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Dimensions transnationales : interdépendances et impératifs d’une présence sur la scène mondiale

Yugoslav Nuclear Diplomacy between the Soviet Union and the United States in the Early and Mid‑Cold War

La diplomatie nucléaire de la Yougoslavie avec l’URSS et les États‑Unis pendant la première moitié de la guerre froide
Carla Konta
p. 417-440

Résumés

Dans cette étude de la diplomatie nucléaire yougoslave avec les deux superpuissances pendant la première moitié de la guerre froide, l’auteure analyse les subtilités de la coopération multilatérale de la Yougoslavie avec des pays situés de part et d’autre du rideau de fer. Sur la base de collections d’archives yougoslaves et de documents d’archives du Département d’État américain, elle montre que la coopération dans le domaine des technologies nucléaires ne reflétait pas entièrement l’alternance de froideur et de dégel dans les relations du pays avec les États‑Unis et l’URSS observée dans d’autres sphères de la politique extérieure. En effet, les relations entre la Yougoslavie et les États‑Unis d’une part et l’URSS de l’autre n’étaient pas contrariées par les événements internationaux qui détérioraient les relations commerciales. L’article examine dans quelle mesure la Yougoslavie montait ses fournisseurs l’un contre l’autre en utilisant les dynamiques des marchés concurrentiels pour obtenir de la technologie nucléaire. L’étude des négociations yougoslaves avec Moscou et Washington révèle la façon dont la Yougoslavie se servait de sa puissance politique douce pour inciter les superpuissances à se faire concurrence. L’auteure étudie la façon dont l’assistance nucléaire apportée à la Yougoslavie par la Commission de l’énergie atomique des États‑Unis, qui faisait partie du plan de sécurité nationale du président Eisenhower, servait une politique antisoviétique qui voulait restreindre l’assistance nucléaire de l’URSS et par là son influence politique. Enfin, l’étude montre qu’en s’intéressant au programme nucléaire de la Yougoslavie, l’URSS cherchait à resserrer ses relations politiques avec ce pays.

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Notes de l’auteur

This study forms part of the project “Nuclear Research and Technology during the Cold War. Influences and Exchanges between the United States, Western, and East‑Central Europe” (2017–2018) headed by Prof. Elisabetta Vezzosi, University of Trieste. The research was possible thanks to financial support from CERIC‑ERIC and the University of Trieste. Special acknowledgement goes to Dragan Teodošić (Yugoslav Archives, Belgrade) and the staff of the U.S. National Archives at College Park (Maryland, USA). Last but not least, I would like to thank Stefan Guth and the various readers of the article for their advice and guidance.

Texte intégral

  • 1 Poseta Presednika Tita Institutu “Boris Kidrič” u Vinči – reč kolektivu Instituta “Boris Kidrič” [V (...)

One thing is clear to everyone – that you work for peaceful purposes. We have no pretensions to create something that would serve the devastation and destruction of human life.
President Josip Broz Tito to Vinča scientists upon the inauguration of the first Yugoslav nuclear reactor, 17 May 19581

  • 2 Inspection Report USIS Yugoslavia, 20 November 1959, Box 10, Inspection Report and Related Records (...)
  • 3 The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, more commonly known as the Communist (...)
  • 4 “The Tito–Stalin Split : A Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,” Journal of Cold War Studies 9, n (...)
  • 5 Bojan Dimitrijević, “Jugoslavija i NATO 1951‑1958. Skica intenzivnih vojnih odnosa [Yugoslavia and (...)
  • 6 Edvard Kardelj, “Nova Jugoslavija u savremenom svijetu [New Yugoslavia in the Contemporary World],” (...)
  • 7 Jeronim Perović, “Josip Broz Tito,” in Steven Casey and Jonathan Wright, eds, Mental Maps in the Ea (...)

1Yugoslavia was a crucial player in the Cold War confrontations between the Soviet Union and the United States in Europe, and even beyond. This southeastern European country situated on the Balkan peninsula, with a population of around 19 million by the late 1950s,2 mattered very little to the two superpowers before 1948. Then, in June, Stalin expelled the Yugoslav Communist Party (YCP) from the Cominform,3 accusing it of disloyalty to Marxist and Leninist ideals. In fact, as Jeronim Perović assessed, it was Tito’s expansionist ambitions concerning Greece, Bulgaria and Albania that irritated the Soviet dictator and caused the Soviet–Yugoslav impasse.4 Due to Soviet economic sanctions, and faced with the possibility of a military attack from the East, Tito sought assistance from the West, mainly the United States, while never committing to a formal NATO alliance.5 The Soviet–Yugoslav rupture would lay the ground for the Yugoslav “path to socialism,” its socialist self‑management economy and its non‑aligned foreign policy. While not eschewing communist ideology, by the early 1950s Yugoslavia embraced what its ideologist and leader Edvard Kardelj called the doctrine of “active peaceful cooperation” with foreign countries, including those in the Western.6 Even when Stalin died in 1953, Yugoslavia decided to stay out of Moscow’s sphere of influence.7

2Yugoslavia’s special position between the two superpowers in the aftermath of 1948 gave it more maneuver to develop a powerful nuclear policy surpassing the country’s size and strength in the geopolitical arena. This article explores how Yugoslavia developed its nuclear diplomacy in the early and mid‑Cold War. To acquire foreign nuclear technology, the Yugoslavs relied on acquisition strategies that often stemmed from their foreign policy relations, but also often transcended their inner logic. Here I explore such diplomacy vis‑a‑vis the two superpowers through three contemporary and related processes: Soviet–Yugoslav negotiations and their implementation from 1955 to the mid‑1960s; U.S. disappointment and then insistence on a nuclear aid program to Yugoslavia intended to limit the Soviet nuclear influence in East‑Central Europe; and finally, Yugoslavia’s use of foreign nuclear aid to increase its national and international prestige, technological power and further acquisition strategies via the United States and the Soviet Union, but also other Western countries such as France, Norway and Canada.

  • 8 The Radiance of France : Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (Cambridge : MIT Pr (...)

3I argue that, contrary to technopolitical practices in the Cold War, where, to cite Gabrielle Hecht,8 nations designed technologies “to constitute, embody, or enact political goals,” the Yugoslav leadership relied on political maneuvering to achieve technological aims. As demonstrated here, its nuclear diplomacy strategies drew a rather marginal country and minor international actor into the binaries of the Cold War and gave Yugoslavia a way to advance its nuclear technology by exploiting the U.S.–Soviet supply competition at the very time when its (mis)use became an internationally disputed issue.

Between non‑alignment and new/old alliances

  • 9 This research mainly benefitted from the Yugoslav Archives in Belgrade, particularly the records of (...)

4In the early and mid‑Cold War, Yugoslav foreign policy combined non‑alignment, a cold partnership with the United States, and, initially, normalization and then confrontation with the Soviet Union. On the other hand, Yugoslav nuclear diplomacy entailed acquisition strategies that pit the two superpowers, acting as suppliers, against one another, drawing them into a bidding war. Based on new archival evidence, this article investigates the peaceful Soviet and U.S. nuclear negotiations, cooperation with and aid to Yugoslavia from the early to the mid‑Cold War.9

  • 10 Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War : Reconciliation, Comradeship, Confrontation, (...)
  • 11 181. On the Yugoslav role in the Soviet–Hungarian conflict, see Johanna C. Granville, The First Dom (...)

5As Svetozar Rajak has extensively researched, the Yugoslav–Soviet normalization following Stalin’s death profoundly affected not only the process of de‑Stalinization in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, but also relations within international communism and the creation of the Non‑Aligned Movement. The normalization process advanced further when, in a dramatic exchange of letters in March 1955, Tito and Khrushchev agreed to meet in Belgrade. On 2 June, the two leaders signed the “Belgrade Declaration,” paving the way for the renewal of bilateral “comradeship.”10 Nevertheless, the “fallout from the Soviet military intervention in Hungary and the scandalous abduction of Nagy […] shattered the shaky foundations of the Yugoslav–Soviet rapprochement and [contributed] towards the collapse of the […] reconciliation,” reminds Rajak.11

  • 12 Lorraine M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat : The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War (University (...)
  • 13 USIE Country Paper Yugoslavia in circular 2 Belgrade to Dept. of State, 3 July 1950, 511.68/7‑350, (...)

6On the other side, the Tito–Stalin split profoundly changed Yugoslav–U.S. bilateral relations and their reciprocal foreign policy. First the Truman and then the Eisenhower administrations adopted a policy of “keeping Tito afloat.” The State Department policymakers coined the term “wedge strategy” to indicate the foreign relations approach to Yugoslavia. The strategy consisted in supporting Yugoslav nationalism in order to instigate divisions between the Soviet Union and other communist countries and demonstrate that socialism was possible outside the Soviet sphere.12 Washington envisioned supporting the emergence of Yugoslavia “as a democratic, independent member of the world community, cooperating with and adhering to the United Nations,” predicated on the view that “Titoism should continue to exist as a corrosive and disintegrating force within the sphere of Soviet power” in order to “extract the maximum political and propaganda advantage from this quarrel.” But most importantly, on the cultural level, U.S. public diplomacy would foster the Yugoslav people’s “aspirations for democratic and independence” and their desire for “freedom and the material advantages of Western forms of government and society.”13

  • 14 Special Guidance 91 for the Mutual Security Program, 23 May 1951 in memorandum from Block to severa (...)
  • 15 Tvrtko Jakovina, Socijalizam na američkoj pšenici [Socialism on American Grain] (Zagreb : Matica Hr (...)
  • 16 John R. Lampe, Russell O. Prickett, and Ljubiša S. Adamović, Yugoslav‑American Economic Relations S (...)

7In the 1950s and until the mid‑1960s, the U.S. assistance to Yugoslavia would cover three fundamental aspects: economic aid, military assistance, and cultural influence. In 1950, the State Department decided to employ the EXIM Bank, the Marshall Plan and the Mutual Defense Aid funds to send $ 30 million to Yugoslavia for food purchases. The U.S. policymakers accentuated the humanitarian aspects and covered the self‑evident strategic importance of an independent Yugoslavia.14 The Military Assistance Pact, signed in October 1951, included the Yugoslav Army in the Mutual Defense Aid Program, providing T‑33A aircraft, artillery, machine guns, radars and electronic equipment. Thanks to the U.S. Army training, the Yugoslav Army transformed itself from a guerrilla‑like force into a regular army.15 Between 1950 and 1964, “American assistance, broadly defined, covered sixty percent of Yugoslavia’s payment deficits on the current accounts” and “added perhaps two percentage points to a rate of growth in national income during the 1950s, which averaged 7.5 percent.”16

  • 17 Američki komunistički saveznik. Hrvati, Titova Jugoslavija i Sjedinjene Američke Države 1945.‑1955 (...)
  • 18 Tvrtko Jakovina, “Razgovor s Cvijetom Jobom, dugogodišnjim diplomatom i veleposlanikom FNRJ/SFRJ [C (...)

8Even though Yugoslavia turned towards the United States seeking aid and eventually transforming Tito’s regime into the “American Communist ally,”17 in the decades to come the bilateral relations between the two countries kept oscillating between pragmatic partnership and Cold War tensions. After the U.S.–Yugoslav reconciliation, Yugoslav policymakers needed time to familiarize themselves with the new circumstances in which they were deprived of Soviet support, both ideological and economic. Independence remained a Yugoslav prerogative in foreign policy, but their reliance on American assistance was hard to accept. As Yugoslav diplomat Cvijeto Job put it, “Tito never ‘accepted’ the United States, but as a realist statesman, he never dropped the U.S. card, this option, from his hand.”18

  • 19 “No Bargaining Chips, No Spheres of Interest : The Yugoslav Origins of Cold War Non‑Alignment,” Jou (...)
  • 20 Svetozar Rajak, “From Regional Role to Global Undertakings : Yugoslavia in the Early Cold War,” in (...)

9Faced with the distinct threat of a Soviet invasion in the early 1950s, Yugoslavia became informally incorporated into the Western alliance. The conceptualization of non‑alignment was underway by the early 1950s, claims Rajak.19 He argues that “Together with Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Tito was instrumental in transforming the idea of passive neutralism into a universal movement of Third World countries with an ambition to play an active role on the global stage.”20

  • 21 Ljubodrag Dimić, Jugoslavija i Hladni rat [Yugoslavia and the Cold War] (Beograd : Arhipelag, 2014) (...)
  • 22 Phil Tiemeyer, “Launching a Nonaligned Airline : JAT Yugoslav Airways between East, West, and South (...)
  • 23 William Zimmerman, Open Borders, Nonalignment, and the Political Evolution of Yugoslavia, Princeton (...)
  • 24 The Search for a Cold War Legitimacy : Foreign Policy and Tito’s Yugoslavia (Leiden – Boston : Bril (...)

10At the 1956 Brioni Conference with Nehru and Nasser, Tito explored the options for his bipolar bloc politics and shaped, in the final document, the conceptual guidelines for non‑alignment, namely peaceful cooperation, anti‑colonialism, and disarmament.21 Non‑alignment, Phil Tiemeyer suggests, “allowed Yugoslavia to forge deep political ties and economic relations with similarly situated countries in the Global South,” but more than anything it offered Yugoslavia the opportunity to position itself at the “world’s crossroads between East, West, and South.”22 Non‑alignment came from self‑management, as the Yugoslavs needed to find a way to do this.23 Yet, as Niebuhr has recently argued, non‑alignment was “part of the deliberate effort by the regime to solidify power at home and then search for external support,” and also to manipulate “foreign policy victories to reinforce the regime’s standing among Yugoslavs [in a dynamic process of] pragmatism.”24

Searching for technology

  • 25 The Yugoslav government also developed other nuclear‑related facilities : the Institute for Applica (...)
  • 26 “Yugoslavia’s Nuclear Legacy : Should We Worry ?,” 123.

11Yugoslavia initiated its nuclear program shortly after WWII. Its first nuclear research center, the Boris Kidrič Institute of Nuclear Sciences at Vinča, was established twelve kilometers from Belgrade in 1948. The Ruđer Bošković Institute, located in Zagreb, Croatia, opened its doors in 1950. Soon after, Slovenian authorities founded the Jožef Stefan Institute, a nuclear physics research center in Ljubljana. Construction ended in 1954.25 Over the decades, Yugoslavia built several nuclear fuel cycle facilities; the best known is the Krško nuclear power plant, located in Slovenia and completed in 1983. Andrew Koch reports that at the height of its nuclear program, Yugoslavia relied on 1,300 to 2,000 engineers and scientists and 600 to 1,000 technicians working in the nuclear field,26 which gives us an idea of the proportionally high investment and interest for a limited, albeit developing, state economy.

  • 27 Bondžić, Između Ambicija i Iluzija : Nuklearna Politika Jugoslavije : 1945‑1990, 117–18.
  • 28 Bondžić, 74.

12On 19 March 1955, the Yugoslav Federal Executive Council created the Federal Commission for Nuclear Energy (FCNE) to coordinate, support and direct the development of nuclear sciences and their industrial applications. That the foundation of the FCNE was intimately connected with Party politics was as clear as day. Ranković, head of the FCNE, was at once Vice President, Secretary of Internal Affairs and head of UDBA (Uprava Državne Bezbednosti), the secret service. Ivan Gošnjak, a member of the FCNE board of directors, acted as the state secretary for defense. The FCNE obviously included the directors of Vinča (Vojko Pavičić), Jožef Stefan (Anton Peterlin), and Ruđer Bošković (Ivan Supek).27 According to Dragomir Bondžić, the Yugoslav nuclear program involved “the secrecy and sponsorship […] of the highest State organisms and Party leaders and the secret police.”28 Together with Tito and Ranković, both Milovan Đilas (till 1953) and Edvard Kardelj were involved in the nuclear program.

13From the very outset, the FCNE committed to establishing Yugoslavia among the “nuclear nations,” for reasons of technological advancement, international prestige, and energy independence. As a result, from the mid‑1950s onwards, the Yugoslav nuclear program increased exponentially on the wings of foreign aid, mainly from the United States and the Soviet Union, but also from Norway, Canada and France. Unlike the other Western nuclear suppliers, both superpowers used technology aid for the affirmation of their nuclear superiority and engaged in competition for Yugoslav aid reception.

The peaceful atom goes global

  • 29 Jacques E.C. Hymans, “Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation : Theory and a Case S (...)
  • 30 Keeping Tito Afloat, 122.

14The United States, according to Hymans, extended “its nuclear hand to Yugoslavia” even before Eisenhower launched the “Atoms for Peace” campaign: in 1951 Washington encouraged Yugoslavia to join the founding group of the European nuclear energy institute CERN, while from 1953 on, the newly elected President Eisenhower endorsed the “New Look” doctrine that increased aid to the Yugoslav regime.29 Overall, Eisenhower’s foreign policy strategy consisted in a more forceful response to communist aggression and affirmation of U.S. nuclear superiority. More assertively, “Tito would be enticed to join NATO” and “would also be convinced to inspire, if not lead, a Titoist liberation movement in the satellites,” claims Lees.30

  • 31 Press Release, “Atoms for Peace” Speech, 8 December 1953 [DDE’s Papers as President, Speech Series, (...)

15In a dramatic speech before the UN General Assembly on 8 December 1953, Eisenhower cited the “new deeds of peace” that could reverse “the fearful trend of atomic military build‑up” and develop it “into a great boom, for the benefit of all mankind.”31 By the time he announced his “Atoms for Peace” campaign and proposed the creation of an international atomic energy agency, Stalin was dead and the Korean War over. In the August of that year, the Soviet Union proposed a Big Four conference in Western Europe. The moment seemed politically propitious.

  • 32 John Krige, “Atoms for Peace, Scientific Internationalism, and Scientific Intelligence,” Osiris, 21 (...)

16Beyond its propaganda aspects, “Atoms for Peace” pressured the US Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) to push for legislative changes to promote a domestic civilian nuclear power industry piloted by the American private sector. The relaxation of security arrangements conditioned another facet of the initiative: the creation of the first International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, which opened at the UN palace in Geneva on 8 August 1955, gathering 1,400 delegates from seventy‑three countries, and over 900 journalists. The United States exhibited the working swimming pool fission reactor, designed and built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, while the Soviets presented a power plant model that lacked the enormous public diplomacy impact of the U.S. exhibit. The occasion was the first time many scientists from East and West had met since the end of WWII to intensively discuss topics on the basis of the common ground of scientific research.32

  • 33 David Holloway, “The Soviet Union and the Creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” Cold (...)

17Crucial for the affirmation of scientific internationalism beyond Cold War divides, the Geneva conference, in fact, brought the Soviet Union into the IAEA negotiations. The USSR could not allow peaceful uses of atomic energy to be dominated by the United States. From 1953 onwards, the Soviet leadership leveled three primary criticisms against Eisenhower’s proposal for international atomic energy: it would not stop the arms race, it would not decrease the danger of nuclear war, and finally, it could be exploited to increase the production of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, the Soviets entered into negotiations because, as David Holloway explains, they envisioned opportunities for political influence and the shift of nuclear world policies from the United States to the United Nation’s forum.33

  • 34 David Fisher, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The First Forty Years (Vienna : In (...)
  • 35 Elisabeth Roehrlich, “The Cold War, the Developing World, and the Creation of the International Ato (...)

18“Unlike most intergovernmental bodies created after the war, the IAEA would operate in some respects as a trading organization, buying and reselling nuclear plants and fuel — like an international reincarnation of the US Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC),” argued David Fisher.34 By the time the IAEA established its headquarters in Vienna, the Yugoslav government was already involved in negotiations with both the Soviets and the Americans over peaceful nuclear cooperation. The new International Agency, with its nuclear safeguards and radioisotopes program, legitimized the Yugoslav request for nuclear aid. But more than anything, the IAEA’s inception showed how political leaders of developing countries, Yugoslavia included, perceived scientific and industrial progress, especially in the nuclear field, “as an important pillar of modern national identity.” For the Soviet Union and the United States, this meant a new contingency which Elisabeth Roehrlich called “alliance management” in the nuclear field,35 and, I would add, an opportunity for bolder nuclear diplomacy for Yugoslavia.

Negotiations and competition

  • 36 Message 122 from USIA‑State to Belgrade, 31 March 1955, 868.191/3‑3155, Box 4841, Central Decimal F (...)
  • 37 According to USIS Zagreb, President Tito, together with Moša Pijade, Federal Assembly President, vi (...)
  • 38 “Atomi za mir. Nastup Sjedinjenih Američkih Država na Velesajmu [Atoms for Peace. The Appearance of (...)
  • 39 “Atomi u službi čovječanstva [Atoms in the Service of Mankind],” Glas Istre [Voice of Istria], 14 O (...)
  • 40 Despatch 006542 from USIS Belgrade to USIA Washington, 15 December 1955, Box 21, Country Project Co (...)

19The Americans tried to achieve a nuclear alliance with Tito soon after the launch of the “peaceful atom” campaign. In September 1955, the “Atoms for Peace” exhibition debuted at the Zagreb International Trade Fair. The friendly atom show, intended “to allay fears of the atomic bomb and to pressure the USSR indirectly into an agreement concerning the safe management of nuclear technology,” was a “public diplomacy triumph” and the first U.S. exhibition at the Zagreb Fair. The State Department intent was to address Tito’s “widespread misunderstanding of the U.S.’s atomic position [versus] [non‑aligned] countries,” to “stress the identity of interests” on both sides, underline the peaceful character of nuclear power, and support Yugoslav development of peaceful atomic energy.36 Toured by Yugoslavia’s highest officers like Aleksandar Ranković, major Yugoslav Party ideologist Edvard Kardelj, Central Committee member Svetozar Vukmanović‑Tempo and Croatian Assembly president Vladimir Bakarić, the exhibit attracted “more than a quarter of a million other Yugoslavs.”37 A USIS pamphlet “Atom – Nada Sveta” [The Atom – Hope of the World], handsomely colored and illustrated, was printed in 150,000 copies, and distributed to visitors in Zagreb and Belgrade, with additional copies being sent via mail. Posters were put up in all the main Serbian cities and American cultural centers, advertisements were paid for in radio broadcasts and daily newspapers, and invitations were sent to schools, agricultural and technical organizations. It was “the first and only one of its kind in Yugoslavia,”38 “the greatest attraction at the International Fair,” showing “the enormous power of atomic energy used for peaceful purposes,”39 the press announced in laudatory tones. Extremely satisfied, the American officers in Belgrade concluded that “USIS had made it clear” that “the United States is first among countries in the world to sponsor peaceful uses of atomic energy for the benefit of mankind everywhere.”40

  • 41 Jack Raymond, “Belgrade to Join in U.S. Atomic Plan,” New York Times, 22 October 1955.
  • 42 Saradnja sa SAD [Collaboration with the USA], 3 September 1957, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Među (...)

20The successful exhibition and its soft power benefits played a bridging role in bringing the Yugoslavs and the Americans to the same table. The formal U.S. proposal came in the immediate aftermath of the exhibition. On 17 October 1955, Robert D. Murphy, U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of State, arrived in Belgrade for a week of “intensive talks […] with Marshall Tito and leading Yugoslav officials” and invited Belgrade to join the U.S. nuclear plan, iron out differences between the two countries, and dispel fears about the United States’ declining interest after “Yugoslavia’s rapprochement with the Soviet Union and the satellite countries.”41 Murphy’s visit was followed by a Yugoslav memorandum containing specific requests for a heavy water reactor and two‑percent enriched uranium fuel. The United Kingdom and the Soviet Union received the same Yugoslav memorandum proposal.42 The Soviets reacted quickly and agreed to Yugoslavia’s requests, leaving the AEC and the Embassy officials unprepared.

  • 43 Zabeleška o razgovoru sa Tupicinom, prvim sekretarom Sovjetske ambasade [Note on a conversation wit (...)
  • 44 Zabeleška o razgovoru sa gosp. Auslandom [Note on a conversation with Mr. Ausland], 2 April 1956, 0 (...)

21When the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia signed a peaceful nuclear agreement on 28 January 1956, it came as a sobering shock to the American officials in Belgrade. That autumn they had organized a peaceful atom exhibition at the Zagreb international trade fair that then moved to Belgrade to counteract Eisenhower’s public monopoly on the “Atoms for Peace” initiative.43 Disappointed and disbelieving, the U.S. Embassy officers asked Slobodan Nakićenović, FCNE secretary, why they had “signed the agreement with the Soviet Union when we had Murphy’s [Robert D. Murphy, U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of State] proposal for extensive cooperation in the field of atomic energy.”44

  • 45 Upotreba nuklearne energije u mirnodopske svrhe [Use of nuclear energy for peacetime purposes], 18 (...)

22Indeed, the FCNE started to monitor the Soviet inclination towards nuclear cooperation since its inception. In a report following the IXth UN General Assembly, which initiated the creation of an international agency for atomic energy, the Yugoslavs agreed to close cooperation with the Soviets in the field of nuclear “information, exchange, experts” but emphasized that “such cooperation would not limit [their] relationships […] with other states and organizations.” Alerted to Soviet interference, the FCNE stressed that any relations with the USSR “must strictly consider reciprocity and [...] not ever relate to any political or technical conditions, nor to the monopolistic tendencies of the aid donor.”45

  • 46 Zapisnik [Proceedings] br. 1, 24 November 1955, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna (...)
  • 47 Telegram iz Moskve dr. Kosa Odeljenju za koordinaciju Državnog sekretarijata za inostrane poslove [ (...)

23Nevertheless, the Yugoslavs struggled to obtain the aid under favorable conditions. When, in November 1955, a Yugoslav delegation visited Glavatom, the Soviet Atomic Energy Agency, they asked for assistance with constructing an experimental reactor, cooperation in geological research on uranium extraction, the application of nuclear energy in medicine, biology, agriculture, and industry, and the exchange of scientific literature and specialization abroad.46 They forcefully insisted on the involvement of Yugoslav scientists in all the phases of the reactor’s construction from “the blueprint to finalization.”47

  • 48 Telegram iz Moskve [Telegram from Moscow], dr. Kos SKNE [from Dr. Kos to FCNE], 14 December 1955, 2 (...)
  • 49 Telegram iz Moskve, dr. Kos SKNE, 15 December 1955, 231, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Me (...)
  • 50 Telegram iz Moskve dr. Kos SKNE, 3 January 1956, 134, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međun (...)
  • 51 Sporazum između FNRJ i SSSR o saradnji na razvoju istraživanja u oblastima nuklearnih nauka i koriš (...)
  • 52 On another occasion, the FCNE observed how “past practice has shown that we must always be ready fo (...)
  • 53 Rešenje za vodjenje razgovora sa delegacijom Vlade SSSR [Decision to hold an interview with the USS (...)

24In fact, what the FCNE was trying to avoid at all costs was to conclude with the Soviets an “agreement identical to those they had with other Eastern European countries”48 and to acquire a pre‑fabricated Chinese reactor, as suggested by Glavatom, that would tie the Yugoslavs to them for the replacement parts and would, therefore, represent “a moment of our political attachment.”49 Whilst the delegation returned from Moscow exhausted by a month of negotiations that saw the Soviets remain immovable on any Yugoslav interloping,50 the agreement, quite surprisingly, assured Yugoslavia of “technical assistance for the construction of an experimental nuclear reactor based on […] the Yugoslav proposal.”51 There is no indication when the Soviet counterparts changed their mind;52 certainly they were quite acquiescent when in May 1956 they negotiated the agreement details at Vinča with the most prominent Yugoslav nuclear scientists, among them Pavle Savić, Miladin Radulović, Milorad Ristić and Vojko Pavičić.53 It is highly probable that competition with the United States over nuclear supply to Yugoslavia played a crucial role.

  • 54 Since the fuel was not yet subject to IAEA safeguards, Yugoslavia assumed ownership after delivery (...)
  • 55 Nakićenović to SIV, 8 October 1956, pov. 156, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971, SKNE, RG 177, AY.
  • 56 Izvještaj o postignutim rezultatima u toku pregovora između jugoslovenske i sovjetske delegacije st (...)
  • 57 Odeljenje za koordinaciju iz Moskve [Moscow Coordination Department], 20 November 1958, 276, Box 1, (...)
  • 58 Zahtev za SSSR [Request USSR], 5 October 1956, pov. 66, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971, SKNE, R (...)

25“In an atmosphere of mutual understanding,” the two delegations opted for a 6.5 MW heavy water moderated reactor at Vinča, plus seven tons of heavy water and four tons of uranium fuel.54 The Soviets supplied the uranium and the heavy water,55 whilst Soviet experts would provide the technical drawings for the Yugoslav designers and scientists to make comments. Such an extraordinary agreement resulted, argued Pavle Savić, from “the excellent preparation and composition of our delegation, which responded fully to our task.”56 The Vinča reactor, which became operational in 1958,57 was assembled by the Russian enterprises Tekhnopromeksport, Tekhnoeksport and Invest‑import, under Glavatom’s coordination. In the first phase, the Yugoslavs – who were promised that prices would not exceed those of the world market – payed Tekhnopromeksport 594,000 clearing dollars, around 371 million Yugoslav dinars, for 4,000 kilos of uranium.58

  • 59 Rajak, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War : Reconciliation, Comradeship, Confron (...)
  • 60 Beleška drugu Rankoviću o atomskim pregovorima [Note to Comrade Ranković on the atomic negotiations (...)
  • 61 Zabeleška Lj. Belica [Note from Lj. Belica], 18 July 1959, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, (...)
  • 62 Vitaly I. Khalturin et al., “A Review of Nuclear Testing by the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya, 1955 (...)
  • 63 Saradnja sa Sovjetskim Savezom [Cooperation with the USSR], 1959, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa (...)
  • 64 Pro memoria za sekretara komisije [Pro memoria for the secretary of the commission], 24 December 19 (...)

26Yet initial Soviet–Yugoslav harmony did not last long. The events in Hungary in 1956 created ominous cracks in bilateral relations between Moscow and Belgrade. In his speech in Pula of 11 November, Tito “reminded the Soviet and East European leaders that, had they corrected their mistakes in time, intervention would not have been necessary,” and “warned them against believing that military force could resolve everything.”59 Beyond foreign policy rationale, the Soviets were cautious not to further extend the cooperation, particularly not in uranium technology production.60 Especially from 1958 on, the Soviet State Committee for the Utilization of Atomic Energy purposely postponed the visits of Yugoslav specialists to work in the Soviet Union. “A rather awkward situation,” commented a 1958 Yugoslav report, attesting to strict control of Yugoslav scientists in the Soviet Union, “both at work and in private contacts.” The Yugoslavs complained that “none of our experts worked on the problems foreseen by the program,” nor did they carry out scientific research on “machines they themselves constructed”, while their stay was often shortened and their personal notes taken from them.61 It is plausible that the rigid Soviet attitude resulted from the secrecy policy that surrounded the 1957 and 1958 nuclear tests.62 Nevertheless, Yugoslav–Soviet relations and their nuclear cooperation were restored in the late 1950s and early 1960s with agreement supplements (in 1957 and 1959) and a new agreement (in 1962).63 In December 1959, at a high‑level ceremony, Tito officially opened the completed reactor site, accompanied by a Soviet delegation from Glavatom and the Alikhanov Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics.64

  • 65 Izvještaj o saradnji za SSSR [Report on cooperation with the USSR], 1 February 1961, pov. 04‑8/1, B (...)
  • 66 Izvještaj o saradnji za SSSR, 1 February 1961, pov. 04‑8/1, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971, SKN (...)

27As the FCNE realistically spotted, the Soviet interest in the Vinča reactor shifted from serious interest in “international [nuclear] affirmation outside the Eastern bloc.” Hence “the cooperation on the reactor did not reflect oscillations” that permeated the Soviet attitudes “in the remaining cooperation.” Yet the Soviet conditions were abstruse and the conditions “for the delivery of technological research equipment were abnormally difficult and unacceptable. Even for issues foreseen by the agreement, we had to sign a separate contract […] which contained unacceptable and very expensive conditions.”65 This, nevertheless, did not represent “some special attitude towards us,” but a general policy of establishing nuclear relations, commented the FCNE. Moved by pragmatic realism, the Yugoslavs were aware of the benefits the Soviet–Yugoslav cooperation brought them and recognized that it “should be continued.”66

The Americans move ahead

  • 67 Murphy to the Secretary of State, 16 September 1955, FRUS 1955‑1957, vol. XXVI, doc. 225.
  • 68 Ibid.

28On the other hand, when the U.S. State Department heard about a new Soviet–Yugoslav economic agreement in September 1955, providing Yugoslavia with an increased level of trade for the next three years ($ 35,000,000 in each direction), generous credits for the purchase of raw materials, $ 30 million worth of Soviet “gold” loans (on identical repayment terms), miscellaneous investment loans in fertilizers and mines, and the promise of peaceful atomic energy collaboration, they decided to accelerate the negotiations.67 “It is in the U.S. interest,” wrote Murphy to State Secretary John Dulles, “to maximize the pull upon Yugoslavia of the above‑enumerated factors inclining Yugoslavia to the Free World and to minimize attractions to the Soviet orbit.”68

  • 69 The predecessor to the present‑day U.S. Agency for International Development, ICA was a U.S. govern (...)
  • 70 See Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 1 (...)
  • 71 Zabeleška o razgovoru sa gosp. Auslandom, 2 April 1956, 03‑FNRJ‑AA, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodn (...)
  • 72 Ibid.
  • 73 FCNE to Foreign Office, 23 May 1955, 15, File 2, Box 2, Povesna arhiva 1955‑1971, Savezna komisija (...)
  • 74 Foreign Office to the FCNE, 15 August 1955, 1334, File 2, Box 2, Povesna arhiva 1955‑1971, Savezna (...)
  • 75 Zabeleška o razgovoru sa S. Van Dykom‑om [Note on a conversation with S. Van Dyk], 17 February 1956 (...)
  • 76 Zabeleška u razgovoru sa g. Ulysses Staebler‑ome [Note on a conversation with Mr. Ulysses Staebler] (...)
  • 77 Suradnja sa SAD [Cooperation with the USA], 3 September 1957, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međuna (...)

29John C. Ausland, first Secretary of Embassy, and J.St. Lawrence, director of the International Cooperation Administration (ICA)69 Yugoslavia, met Nakićenović in January, February and April 1956.70 Both underlined the American public and media disappointment over what would be seen as a Soviet success: the USSR “seeks to bring the countries under their jurisdiction or at least to influence their policy by making the most favorable conditions for making a variety of programs,” and such an agreement, underlined Ausland, would negatively impact the Congressional debates over aid to Yugoslavia.71 Nakićenović reassured him that Yugoslavia remained interested in U.S. radioactive isotopes,72 a position he repeated to the Yugoslav Foreign Office several times: “we need a reactor with enriched or nuclear fuel with uranium 235 or plutonium”73 while the Yugoslav institutes sought the AEC’s radioactive hormones.74 Contacts between the two sides continued intensively in 1956. In a joint U.S.–FCNE meeting, held in February, Stuart H. Van Dyke, European ICA Director, highlighted the administration’s support for the peaceful Yugoslav nuclear program through exchange between specialists.75 Then, between June and July, Ulysses Staebler, assistant director of the AEC Reactor Development Division, came to Yugoslavia. Staebler proposed a nuclear agreement as soon as possible to surmount cooperation limited to books and scientists’ exchanges.76 However, the chance for finalization of the agreement faltered because the Yugoslavs refused to accept several U.S. conditions: that the nuclear fuel remain American property, the consumed fuel elements be returned, and the fuel amount not exceed six kilos of 20 percent enriched uranium. Of the other conditions, what bothered the Yugoslavs most was the AEC inspection provision contained in the first draft: “we have to follow our principle of not breaking our sovereignty and equal cooperation,” asserted the FCNE. It nevertheless remained fundamental, the commission report underscored, “to develop cooperation with the United States.77

  • 78 Memorandum of Conversation between Nakićenović, Lawrence, and Ausland, 23 January 1956, in Despatch (...)
  • 79 Despatch 453 from the US Embassy Belgrade to the Department of State, 6 March 1956, 868.1901/3‑656, (...)
  • 80 Despatch 654 from the US Embassy Belgrade to the Department of State, 4 June 1957, 868.1901/6‑457, (...)

30Indeed, while talks continued in Washington, to unusual silence from the Yugoslav press,78 the FCNE engaged groups of scientists to visit the United States, financed by the AEC under the Reactor Training School of the Interim Program for Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. Along with others, the exchange program involved Anton Peterlin and Milan Čopić from Jožef Stefan, Miodrag Petrović and Miomir Nikolić from Vinča, and Ivo Slaus from Ruđer Bošković.79 Unremittingly, the collaboration continued, and in 1957 the U.S. government gifted the FCNE its “Atoms for Peace” library collection. The high‑level ceremony included Ranković of course, then Vladimir Velebit, undersecretary for foreign affairs, and other distinguished government members, accompanied by the U.S. ambassador Riddleberger and public affairs officer Joseph Kolarek.80

  • 81 Poziv Komisije za Atomsku energiju SAD Delegaciji SKNE za odlazak u SAD [Invitation of the US Atomi (...)
  • 82 Foreign Office to the Federal Executive Council, 16 February 1960, 9698, file 1062, Box 640, Međuna (...)
  • 83 Stručni izvještaj sa puta po SAD [Expert report on a trip around the USA], March 1960, SAD 1960, SA (...)
  • 84 A. Moljk, Kratki izvještaj o putu delegacije SKNE po Americi [A brief account of the FCNE delegatio (...)
  • 85 Farley to Nakićenović, 31 March 1960, 00277/60, SAD 1960, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodn (...)
  • 86 Zabeleška za sekretara druga Veljka Zekovića o pozivima višim državnim rukovodiocima [Note to the s (...)
  • 87 Koch, “Yugoslavia’s Nuclear Legacy : Should We Worry ?,” 124.
  • 88 Koch, 124 ; Izvještaj SKNE SIV‑u o radu 1964. godine [FCNE 1964 work report to SIV], file 995, Box (...)
  • 89 Istorijat američke pomoći za nabavku opreme za Hot laboratorij Vinča [History of US aid for the pro (...)
  • 90 Stenografske beleške sa razgovora vodjenih između predstavnika SKNE i delegacije Atomske komisije S (...)
  • 91 Beleške za razgovor sa Dr. Seaborg‑om [Notes on a talk with Dr. Seaborg], 21 September 1963, SAD 19 (...)

31The “unsatisfactory cooperation between the USAEC and the FCNE”81 was suddenly overcome when, in February and March 1960, the AEC invited the representatives of the Yugoslav commission to visit the United States. Ranković himself approved the departures; Nakićenović was accompanied by FCNE members (Salom Šuica and Drago Baum) and the director of the Hot Laboratory at Vinča, Zdenko Dizdar.82 In a “welcoming and heartfelt atmosphere,” the FCNE delegation visited the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, the Idaho Reactor Testing Laboratory, and the Dresden Atomic Power Plant,83 gave interviews to the press, featured in the Voice of America, and appeared on television.84 Finally, the State Department/AEC and the Yugoslav Commission generated an active cooperation program for the future.85 The agreement was worth $ 350,000, of which $ 200,000 were intended for the Jožef Stefan reactor program and $ 150,000 for the Vinča Hot Laboratory.86 Yugoslav scientists investigated both uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies.87 The construction of the 250‑kW TRIGA Mark II light water research reactor began at the Jožef Stefan Institute in 1961 and concluded in 1965. The U.S. firm General Atomics provided the TRIGA reactor with twenty percent enriched uranium fuel under the same cooperation agreement.88 On the other hand, the $ 150,000 for the Vinča Hot Laboratory arrived a little later, in 1962, after the agreement had been signed (19 April 1961), and the final contribution list was accepted by the AEC and the embassy in Belgrade.89 Relations advanced in May when the FCNE met the AEC representatives in Belgrade, where they were complimented on the Vinča, Jožef Stefan, and Ruder Bošković programs and it was suggested they pursue a major specialization (not all the laboratories had to cover all aspects of the research). The Americans advised the Yugoslavs to abandon the uranium search mines because of low cost–benefit economic returns.90 The cooperation developed through expert exchanges thanks to invaluable ICA financial support (from the late 1950s to 1963 the agency supplied $ 130,220), which gathered work on the project of a Yugoslav power plant supplied by natural uranium. The idea, launched by Glenn Seaborg during the meetings surrounding the “Atoms at Work” exhibit in Belgrade,91 became a Yugoslav “dream come true” in 1974 when the authorities opened the Krško construction site, a project realized jointly by the U.S. Westinghouse and the German Siemens companies.

  • 92 Robert B. Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World (New York : Cambridge University Press (...)
  • 93 Lampe, Prickett, and Adamović, Yugoslav‑American Economic Relations Since World War II, 68.
  • 94 Memorandum of Conversation, 12 June 1962, FRUS 1961‑1963, vol. XVI, doc. 129 ; Dragan Bogetić, Jugo (...)
  • 95 Memorandum of Conversation, 23 October 1962, FRUS 1961‑1963, vol. XVI, doc. 139.
  • 96 Telegram from Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of State, 5 May 1963, FRUS 1961‑1963, vol.  (...)
  • 97 Bogetić, Jugoslavensko‑američki odnosi 1961.‑1971, 139–62. In the aftermath of the Kennedy–Tito mee (...)

32Whilst the U.S.–Yugoslav nuclear agreement started its path towards successful implementation, U.S.–Yugoslav relations suffered a severe crisis between 1961 and 1963. The political stalemate, initiated by Tito’s pro‑Soviet declarations at the First Non‑Aligned conference in September 1961, triggered Kennedy’s halt to export licenses for products destined to Yugoslavia and a House of Representatives investigation into jet sales to country.92 Events escalated when on 6 June 1962, the U.S. Senate adopted the Frank Lausche (D‑Ohio) amendment, which restricted U.S. economic aid to all communist‑dominated countries, including Poland and Yugoslavia, and when a week later the House Ways and Means Committee approved legislation (H.R. 1818) that withdrew most‑favored nation (MFN) status from the two countries.93 This meant doubling or tripling import tariffs on Yugoslav export commodities. While “contrary to the wishes of the administration,” as State Secretary Dean Rusk put it, relations between Belgrade and Washington fell to freezing point.94 Veljko Mićunović, appointed ambassador in October 1962, underlined “Yugoslavia’s sense of bewilderment and consternation.”95 Only after Rusk’s visit to Tito in May 1963 and his intervention with Kennedy on the question of military sales to the Yugoslav Army, particularly of spare parts,96 and Tito’s first official visit to the United States on 17 October 1963 (Kennedy’s last meeting with a foreign statesman) were bilateral relations gradually normalized.97 The successful implementation of the U.S.–Yugoslav nuclear agreement in the years of great international tensions (the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs invasion) and the abovementioned bilateral complications, demonstrate the extent to which nuclear cooperation was moved by more than mere diplomatic‑bilateral logic. In the same way, the major and most intense Soviet–Yugoslav nuclear collaboration occurred in the years of cold Moscow–Belgrade relations when, between 1957 and 1959, the Vinča reactor came into being. Reluctant to share their knowledge and technology in the field of uranium treatment, when it came to the Vinča project, the Soviets omitted nuclear cooperation from foreign policy inclinations.

Yugoslav nuclear diplomacy between foreign policy and Cold War

  • 98 Bondžić, Između Ambicija i Iluzija : Nuklearna Politika Jugoslavije : 1945‑1990, 205–8.

33While negotiations were underway with the two superpowers, Yugoslavia developed cooperation with other nuclear states. The September 1957 agreement with France, initially limited to the specialization of Yugoslav experts at the French institutes, was subsequently enlarged to include cooperation on nuclear materials, fuels, and reactors, and the industrial applications of nuclear energy. Collaboration with Great Britain was enhanced in the early sixties in talks on the construction of an English‑type reactor and a hot laboratory, as well as on industry and nuclear power plant cooperation. The cooperation with Canada was particularly important for the FCNE. While in the 1950s it was limited to the exchange of experts, in the mid‑1960s the Canadian government expressed interest in investing in the Yugoslav nuclear power plant. Above all, Yugoslavia had a special “nuclear” relationship with the Scandinavian countries, the Norwegian nuclear center in Kjeller near Oslo training Yugoslav experts for many years. In the early 1960s, Norway provided Yugoslav scientists and engineers with otherwise classified training on sensitive processing of refined fuel. Moreover, in December 1961 the Vinča Institute and Noratoma signed a contract for the construction of an irradiated fuel processing plant. Even though such a processing plant was never constructed, Noratoma – supported by the Czechoslovakian government – helped Vinča to set up a laboratory fuel processing plant, from 1966 to 1977/78.98

  • 99 Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance : How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity, 126.
  • 100 Fuhrmann, 127. Similarly, the U.S. nuclear aid to Indonesia in the 1960s prevented Indonesia from d (...)

34These examples demonstrate the extent to which Yugoslavia played suppliers off against each other, using the dynamics of competitive markets as a broad strategy to obtain nuclear technology. According to Matthew Fuhrmann, nuclear suppliers hope to gain benefits in the form of foreign aid, improving relationships with their allies, limiting the influence of their adversaries, and enhancing their energy security by obtaining favorable access to oil supplies without undermining their safety. From this perspective, the Soviet–Yugoslav nuclear cooperation “was intended to transform its relationship with Belgrade” and hence the “Soviet nuclear assistance to Yugoslavia was aimed at the destruction or weakening of the existing defense agreements or military alliances which [recipient] countries may have with Western powers.”99 Moscow was growing upset about the strong Yugoslav ties to the West, mainly with the United States, and they intended to use nuclear assistance to prevent “the West from exerting further influence.”100

  • 101 Eliza Gheorghe, “Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market,” International Security, 43, no (...)
  • 102 Jeff D. Colgan and Nicholas L. Miller, “Rival Hierarchies and the Origins of Nuclear Technology Sha (...)

35As Eliza Gheorghe argues, the more suppliers there are, the more intense their competition will be. Subsequently, the commercial rivalry will make it easier for nuclear technology to spread because buyers can play suppliers off against each other.101 This means that, as Colgan and Miller claim, international rival hierarchies influence their reciprocal “competitive shaming, outbidding, and interhierarchy cooperation.” Soviet competitive shaming stimulated the United States’ Atoms for Peace program, which was intended to encourage client states to remain loyal or to attract new ones. In response, the Soviet Union tried to out‑spend the United States with its own nuclear aid and technology‑sharing agenda. Finally, they argue, Moscow and Washington insisted on the IAEA to limit the risks nuclear sharing posed to their own dominant positions.102

  • 103 Informacija o mogućnosti proizvodnje nuklearnog oružja [Information on the possibility of producing (...)
  • 104 Između Ambicija i Iluzija : Nuklearna Politika Jugoslavije : 1945‑1990, 426–29.
  • 105 William C. Potter, Djuro Miljanic, and Ivo Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy,” Bulletin of the Atomic S (...)
  • 106 Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy.” For future reference, Marko Miljković, a PhD (...)

36To what extent the Yugoslav leaders hoped and planned to use foreign nuclear technology for their own weapon program is yet to be comprehensively investigated. The archives contain brief hints concerning some secret meetings in 1961 on the weapon program at the FCNE.103 The Serbian historian Dragomir Bondžić admits that there are traces in the FCNE materials regarding the issue.104 As Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus show, the Yugoslav nuclear military program never reached an advanced stage, even though during the 1950s the Yugoslav government pursued a secret nuclear research program “consistent with the development of a capability to build an atomic bomb.”105 Dropped for reasons still unknown in the 1960s, the Yugoslav nuclear weapon ambitions reappeared after India, Yugoslavia’s rival in the leadership of the Non‑Aligned Movement, conducted its first nuclear test in May 1974. Nevertheless, it seems that by the early 1980s, due to economic reasons and scientists’ opposition, the Yugoslav nuclear weapon program diminished.106

Conclusions

  • 107 Hymans, “Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation : Theory and a Case Study of Tito’ (...)
  • 108 Hymans, “Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation : Theory and a Case Study of Tito’ (...)

37From the perspective of the superpowers, Yugoslavia’s nuclear program was a matter of international influence and therefore Cold War geostrategy. Thanks to the Soviet assistance, which aided in the construction of a zero‑power training reactor at Vinča, Yugoslavia became the first Balkan state to create a nuclear chain reaction (the reactor went critical in April 1958, killing one and injuring six persons with almost complete press silence).107 On the other hand, the U.S. reactor to Yugoslavia was an enriched uranium fueled and light water moderated TRIGA Mark II version. The $ 150,000 worth of equipment conceded to the Vinča Hot Laboratory – for the extraction of plutonium from spent fuel – gave a remarkable impulse to the Yugoslav nuclear program.108

  • 109 “Potpredsjednik Republike Aleksandar Ranković primio Glena Siborga, predsjednika Atomske komisije S (...)
  • 110 Pro memoria o razgovoru sa predstavnicima Američke ambasade iz Beograda [Pro memoria of the meeting (...)
  • 111 “Otvorena izložba ‘Atom na djelu’ [Opening of the ‘Atom in Action’ Exhibition],” Vjesnik, 22 Septem (...)
  • 112 “Najkompletnija izložba SSSR‑a [The Most Complete Exhibition of the USSR],” Vjesnik, 22 September 1 (...)

38When, on 22 September 1963, Glenn Seaborg, president of the USAEC opened the American exhibition “Atoms at Work” at the Belgrade International Trade Fair,109 he gained the full support of the Yugoslav FCNE.110 On that occasion, Avdo Humo, the head of FCNE, underlined “that in this [nuclear] field, cooperation is necessary and of special significance.” And he continued, “our government is ready to fully support all international ventures in the field of nuclear science and their applications.”111 Not surprisingly, the very same day, the Soviet State Committee for the Utilization of Atomic Energy (GKAE) presented “Atoms in the Service of Peace” [Atom u službi mira] some 400 kilometers northwest, at the Zagreb International Trade Fair. The exhibit heralded the most recent successful Soviet efforts in the peaceful use of atomic energy: the production and application of radioisotopes, and Soviet aid to foreign countries in opening nuclear research centers and constructing reactors.112

  • 113 If Yugoslav diplomats interpreted Yugoslav openness as the “starting grid’ of Yugoslav exceptionali (...)
  • 114 Carla Konta, U.S. Public Diplomacy in Socialist Yugoslavia, 1950–70 : Soft Culture, Cold Partners ( (...)

39This coincidence epitomizes the results of Yugoslav nuclear diplomacy efforts in the first decades of the Cold War vis‑a‑vis and with the two superpowers. In contrast to the usual interpretation offered by historians of socialist Yugoslavia, they do not indicate that it was a country between East and West, oscillating, according to political moods, between one or the other superpower.113 As in its engagement with U.S. public diplomacy and cultural cooperation in which the Yugoslav side acted pragmatically in accordance with the type of identity they were trying to construct before they eyes of the rest of the world,114 Yugoslav nuclear diplomacy vis‑à‑vis the United States was equally well guided by realpolitik stances. Aware of their geopolitical relevance, the Yugoslavs used their political soft power to entice the superpowers into competition over the Yugoslav nuclear program. This explains why the U.S.–Yugoslav and Soviet–Yugoslav nuclear cooperation was not hampered by international events which saw the supplier–receiver relations deteriorate.

  • 115 Gabrielle Hecht, Entangled Geographies : Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War (Cambridg (...)
  • 116 Arnold Buchholz, “The Role of the Scientific‑Technological Revolution in Marxism‑Leninism,” Studies (...)

40Yugoslav nuclear diplomacy certainly addressed the Yugoslav nation‑building process as a socialist, Marxist society, and went beyond Yugoslav contingent political agendas in the Cold War arena. Over the last fifteen years, a growing number of studies have been devoted to the importance of transnational entanglements in shaping the history of nuclear research and technology during the XXth century.115 Moved by bold pragmatic realism, the Yugoslav leaders conceived nuclear science, technology and its energetic revenue as a pillar of modernity indispensable for the creation of Marxist socialism, driven by the idea that scientific and technological development “moves and [solves] social problems”.116 Besides, nuclear energy and technology meant international prestige and reputation, and the empowerment of Yugoslavia’s own modern national identity.

  • 117 Gheorghe, “Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market.”

41As this article explores, Yugoslavia achieved its nuclear technology thanks to a patient and persistent nuclear diplomacy that encompassed the realm of foreign policy, concurrently surpassing it and embracing and gathering diplomats, scientists, engineers and party leaders. Such diplomacy helped to reframe the Yugoslav Cold War position, this time not as a state oscillating between the two blocs, but exploiting the existence of multiple suppliers in the nuclear market competing with each other for contracts. The Yugoslav case remains an example of how nuclear technology can be obtained using a broad acquisition strategy when in a system of bipolarity the great powers attempt to strike a balance, as Gheorghe assesses, between competing for nuclear contracts and stemming proliferation.117

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Notes

1 Poseta Presednika Tita Institutu “Boris Kidrič” u Vinči – reč kolektivu Instituta “Boris Kidrič” [Visit of President Tito to the Boris Kidrič Institute in Vinča – Speech to the staff of the Boris Kidrič Institute], 17 May 1958, KPR‑II‑1/45, Kabinet Predsednika Republike [Cabinet of the President of the Republic] (hereafter KPR), Record Group 837 (hereafter RG), Archives of Josip Broz Tito, Belgrade (hereafter AJBT). While the Yugoslav archival records are reported in their original language, for reasons of uniformity they follow the U.S. National Archives citation tradition.

2 Inspection Report USIS Yugoslavia, 20 November 1959, Box 10, Inspection Report and Related Records 1954–62, USIA Inspection Staff, RG 306, NACP, 39.

3 The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, more commonly known as the Communist Information Bureau, was founded in September 1947 as a political response to the Marshall Plan in order to unify the European communist parties under Soviet auspices.

4 “The Tito–Stalin Split : A Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,” Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 2 (2007) : 32–63, https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws.2007.9.2.32. On this, see also the dated but still very useful Ivo Banac, With Stalin against Tito (Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1988).

5 Bojan Dimitrijević, “Jugoslavija i NATO 1951‑1958. Skica intenzivnih vojnih odnosa [Yugoslavia and NATO, 1951‑1958. An Outline of Intense Military Relations],” in Slobodan Selinić, ed., Spoljna politika Jugoslavije : 1950.‑1961, (Beograd : Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2008), 255–74 ; Dragan Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad 1952‑1955. Jugoslovensko približavanje NATO‑u [Yugoslavia and the West, 1952‑1955. Yugoslav Rapprochement with NATO] (Beograd : Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2005).

6 Edvard Kardelj, “Nova Jugoslavija u savremenom svijetu [New Yugoslavia in the Contemporary World],” Komunist, 1 (January 1951) : 1–32.

7 Jeronim Perović, “Josip Broz Tito,” in Steven Casey and Jonathan Wright, eds, Mental Maps in the Early Cold War Era, 1945–68 (London : Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 131–59, https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230306066.

8 The Radiance of France : Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (Cambridge : MIT Press, 2009), 15. For a scholarly overview of the nuclear technopolitics concept, see Stefan Guth, Fabian Lüscher, and Julia Richers, “Nuclear Technopolitics in the Soviet Union and Beyond – An Introduction,” Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas 66, no. 1 (2018) : 3–19, https://doi.org/10.25162/jgo-2018‑0001.

9 This research mainly benefitted from the Yugoslav Archives in Belgrade, particularly the records of the Yugoslav Federal Commission for Nuclear Energy, the Federal Executive Council, and Tito’s cabinet papers, as well as from the U.S. National Archives at College Park, specifically the Department of State and the USIA records.

10 Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War : Reconciliation, Comradeship, Confrontation, 1953–1957 (London – New York : Routledge, 2011), 109, https://doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2011.569155.

11 181. On the Yugoslav role in the Soviet–Hungarian conflict, see Johanna C. Granville, The First Domino : International Decision Making During the Hungarian Crisis of 1956 (College Station : Texas A&M University Press, 2003).

12 Lorraine M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat : The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War (University Park, PA : Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005). Another perspective on the U.S. wedge strategy in Yugoslavia can be found in Beatrice Heuser, Western ‘Containment’ Policies in the Cold War : The Yugoslav Case, 1948‑53 (London – New York : Routledge, 1989).

13 USIE Country Paper Yugoslavia in circular 2 Belgrade to Dept. of State, 3 July 1950, 511.68/7‑350, Box 2472, CDF 1950‑54, RG 59, NACP.

14 Special Guidance 91 for the Mutual Security Program, 23 May 1951 in memorandum from Block to several Department of State offices, 24 October 1951, Box 2243, CDF 1950‑54, RG 59, NACP, 7.

15 Tvrtko Jakovina, Socijalizam na američkoj pšenici [Socialism on American Grain] (Zagreb : Matica Hrvatska, 2002), 32, 37–39.

16 John R. Lampe, Russell O. Prickett, and Ljubiša S. Adamović, Yugoslav‑American Economic Relations Since World War II (Durham : Duke University Press, 1990), 72.

17 Američki komunistički saveznik. Hrvati, Titova Jugoslavija i Sjedinjene Američke Države 1945.‑1955 [American Communist Ally. Croats, Tito’s Yugoslavia and the United States of America, 1945‑1955], (Zagreb : Profil, 2003).

18 Tvrtko Jakovina, “Razgovor s Cvijetom Jobom, dugogodišnjim diplomatom i veleposlanikom FNRJ/SFRJ [Conversation with Cvijeto Job, Long‑Time Diplomat and Ambassador of FNRJ/SFRJ],” Časopis za suvremenu povijest [Journal of Contemporary History], XXXV, no. 3 (2003) : 1037.

19 “No Bargaining Chips, No Spheres of Interest : The Yugoslav Origins of Cold War Non‑Alignment,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 16, no. 1 (1 January 2014) : 146–79, https://doi.org/10.1162/JCWS_a_00434.

20 Svetozar Rajak, “From Regional Role to Global Undertakings : Yugoslavia in the Early Cold War,” in The Balkans in the Cold War, ed. Svetozar Rajak et al. (London : Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 65–86 (73–74).

21 Ljubodrag Dimić, Jugoslavija i Hladni rat [Yugoslavia and the Cold War] (Beograd : Arhipelag, 2014), 123–87, 278–79 ; Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća Strana Hladnog Rata [The Third Party of the Cold War] (Zagreb : Fraktura, 2011), 39–78 ; Vladimir Petrović, ‘“Pošteni posrednik’. Jugoslavija između starih i novih spoljnopolitičkih partnerstava sredinom pedesetih godina’ [‘Honest Intermediary.’ Yugoslavia between Old and New Foreign Partnerships in the Mid‑Fifties],” in Slobodan Selinić, ed, Spoljna politika Jugoslavije : 1950‑1961. [Yugoslav Foreign Policy : 1950‑1961], (Beograd : Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2008), 462–71.

22 Phil Tiemeyer, “Launching a Nonaligned Airline : JAT Yugoslav Airways between East, West, and South, 1947–1962,” Diplomatic History, 41, no. 1 (2017) : 78–103, https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dhv061.

23 William Zimmerman, Open Borders, Nonalignment, and the Political Evolution of Yugoslavia, Princeton Legacy Library, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2015) ; Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Non‑Aligned World, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2015).

24 The Search for a Cold War Legitimacy : Foreign Policy and Tito’s Yugoslavia (Leiden – Boston : Brill, 2018), 90 ; by the same author see also, “Nonalignment as Yugoslavia’s Answer to Bloc Politics,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 13, no. 1 (1 January 2011) : 146–79, https://doi.org/10.1162/JCWS_a_00072.

25 The Yugoslav government also developed other nuclear‑related facilities : the Institute for Application of Nuclear Energy in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, and Forestry in Zemun, Serbia (1959) ; the Research Development Center for Thermotechnics and Nuclear Technology in Sarajevo (1961) ; the Institute for Geological and Mining Investigation and Exploration of Nuclear and Other Raw Materials ; the Energoinvest Research and Development Center for Heat and Nuclear Engineering ; the International School of Elementary Particle Physics ; and the Dragomir Karajović Institute of Occupational and Radiological Health in Belgrade. (Andrew Koch, “Yugoslavia’s Nuclear Legacy : Should We Worry ?,” The Nonproliferation Review, 4, no. 3 (September 1, 1997) : 123, doi :10.1080/10736709708436687 ; Dragomir Bondžić, Između Ambicija i iluzija : Nuklearna Politika Jugoslavije : 1945‑1990 [Between Ambitions and Illusions : Yugoslav Nuclear Policy, 1945‑1990] (Beograd : Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2016), 58–73.)

26 “Yugoslavia’s Nuclear Legacy : Should We Worry ?,” 123.

27 Bondžić, Između Ambicija i Iluzija : Nuklearna Politika Jugoslavije : 1945‑1990, 117–18.

28 Bondžić, 74.

29 Jacques E.C. Hymans, “Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation : Theory and a Case Study of Tito’s Yugoslavia,” Security Studies, 2011, 89.

30 Keeping Tito Afloat, 122.

31 Press Release, “Atoms for Peace” Speech, 8 December 1953 [DDE’s Papers as President, Speech Series, Box 5, United Nations Speech 12/8/53], available at https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/atoms-peace.

32 John Krige, “Atoms for Peace, Scientific Internationalism, and Scientific Intelligence,” Osiris, 21, no. Global Power Knowledge. Science and Technology in International Affairs (2006) : 164–65, 174–78 ; for contemporary comments and scientists’ feedback, see “U.N. Conference on Atomic Energy, Geneva August 8‑20, 1955,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 11, no. 8 (1955) : 274–313.

33 David Holloway, “The Soviet Union and the Creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” Cold War History, 16, no. 2 (2016) : 177–94, https://doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2015.1124265.

34 David Fisher, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The First Forty Years (Vienna : International Atomic Energy Agency, 1997), 31, https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1032_web.pdf.

35 Elisabeth Roehrlich, “The Cold War, the Developing World, and the Creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1953–1957,” Cold War History 16, no. 2 (2016) : 195–212 (210), https://doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2015.1129607.

36 Message 122 from USIA‑State to Belgrade, 31 March 1955, 868.191/3‑3155, Box 4841, Central Decimal Files 1955‑1959 (U.S. Department of State), RG 59, National Archives at College Park (hereafter NACP).

37 According to USIS Zagreb, President Tito, together with Moša Pijade, Federal Assembly President, visited the U.S. pavilion out of official working hours (Report on the Atoms‑for‑Peace Exhibit in despatch 006542 from USIS Belgrade to USIA Washington, 15 December 1955, Box 21, Country Project Correspondence 1952‑1963, USIA Office of Research, RG 306, NACP, 1).

38 “Atomi za mir. Nastup Sjedinjenih Američkih Država na Velesajmu [Atoms for Peace. The Appearance of the United States at the Fair],” Privredni Vjesnik [The Business Messenger], 2 September 1955, 3.

39 “Atomi u službi čovječanstva [Atoms in the Service of Mankind],” Glas Istre [Voice of Istria], 14 October 1955, 3–4.

40 Despatch 006542 from USIS Belgrade to USIA Washington, 15 December 1955, Box 21, Country Project Correspondence 1952‑1963, USIA Office of Research, RG 306, NACP, 2.

41 Jack Raymond, “Belgrade to Join in U.S. Atomic Plan,” New York Times, 22 October 1955.

42 Saradnja sa SAD [Collaboration with the USA], 3 September 1957, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja [International cooperation], Bilateralna saradnja SKNE [FCNE’s bilateral cooperation], SAD 1955‑1964, Savezna Komisija za nuklearnu energiju [Federal Commission for Nuclear Energy] (hereafter SKNE), RG 177, Arhiv Jugoslavije/Archives of Yugoslavia, Belgrade (hereafter AY).

43 Zabeleška o razgovoru sa Tupicinom, prvim sekretarom Sovjetske ambasade [Note on a conversation with Tupitsyn, the first secretary of the Soviet Embassy], 16 April 1956, pov. 66, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971 [Confidential archives, 1955‑1971], SKNE, RG 177, AY.

44 Zabeleška o razgovoru sa gosp. Auslandom [Note on a conversation with Mr. Ausland], 2 April 1956, 03‑FNRJ‑AA, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, [International cooperation], Bilateralna saradnja SKNE [FCNE’s bilateral cooperation], SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

45 Upotreba nuklearne energije u mirnodopske svrhe [Use of nuclear energy for peacetime purposes], 18 May 1955, 9192/11, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji Jugoslavije sa Sovjetskim Savezom u oblasti korištenja nuklearne energije [Materials on Yugoslavia’s cooperation with the Soviet Union in the field of nuclear energy use] (hereafter Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR), Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY, 4.

46 Zapisnik [Proceedings] br. 1, 24 November 1955, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE [Materials on cooperation with the USSR, International cooperation – FCNE’s bilateral cooperation], 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

47 Telegram iz Moskve dr. Kosa Odeljenju za koordinaciju Državnog sekretarijata za inostrane poslove [Dr. Kos’s telegram from Moscow to Foreign Office Coordination Division], 1 December 1955, 218, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR [Materials on cooperation with USSR], Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

48 Telegram iz Moskve [Telegram from Moscow], dr. Kos SKNE [from Dr. Kos to FCNE], 14 December 1955, 230, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

49 Telegram iz Moskve, dr. Kos SKNE, 15 December 1955, 231, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

50 Telegram iz Moskve dr. Kos SKNE, 3 January 1956, 134, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

51 Sporazum između FNRJ i SSSR o saradnji na razvoju istraživanja u oblastima nuklearnih nauka i korišćenja nuklearne energije u mirnodopske svrhe [Agreement between the FPRY and the USSR on cooperation in the development of research in the fields of nuclear sciences and the use of nuclear energy for peacetime purposes], 2 February 1956, 11, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY, 1.

52 On another occasion, the FCNE observed how “past practice has shown that we must always be ready for a possible change of Soviet attitude which makes cooperation with them problematic.” (Informacija o suradnji sa SSSR‑om [Information on cooperation with the USSR], 25 April 1959, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY).

53 Rešenje za vodjenje razgovora sa delegacijom Vlade SSSR [Decision to hold an interview with the USSR Government delegation], 8 May 1956, 903, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

54 Since the fuel was not yet subject to IAEA safeguards, Yugoslavia assumed ownership after delivery (Matthew Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance : How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity (Ithaca ; London : Cornell University Press, 2012), 123–24.)

55 Nakićenović to SIV, 8 October 1956, pov. 156, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

56 Izvještaj o postignutim rezultatima u toku pregovora između jugoslovenske i sovjetske delegacije stručnjaka [Report on the results reached at the negotiations between the delegations of Yugoslav and Soviet experts], 28 May 1956, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

57 Odeljenje za koordinaciju iz Moskve [Moscow Coordination Department], 20 November 1958, 276, Box 1, Strogo poverljiva arhiva 1957‑1979 [Highly confidential archives], SKNE, RG 177, AY.

58 Zahtev za SSSR [Request USSR], 5 October 1956, pov. 66, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971, SKNE, RG 177, AY ; Sporazum između FNRJ i SSSRJ o saradnji na razvoju istraživanja u oblastima nuklearnih nauka, 2 February 1956, 1.

59 Rajak, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War : Reconciliation, Comradeship, Confrontation, 1953–1957, 182.

60 Beleška drugu Rankoviću o atomskim pregovorima [Note to Comrade Ranković on the atomic negotiations], 29 January 1957, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

61 Zabeleška Lj. Belica [Note from Lj. Belica], 18 July 1959, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

62 Vitaly I. Khalturin et al., “A Review of Nuclear Testing by the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya, 1955–1990,” Science & Global Security, 13, no. 1–2 (1 January 2005) : 1–42, https://doi.org/10.1080/08929880590961862.

63 Saradnja sa Sovjetskim Savezom [Cooperation with the USSR], 1959, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY ; Protokol ka sporazumu između FNRJ i SSSR [Protocol to the agreement between the FPRY and the USSR], 9 February 1959, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY ; Nacrt sporazuma o saradnji u nuklearnoj oblasti sa SSSR [Draft nuclear cooperation agreement with the USSR], 5 January 1962, 04‑93/3, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

64 Pro memoria za sekretara komisije [Pro memoria for the secretary of the commission], 24 December 1959, 01016/59, Box 437, Materijali o saradnji sa SSSR, Međunarodna saradnja – bilateralna saradnja SKNE, 1955‑1967, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

65 Izvještaj o saradnji za SSSR [Report on cooperation with the USSR], 1 February 1961, pov. 04‑8/1, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971, SKNE, RG 177, AY, 2–3.

66 Izvještaj o saradnji za SSSR, 1 February 1961, pov. 04‑8/1, Box 2, Poverljiva arhiva 1955‑1971, SKNE, RG 177, AY, 7.

67 Murphy to the Secretary of State, 16 September 1955, FRUS 1955‑1957, vol. XXVI, doc. 225.

68 Ibid.

69 The predecessor to the present‑day U.S. Agency for International Development, ICA was a U.S. government agency operating from June 1955 until September 1961, responsible for foreign assistance and non‑military security programs.

70 See Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

71 Zabeleška o razgovoru sa gosp. Auslandom, 2 April 1956, 03‑FNRJ‑AA, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

72 Ibid.

73 FCNE to Foreign Office, 23 May 1955, 15, File 2, Box 2, Povesna arhiva 1955‑1971, Savezna komisija za nuklearnu energiju, RG 177, AY.

74 Foreign Office to the FCNE, 15 August 1955, 1334, File 2, Box 2, Povesna arhiva 1955‑1971, Savezna komisija za nuklearnu energiju, RG 177, AY.

75 Zabeleška o razgovoru sa S. Van Dykom‑om [Note on a conversation with S. Van Dyk], 17 February 1956, 03‑SAD‑JA, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

76 Zabeleška u razgovoru sa g. Ulysses Staebler‑ome [Note on a conversation with Mr. Ulysses Staebler], 3 July 1956, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY ; Zabeleška o razgovoru sa gosp. Auslandom, 2 April 1956, 03‑FNRJ‑AA, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

77 Suradnja sa SAD [Cooperation with the USA], 3 September 1957, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

78 Memorandum of Conversation between Nakićenović, Lawrence, and Ausland, 23 January 1956, in Despatch 373 from the US Embassy Belgrade to the Department of State, 24 January 1956, 511.683/1‑2456, Box 2205, Central Decimal Files 1955‑1959, RG 59, NACP.

79 Despatch 453 from the US Embassy Belgrade to the Department of State, 6 March 1956, 868.1901/3‑656, Box 4841, Central Decimal Files 1955‑1959, RG 59, NACP.

80 Despatch 654 from the US Embassy Belgrade to the Department of State, 4 June 1957, 868.1901/6‑457, Box 4841, Central Decimal Files 1955‑1959, RG 59, NACP.

81 Poziv Komisije za Atomsku energiju SAD Delegaciji SKNE za odlazak u SAD [Invitation of the US Atomic Energy Commission to the FCNE Delegation to go to the USA], 18 January 1960, SAD 1960, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

82 Foreign Office to the Federal Executive Council, 16 February 1960, 9698, file 1062, Box 640, Međunarodni odnosi 1953‑1970 [International relations 1953‑1970], Savezno Izvršno Veće [Federal Executive Council] (hereafter SIV) 1953‑1990, RG 130, AY.

83 Stručni izvještaj sa puta po SAD [Expert report on a trip around the USA], March 1960, SAD 1960, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

84 A. Moljk, Kratki izvještaj o putu delegacije SKNE po Americi [A brief account of the FCNE delegation’s journey through America], 22 April 1960, SAD 1960, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY, 2‑3.

85 Farley to Nakićenović, 31 March 1960, 00277/60, SAD 1960, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

86 Zabeleška za sekretara druga Veljka Zekovića o pozivima višim državnim rukovodiocima [Note to the secretary, Comrade Veljko Zeković, on the calls to high state officials], 9 August 1961, 424501, Box 640, Međunarodni odnosi 1953‑1970, SIV 1953‑1990, RG 130, AY ; FCNE to the AEC, 17 June 1960, 03‑969/1, Box 640, Međunarodni odnosi 1953‑1970, SIV 1953‑1990, RG 130, AY.

87 Koch, “Yugoslavia’s Nuclear Legacy : Should We Worry ?,” 124.

88 Koch, 124 ; Izvještaj SKNE SIV‑u o radu 1964. godine [FCNE 1964 work report to SIV], file 995, Box 601, Međunarodni odnosi, SIV 1953‑1990, RG 130, AY, 1–4.

89 Istorijat američke pomoći za nabavku opreme za Hot laboratorij Vinča [History of US aid for the procurement of equipment for the Vinča Hot Laboratory], 6 January 1963, File 11, Box 5, Investicioni program za visoku aktivnost “HL” 1959‑1964 [“HL” High Activity Investment Program 1959‑1964], SKNE, RG 177, AY.

90 Stenografske beleške sa razgovora vodjenih između predstavnika SKNE i delegacije Atomske komisije SAD [Shorthand notes from discussions conducted between representatives of the FCNE and the delegation of the US Atomic Commission], May 1960, SAD 1960, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

91 Beleške za razgovor sa Dr. Seaborg‑om [Notes on a talk with Dr. Seaborg], 21 September 1963, SAD 1963, SAD 1957, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja, Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

92 Robert B. Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2013), 182.

93 Lampe, Prickett, and Adamović, Yugoslav‑American Economic Relations Since World War II, 68.

94 Memorandum of Conversation, 12 June 1962, FRUS 1961‑1963, vol. XVI, doc. 129 ; Dragan Bogetić, Jugoslavensko‑američki odnosi 1961.‑1971. [Yugoslav‑American relations 1961‑1971] (Beograd : Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2012), 74–76.

95 Memorandum of Conversation, 23 October 1962, FRUS 1961‑1963, vol. XVI, doc. 139.

96 Telegram from Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of State, 5 May 1963, FRUS 1961‑1963, vol. XVI, doc. 160.

97 Bogetić, Jugoslavensko‑američki odnosi 1961.‑1971, 139–62. In the aftermath of the Kennedy–Tito meeting, Congress withdrew the MFN restrictions towards Yugoslavia (Bogetić, 152). See also Lampe, Prickett, and Adamović, Yugoslav‑American Economic Relations Since World War II, 68–69.

98 Bondžić, Između Ambicija i Iluzija : Nuklearna Politika Jugoslavije : 1945‑1990, 205–8.

99 Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance : How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity, 126.

100 Fuhrmann, 127. Similarly, the U.S. nuclear aid to Indonesia in the 1960s prevented Indonesia from developing close ties with the Soviet Union in the field of nuclear cooperation.

101 Eliza Gheorghe, “Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market,” International Security, 43, no. 4 (1 April 2019) : 88–127, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00344.

102 Jeff D. Colgan and Nicholas L. Miller, “Rival Hierarchies and the Origins of Nuclear Technology Sharing,” International Studies Quarterly, 63, no. 2 (8 March 2019) : 310–21, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqz002. For the scholarly discussion of supplier competition in the nuclear market, see, for instance, Joseph S. Nye, ‘Maintaining a Nonproliferation Regime’, International Organization, 35, no. 1 (1981) : 15–38, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706554 ; Robert Boardman and James F. Keeley, Nuclear Exports and World Politics : Policy and Regime (London – Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1983) ; William C. Potter, International Nuclear Trade and Nonproliferation : The Challenge of the Emerging Suppliers (Los Angeles : Lexington Books, 1990) ; Sungyeol Choi and Il Soon Hwang, “Effects of Nuclear Technology Export Competition on Nuclear Nonproliferation,” The Nonproliferation Review, 22, no. 3–4 (2 October 2015) : 341–59, https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2016.1154267.

103 Informacija o mogućnosti proizvodnje nuklearnog oružja [Information on the possibility of producing nuclear weapons], 22 May 1961, A/EV. br. 6, Box 1, Strogo poverljiva arhiva 1957‑1979, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

104 Između Ambicija i Iluzija : Nuklearna Politika Jugoslavije : 1945‑1990, 426–29.

105 William C. Potter, Djuro Miljanic, and Ivo Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 56, no. 2 (1 March 2000) : 65.

106 Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy.” For future reference, Marko Miljković, a PhD student at the Central European University in Budapest, is writing a dissertation on the Yugoslav nuclear military program (dissertation title : Tito’s Proliferation Puzzle : The Yugoslav Nuclear Program, 1948–1970).

107 Hymans, “Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation : Theory and a Case Study of Tito’s Yugoslavia,” 89 ; Koch, “Yugoslavia’s Nuclear Legacy : Should We Worry ?,” 124.

108 Hymans, “Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation : Theory and a Case Study of Tito’s Yugoslavia,” 89.

109 “Potpredsjednik Republike Aleksandar Ranković primio Glena Siborga, predsjednika Atomske komisije SAD [The Vice President of the Republic, Aleksandar Ranković, Receives Glenn Seaborg, President of the US Atomic Commission],” Borba, 22 September 1963.

110 Pro memoria o razgovoru sa predstavnicima Američke ambasade iz Beograda [Pro memoria of the meeting with representatives of the US Embassy in Belgrade], 8 August 1963, SAD 1963, Files 1565, Box 438, Međunarodna saradnja ‑ Bilateralna saradnja SKNE, SAD 1955‑1964, SKNE, RG 177, AY.

111 “Otvorena izložba ‘Atom na djelu’ [Opening of the ‘Atom in Action’ Exhibition],” Vjesnik, 22 September 1963.

112 “Najkompletnija izložba SSSR‑a [The Most Complete Exhibition of the USSR],” Vjesnik, 22 September 1963.

113 If Yugoslav diplomats interpreted Yugoslav openness as the “starting grid’ of Yugoslav exceptionalism, in many notable studies on Yugoslav history, scholars have used the Yugoslav “exceptionalist model” to comprehend its frontier position between East and West, capitalism and communism. By unifying two opposite qualities of the Yugoslav regime, symbolically appertaining to both the capitalist and the communist ideology, they enhance the idea of a Yugoslav oxymoron. Studies in this vein are, for instance : P.H. Patterson and I. Duda on the socialist consumer and societal well‑being ; H. Grandits and K. Taylor on the ideological role of mass, Western‑like tourism in shaping the Yugoslav worker ; T. Jakovina on the Yugoslav nation‑building process on “American grain” ; and R. Vučetić on the “American dream in the Yugoslav way” (Patrick H. Patterson, Bought and Sold : Living and Losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia (Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2011) ; Igor Duda, U potrazi za blagostanjem : o povijesti dokolice i potrošačkog društva u Hrvatskoj 1950 ‑ ih i 1960 ‑ ih [In Search of Prosperity : On the History of Leisure and Consumer Society in Croatia in the 1950s and 1960s], 2nd ed. (Zagreb : Srednja Europa, 2014) ; Hannes Grandits and Karin Taylor, eds., Yugoslavia’s Sunny Side. A History of Tourism in Socialism (1950s–1980s) (Budapest ; New York : Central European University Press, 2010) ; Jakovina, Socijalizam na američkoj pšenici ; Radina Vučetić, Koka‑kola socijalizam. Amerikanizacija jugoslavenske popularne kulture šezdesetih godina XX veka [Coca‑Cola Socialism. Americanization of Yugoslav Popular Culture in the 1960s] (Beograd : Službeni glasnik, 2012).)

114 Carla Konta, U.S. Public Diplomacy in Socialist Yugoslavia, 1950–70 : Soft Culture, Cold Partners (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2020).

115 Gabrielle Hecht, Entangled Geographies : Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War (Cambridge : MIT Press, 2011) ; Gabrielle Hecht, Being Nuclear : Africans and the Global Uranium Trade (Cambridge : MIT Press, 2012) ; Sonia Schmid, “Nuclear Colonization ? Soviet Technopolitics in the Second World,” in Gabrielle Hecht, ed, Entangled Geographies : Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War (Cambridge : MIT Press, 2011), 125–54 ; Holloway, “The Soviet Union and the Creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency” ; Roehrlich, “The Cold War, the Developing World, and the Creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1953‑1957” ; Elisabetta Bini and Igor Londero, Nuclear Italy : An International History of Italian Nuclear Policies During the Cold War (Trieste : EUT, Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2017).

116 Arnold Buchholz, “The Role of the Scientific‑Technological Revolution in Marxism‑Leninism,” Studies in Soviet Thought, 20, 2 (1979) : 145, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20098874.

117 Gheorghe, “Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market.”

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Carla Konta, « Yugoslav Nuclear Diplomacy between the Soviet Union and the United States in the Early and Mid‑Cold War »Cahiers du monde russe, 60/2-3 | 2019, 417-440.

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Carla Konta, « Yugoslav Nuclear Diplomacy between the Soviet Union and the United States in the Early and Mid‑Cold War »Cahiers du monde russe [En ligne], 60/2-3 | 2019, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2023, consulté le 28 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/11239 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/monderusse.11239

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Auteur

Carla Konta

University of Rijeka, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, ckonta@uniri.hr

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Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés), sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

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