The United Nations plan envisages that reactors and other atomic
facilities will be distributed among the nations according to “quotas”
and a “strategic balance”—whereby no one nation, by seizing the plants
within or near its borders, could gain an undue military advantage over
innocent nations. This “quota” feature has been criticized as
unnecessary and as likely to hinder individual countries in developing
the peacetime uses of atomic energy to the maximum extent.
Does the fact that reactor fuels, if seized by an aggressor, might make
available H-bomb “triggers” tend to render all the more desirable the
“quota” idea? How long a time would an aggressor require to make enough
deuterium and tritium for H-bombs in seized plants? Could a world
control authority, by requiring that certain design features be
incorporated in the plants under its control, extend this time period?
What should be done with plants in existence at the time a control
agreement takes effect and well suited to H-bomb production but poorly
suited to peacetime uses? How should such plants, if they were not
dismantled, figure in “quota” allotments?