Statement by the President Regarding a Request for Supplemental Appropriations for the Atomic Energy Commission.

I HAVE today transmitted to the Congress a supplemental appropriation request for the Atomic Energy Commission for fiscal year 1951 in the amount of $260 million, to enable the Commission to build additional and more efficient plants and related facilities required in furtherance of my Directive of January 31, 1950. That directive called upon the Commission to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the hydrogen or fusion bomb. These additional plants, like the existing facilities, will provide materials which can be used either for weapons or for fuels potentially useful for power purposes. The plants will be of advanced design, and their operation will provide new knowledge that will speed the progress of the atomic energy program. In this new undertaking, the Atomic Energy Commission has my complete confidence, based upon the able and vigorous leadership which it has given to the atomic energy program in the past. We shall, moreover, continue to depend heavily upon the ingenuity and cooperation of American industry.

The expansion in the scope of our atomic energy program gives added emphasis to the fact that atomic energy has great potentialities both for destruction and for the benefit of mankind. From the very outset we have stood, and we continue to stand, firm in our desire for effective international control of atomic energy to insure its use for peaceful purposes only. This is a fundamental objective to which this Government and the vast majority of the United Nations have committed their best efforts. Agreement on this goal would make the facilities of our atomic energy enterprise fully available for peaceful purposes. Until this objective is achieved, however, we must strengthen our own defenses by providing the necessary atomic energy production capacity.