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November 2, 1992

Letter, Pak Dong Tchoun, the DPRK Representative in Paris, to Davies, Head of East Asia in FCO in London

A letter, in French, from Pak Dong Tehoun, the DPRK representative in Paris, to H. Davies, the head of the Far Eastern section of the FCO.

July 9, 1947

Letter from the Vice-President of Council of Ministers and Foreign Minister to Mr. Jean Paul Boncour

Letter of Foreign Minister Tatarescu sent on July 9 in response to the British and French letters of invitation, declining the participation to the ERP conference in Paris from July 12 

July 4, 1947

Letter, French Legation in Romania to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Gh. Tatarescu

A letter of invitation from the French Legation in Romania addressed to Minister Tatarescu to invite the Romanian Government to the conference in July 12 in Paris.

July 4, 1947

Letter, Office of the British Political Representative, Bucharest, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Gh. Tatarescu

A letter of invitation sent by the Office of the British Political Representative in Bucharest, Adrian Holman, on behalf of both British and French Governments,addressed to the Romanian Government (via Foreign Minister Tatarescu) to participate to the Conference on ERP in Paris, on July 12, 1947.

July 4, 1947

Telegram No. 577 from the French Legation to Romanian Foreign Minister Tatarescu

The French Legation in Romania explains the Marshall Plan.

June 21, 1947

Telegram from the Ambassador of the Netherlands to Foreign Minister Tatarescu

This letter from the Dutch Government to the Romanian Foreign Minister includes an explanation of the Marshall Plan.

February 28, 1967

Note from Mr. Francis Perrin, High Commissioner for Atomic Energy, 'French foreign policy in terms of atomic armaments, particularly with regard to the proliferation of this armaments'

Nonproliferation talks entered their decisive phase after the submission of a joint U.S.-Soviet draft to the ENDC on February 21, 1967. One week later, High-Commissioner of the French Commissariat à l’énergie atomique, Francis Perrin, assessed France’s options. It was not “by accident,” he noted, the original five UN Security Council permanent members—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and China—were in line for nuclear-club membership: “…they are the same profound reasons, of a geographical, demographic or other nature, which led to the choice [in 1945] … of the countries with special responsibilities in the maintenance of world peace.” After noting how advances in “India, Israel, Japan, Sweden, and also West Germany” portended the further spread of nuclear weapons—and acknowledging France had itself sought help with its weapon program—Perrin pondered whether proliferation might hasten nuclear disarmament by convincing the superpowers of its merits. In the end, however, fear of a “large and hostile” nuclear-armed PRC made him pessimistic. While he did not advise signing the NPT, it would be “very important” for France to affirm publicly, if unilaterally, “its constant policy since 1958 … not to cede any atomic weapon or any atomic explosive device to a country which does not possess it, and not to help any such country to manufacture them.” He dismissed internal opposition toward the NPT as defensive—"an a posteriori justification of the French decision to constitute an atomic armament." More significant was the likelihood West Germany would gain its own atomic arsenal, jeopardizing France’s “dominant political position among the Europe of the Six” members of the European Communities and reviving Cold War tensions in Europe. He finished with an eye-opening analysis of how the Kosygin proposal for nuclear-weapon states to extend negative security guarantees to non-nuclear-weapon states’ signatory to the NPT would not impede the use of French nuclear armaments against a West German blitzkrieg backed by the United States.

March 18, 1968

Note for the Directorate of Political Affairs, Disarmament, 'Non-proliferation treaty: Draft resolution on non-nuclear countries guarantees'

The finalization of a completed draft nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which the ENDC transmitted to by the United Nations without endorsement on March 18, 1968, launched a French review of the NPT’s implications for international law. The draft NPT was accompanied by a proposed United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC), whose soft guarantees against nuclear-weapon use or threats had been a compromise workd out between Washington and Moscow. An initial study by Foreign Ministry lawyers identified numerous “juridical reasons… to fight against a project that, in its letter if not its spirit, constitutes a revision of the [UN] Charter." The report elaborated on how the hierarchization of “forms of aggression” would “downgrade” non-nuclear (i.e. conventional) violence. Non-nuclear-weapon states treaty signatories would receive non-binding security guarantees. The “Anglo-Saxons and Soviets” would maintain “freedom of action as far as what measures they choose to adopt.” Although the French government’s foremost legal experts opted not to advise vetoing the UNSC resolution, they warned the NPT package could serve as a warrant for nuclear-armed permanent members of the UN Security Council to wage “preventive war” in the name of worldwide nonproliferation.

March 15, 1960

Maurice Couve de Murville to Prime Minister Michel Debré, 'Revision of the EURATOM Treaty,'

The French decision to join EURATOM was conditioned on the regional agency not impinging on national nuclear programs. As early as 1955, French Prime Minister Guy Mollet had instructed French negotiators that “Euratom will not be an obstacle toward the possible decision of France … to build nuclear weapons.”  While EURATOM’s jurisdiction would be limited to negotiating purchases of fissile materials, promoting trade with the United States and the United Kingdom, and exchanging reactors designs and civilian technology among members of the Atlantic community, Couve de Murville credited EURATOM with a fringe benefit: monitoring West Germany. In this spring 1960 letter to Prime Minister Michel Debré about revising the treaty, he warned against the removal of EURATOM controls over raw uranium and thorium or enriched uranium. Their removal, he cautioned, would create a dilemma: “either abandon the idea that German’s renunciation of atomic armaments could be enforced or support the enforcement of equivalent controls under the West European Union, which … would interfere in the direction of our programs and the development of our nuclear weapons.”

July 10, 1968

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate of Political Affairs, Disarmament, 'Note: The treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons'

This report recounts developments at the UN First Committee from the beginning of the special session, April 24, to the plenary vote on June 12, 1968. Among the interesting observations was how the “most important resistance cell had … surprisingly developed among the Black African states,” who had sought concessions from the United States on apartheid South Africa’s mandate over South West Africa (modern-day Namibia). The report notes the various changes forced on the superpowers by Italy and Mexico on behalf of the non-nuclear-weapon delegations. The aide-memoire concluded that “[a]lthough these concessions [were] more apparent than real, they served as a pretext for a number of delegations, under intense Soviet and American pressure, to go along with the draft resolution thus revised.” The French delegate to the United Nations, Armand Berard, explained to the General Assembly on June 12 the reasons for France’s abstention. In accordance with Francis Perrin’s recommendations, Berard elaborated that although France would not sign the NPT when “the real issue was effective nuclear disarmament,” it would nonetheless pledged to behave “[e]xactly in such a way as those States which opt to adhere to it.”

Pagination