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Experience shows that a strategy of simply denying U.S. nuclear exports to countries that refuse to accept full-scope safeguards is not very satisfactory. Soon after the nonproliferation act was passed by Congress, for example, some U.S. legislators demanded that the Administration suspend a contract to supply fuel to India's two U.S.-built Tarapur power reactors. The installation has been governed by international safeguards since 1963, but India refuses to accept the principle of all-embracing inspection. In retaliation for the U.S. pressure, New Delhi warned that it would void the existing Tarapur safeguards agreement. If carried out, that action would have totally removed the complex from all outside control, and would have set a bad precedent for the nonproliferation system.
Faced with that possibility, President Carter used discretionary authority to override Congress. After Ronald Reagan took office, the Administration arranged to have France take over the U.S. fuel-supply contract, thus . maintaining the integrity of the Tarapur safeguards, at least until the original supply agreement expires in 1993. Similar efforts were undertaken by the White House to avoid confrontations with Brazil and South Africa on long- standing nuclear-fuel agreements. Without such efforts, the nonproliferation system might be in worse trouble today. Says an official of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency: "Safeguards work when there is a cooperative effort to maintain them. When the relationship is adversarial, they don't work as well."
In the export area, the Reagan Administration can claim that its cooperative approach has achieved mild success. Last year South Africa assured Washington that it would administer its nuclear program in line with the "spirit, principles and goals" that underpin the nuclear suppliers' trigger list. The Pretoria government promised that it would not supply nuclear technology, materials or equipment to any other country without International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards or the equivalent provided by the European atomic community, known as EURATOM.
Existing nonproliferation controls should not be abandoned just because they have been less than 100% effective. Seen against the predictions of 20 years ago, the fact that so few phantom proliferators exist today is, as France's Goldschmidt puts it, "a miracle." The nonproliferation treaty and the safeguards system still provide a vital framework for preserving the miracle. It is significant that the countries considered to be the greatest proliferation risks today are those that refuse to sign the treaty. That is proof, says Proliferation Expert Van Doren, that "most countries have some respect for their commitments." Says Herbert Kouts, chairman of the department of nuclear energy at New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory: "I am convinced that without the treaty and the agency, a multitude of nations would have gone nuclear by now. The nonproliferation safeguards have been as effective as we hoped they would be."