS ALREADY HAD A BOMB. DID YOU FEEL IT WAS VITAL FOR FRANCE'S SECURITY THAT YOU MAKE THIS THING? OR MORE THAT IT WAS VITAL FOR ITS PRESTIGE IN THE SCIENTIFIC NATION?

I would say both. First, security, and for prestige. For prestige was very important also. Speaking of NATO and how things are unpredictable Joliot, our first leader of the Commission, the Nobel prize winner who had discovered artificial radioactivity, which had led to fission was revoked, was removed by the government because he was so much anti-NATO. He didn't want the occasion of the North Atlantic Alliance. And he would have been astonished if he had known that the work that he had started would be much later, would have the causes of the friction inside that alliance.

BUT OF COURSE HE WAS A COMMUNIST AND A PACIFIST.

He was a communist and a pacifist.

BUT IF YOU COULD ELABORATE ON THAT IDEA WE TALKED ABOUT EARLIER, SECURITY AND PRESTIGE. TO YOU, WHICH WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT, DO YOU THINK?

I don't know.

YOU DON'T KNOW.

Don't ask me to... it's a question which I have no real answer.

ALL RIGHT.

I don't know if France is safer because we have a bomb or not—

I GUESS I WAS GOING TO ASK YOU THAT, TOO. DO YOU RECALL ANY EFFECT OF THE NASSAU AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE BRITISH AND THE AMERICANS? WERE YOU AT ALL INVOLVED IN ANY REPERCUSSIONS FROM THAT? THE FACT THE BRITISH WERE SOLD THE POLARIS MISSILE?

No. What we were very impressed by the fact that the British were getting so much in the hands of the Americans. And you see still today, the British don't produce their own fuel for their weapons. It is American, highly enriched uranium- 245 that they get from...in America, by exchange from their own plutonium. So we always felt that to be really independent, we had to have our own independent... from an American or an outside help. And this was one of the reasons why we refused to sign the Moscow treaty, which is the partial test ban treaty, because we needed to test for — testing for instance a hydrogen bomb, and we only tested it a few years -- five years after that treaty. And the Americans had told us -- Kennedy had told the world that he could consider perhaps helping us in our military program, to allow us to accept not the tests anymore in the air. And de Gaulle refused because he told Kennedy that if Kennedy helped him or the Americans help us -- he didn't know very well how they could help us -- that we would surely lose a part of our independence and that he didn't want.

LOOKING BACK ON IT, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE WAY THAT THE BRITISH PROGRAM HAS GONE COMPARED WITH THE FRENCH? BOTH THE WEAPONS PROGRAM AND FOR THAT MATTER THE CIVIL POWER PROGRAM?

For the military program naturally there is a difference, as you are not as totally independent from the Americans as we are.

I WONDER IF I COULD ASK YOU THAT AGAIN, REMEMBERING A LOT OF THIS IS FOR AN AMERICAN AUDIENCE. SO IF YOU COULD SAY THE BRITISH.

Right. You see, as I was telling you, the British depend on the Americans for the fissile material and also for the tritium (?) which is another matter which is used in the hydrogen bomb. Therefore, the British are really much more dependent on the Americans for the nuclear deterrent. And you know that they have to put their submarines in the NATO fleet, while we are not obliged to do it. Therefore I find that the British have linked themselves in a way too much to the Americans. Now for the civilian program, that is a great tragedy because by '65 both in France and in England we hesitated in between the American type of reactor or the graphite gas cooled type of reactor that we both followed. It was a complicated problem. There was the unions, there was the commission, there was the ministry. And in France we took a decision, good or bad, and we stuck to that decision and today as I told you we have 17 percent of our electricity in nuclear. And of which they are still quarreling, they still haven't made up their mind in 20 years, and that's been the undoing of the British advance. I think no country had more -- in the nuclear Olympics, no country had more golden medals than the British, in the research and the prototype race. But when they arrived to the industrial side, there they didn't -- they weren't at all as brilliant by far than they were in the research.

WERE YOU AT ALL INVOLVED IN THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE GERMANS IN 1957-'58 FOR NUCLEAR COOPERATION WITH THE GERMANS, AND IF SO TO WHAT EXTENT WAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS DISCUSSED IN THAT NEGOTIATION?

No answer.

NO ANSWER BECAUSE?

No answer because it's a very tricky problem and I don't know much about it. There was definitely something and the minute de Gaulle arrived he stopped it. I can tell you that in two seconds if you want.

WELL, I THINK IT WILL BE USEFUL, WHAT YOU CAN TELL ME.

One of the problems we -- one of the -- one of our objectives in Euratom while it was negotiated and the future Europe in collaboration was to have an enrichment plant, a plant allowing us to have enriched uranium needed for industrial nuclear power plants, independently from the Americans. And I was personally in charge of a study group of a future European enrichment plant. And by 1957 all our partners were not ready to follow us. At that time we decided to go ahead alone on an enrichment plant. And there was some discussions should America -- should Italian and German Defense Ministry participate in that plant. Which perhaps could have been the nucleus of some kind of future military relationship in between Italy, France and Germany in the field. But the only thing which I know on this which was I think barely — which was not pushed very profoundly is that the minute de Gaulle arrived in power he stopped -- in the next two weeks he stopped all these relations with the German and the Italian defense ministers.

DO YOU –

And we went ahead alone on our enrichment plant.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OPINION AS TO WHETHER...WOULD HAVE LIKED SOME COOPERATION TO GET AROUND THE 1954 PROMISE THAT WAS MADE BY ADENAUER?

I have no opinion except that -- I have no opinion.

IN HINDSIGHT, DO YOU IN ANY WAY REGRET THE DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND YOUR PART IN IT? DO YOU SHARE OPPENHEIMER'S FAMOUS PHRASE ABOUT THE PHYSICISTS HAVE KNOWN SIN? HAS THAT EVER BEEN SOMETHING THAT TROUBLED YOU?

It definitely didn't trouble me at the stage it was during the first World -- during the second World War when finally bombing of Hiroshima was not worse than the bombing of Dresden or Tokyo, except that it needed only one plane and one crew and one single bomb. But the moment it became a thousand tons more powerful with the hydrogen bomb, it became an abominable weapon and the public has to know it because we have sooner or later, I mean the man has -- the process -- it's under -- sooner or later we will have other terrible weapons of destruction. I don't know one day we will learn how to make artificial earthquakes, or whatever, or artificial drought. But it is, on the hydrogen bomb, on the atomic weapon, that the man will pass his exam of reason or madness. And that's where we'll see if the man deserves to be what he is, the most advanced animal on earth.

BUT YOU NEVER HAD ANY DOUBTS ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTION YOU MADE TO THE FRENCH FORCE DE FRAPPE...

No.

I MEAN HOW DO YOU RECONCILE THE TWO THINGS YOU JUST SAID?

What I feel is that it's not because we have atomic weapons and not atomic weapons. I'm sure we are entering in the period of the technical evolution of humanity where it will be possible to destroy life on a part of the planet, and therefore, the man, it's not because we've helped technically here or there (?) in biology or in on the study of earthquakes or in study of the climate or in study of fission, that you have to have scruples. It is the man itself who has to have the moral character not to use these weapons. He will have them, and the survival of the civilization will be linked at the, to the way the man will be able to live with these weapons...without using them. It's it's a problem the twenty first century will have to face.

BUT YOU CAN'T JUST WISH THEM AWAY?

Can't wish them away. They are bound to be with us and therefore it's not because you have studied on microbes or on diseases or on chemistry, chemical substances or poison gases or atomic energy...that you have to have scruples. And it is the whole attitude of humanity which counts.

RIGHT, OK, THANK YOU. YOU CAN STOP IT...

SO COULD YOU DESCRIBE...WHAT THE J.C.A.E. DID OVER THIS BUSINESS OF THE NUCLEAR PROPULSION PLANT? WHY THEY DID IT? AND WHAT YOUR REACTION TO THAT WAS? IN THE SCIENTIFIC, FRENCH, IN THE FRENCH SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY?

You see, I would say that, from the minute...it was clear that the Germans would not have a bomb, or were not even making one. The obsession in the Manhattan Project was against knowledge going out to Russia, so, this attitude of ( ), didn’t surprise us, and by and large, from early ’43 on, the American policy was always, to keep as near as possible, a monopoly on the weapon and on the future weapon. And as you know there was very difficult relations, during the War, in it between the United States and the British on that program and after the War, even though Roosevelt had promised at the end of ’44 to Churchill that there would be complete cooperation between the two countries in the both the civilian and the military fields, the first thing Truman did in 1946 using the argument of the vote by Congress, of the McMann Act which was the law...presiding on the atomic development in peacetime in America, Roosevelt- Truman, I’m sorry, decided to stop all cooperation with the British. So this kind of relations in between the United States and even its close allies had taken place many times so we weren’t astonished to be treated like that.

BUT YOU MUST HAVE BEEN A LITTLE BIT ASTONISHED TO BE TREATED SO VERY DIFFERENTLY FROM THE BRITISH WEREN’T YOU?

No, the British...

THEY WERE, BY NOW, BEING TREATED QUITE DIFFERENTLY...

No, no, the British had always, the British had been treated like a poor relation, but like a relation. We had not even been treated like a relation in the atomic field.

AND THAT DIDN’T...

That didn’t surprise us.

OK ARE YOU RUNNING?

Are you doing it again?

IF YOU WOULDN’T MIND I JUST WANT TO ASK ONE MORE QUESTION?

No, no I don’t mind at all...

THIS IS THE THIRD ROLL OF PROFESSOR GOLDSCHMIDT'S INTERVIEW. YOU WERE STILL IN TOUCH WITH HIM YOU SAY, IN 1946 WITH THE BRITISH SCIENTISTS WITH WHOM YOU WORKED DURING THE WAR. WHAT WAS THEIR REACTION TO THE PASSAGE OF THE MCMAHON ACT AND THE REFUSAL OF COOPERATION WITH THE UNITED STATES?

I think the, you see there had been a...up and down. During 1943, we didn't speak in between the Anglo-Canadian (?) group who had been set up in Montreal to be close to Chicago, and America...we didn't speak for one year. And then collaboration started but it wasn't a full-fledged collaboration as such. It was uncertain (?)...and so after what happened, the McMahon, it was already the same thing. The British fought step by step to try to regain collaboration in different fields and they were just going to regain when the...story broke out, and then that stopped it for a long time. And then, by then came the Geneva 1955 conference, and very quickly the secrecy had disappear and so the collaboration became normal in the industrial and civilian field.

BUT THEY MUST HAVE BEEN VERY UPSET IN 1946, DON'T YOU THINK?

Ye-yes. Surely but they had prepared themselves to do things by themselves. They were, they had been if you want, burned the first time by the first stop (?) and they were prepared that it could happen again. I would say they were not, it wasn't so unexpected, considering what had happened.

DO YOU THINK, FROM WHAT YOU KNOW OF IT, AND FROM WHAT YOU KNOW OF DE GAULLE, THAT A GREATER COLLABORATION BY THE US, AND BRITAIN, WITH FRANCE IN THE LATE FIFTIES WOULD HAVE MADE ANY DIFFERENCE TO HIS DETERMINATION TO HAVE AN INDEPENDENT NUCLEAR FORCE FOR FRANCE?

You see, I think that you can't go...of atomic energy in America...are such that you can't collaborate in any field without having some dependence from the Americans, and especially, if we had for instance been given by the Americans either fissile materials or the plans of a bomb like it was the case with Britain we couldn't use our bomb completely independently of the Americans. And of NATO. And so I think it wouldn't have been acceptable....I think a man like de Gaulle would have never accepted an assistant which would have meant that he isn't completely free to take a decision concerning our nuclear deterrent.

EVEN THOUGH IT IS ALMOST INCONCEIVABLE THAT FRANCE WOULD HAVE USED IT ON ITS OWN ANYWAY.

But bombs are not made to be used...Thank God.