Exploring The United States And The Establishment Of The European Atomic Energy Community

From World Warâ…¡to the present, the process of European integration is deeply developed:the western six-country developed from the initial European Coal and Steel Community to the European Community, progressively developed into a range of 27 countries covering Europe and the EU has become the world's highest level of regional integration organizations. As we known that, the period of 1950s was the beginning of the European integration and the United States as a non-European countries played a great pushing role in the reconstruction of Europe at this stage.This thesis explores how and why the U.S. supported the European Atomic Energy Community(EURATOM) during early 1950s in the context of the U.S. nuclear policy and security considerations after World Warâ…¡and whether American goal had been achieved in some extent finally; conversely, how the U.S. and Europe were influenced after the establishment of the EURATOM. Thus we can get a thorough grasp of the U.S. as the essential external factor to the establishment of the EURATOM on the whole.This thesis is divided into four parts:The first part concentrates on the background that the EURATOM was proposed as well as the initial reaction of the U.S. and six Western European countries. Western European countries were looking forward to the U.S. attitude while the U.S. did not express any attitude at this stage. The second part describes that the U.S. settled the differences between the views of the generalists in the State Department and the nuclear specialists in the Atomic Energy commission, compelled the Britain get rid of the idea of obstructing the establishment of the EURATOM through positive personal diplomacy. The U.S. made close connections with western European countries while did not made public comments. The third part is the key point of the thesis and mainly analyzes the United States began an overall effort to the establishment of the European Atomic Energy and took the initiative at the crucial moment. The U.S. was busy coordinating the conflict between France and Germany hoping that France and Germany would make concessions to each other during the Brussels meeting and the Venice meeting and the Paris Meeting. In the finally decisive stage of the negotiations, the U.S. began to positively act and warmly invited the "three wise men" to visit the United States, eventually facilitated the establishment of the EURATOM. The fourth part explores the influence of the European Atomic Energy Community on the U.S. and Western Europe as well as in what extent the American goal had been achieved finally.Due to the research of the stages that the EURATOM established, the author finds that though the EURATOM is a real European institution, but the United States gave great support to the establishment. But for the promotion of the U.S., the obstruction presented by the Britain and the conflict between France and Germany would made the negotiations a long time and the anticipation of peaceful use of atom never came. Meanwhile, the author finds that the supporting to the establishment of the EURATOM was closely connected with the U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy. The U.S. nuclear policy had to adjust for the establishment of the EURATOM, but it was just the adjustment that defended the nuclear nonproliferation policy in case of nuclear proliferation to a large extent. The analyses of the establishment of the EURATOM also have practical significance to the peaceful use of atomic energy and nuclear nonproliferation.