Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:26:14.716Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Les liaisons dangereuses: resource surveillance, uranium diplomacy and secret French–American collaboration in 1950s Morocco

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2015

MATTHEW ADAMSON
MATTHEW ADAMSON*
Affiliation:
McDaniel College, Budapest Campus Bethlen Gábor tér 2, 1071 Budapest, Hungary. Email: mhadamson@mcdaniel.hu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study explores the origins and consequences of a unique, secret, French–American collaboration to prospect for uranium in 1950s Morocco. This collaboration permitted mediation between the United States and France. The appearance of France in an American-supported project for raw nuclear materials signalled American willingness to accept a new nuclear global order in which the French assumed a new, higher position as regional nuclear ally as opposed to suspicious rival. This collaboration also permitted France and the United States to agree tacitly to the same geopolitical status for the French Moroccan Protectorate, a status under dispute both in Morocco and outside it. The secret scientific effort reassured the French that, whatever the Americans might say publicly, they stood behind the maintenance of French hegemony in the centuries-old kingdom. But Moroccan independence proved impossible to deny. With its foreseeable arrival, the collaboration went from seductive to dangerous, and the priority of American and French geologists shifted from finding a major uranium lode to making sure that nothing was readily available to whatever post-independence interests might prove most powerful. Ultimately, the Kingdom of Morocco took a page out of the French book, using uranium exploration to assert sovereignty over a different disputed territory, its de facto colony of the Western Sahara.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 79 - 105
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Abraham, Itty, ‘The ambivalence of nuclear histories’, Osiris (2006) 21, pp. 49–65Google Scholar.

2 John Helmreich, Gathering Rare Ores, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Gabrielle Hecht, Being Nuclear, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.

3 Dennis, Michael Aaron, ‘Earthly matters: on the Cold War and the earth sciences’, Social Studies of Science (2003) 33(5), pp. 809–819CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 809. Examples of Cold War earth science histories can be found in Simone Turchetti and Peder Roberts (eds.), The Surveillance Imperative, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. The development of uranium geology in particular in the early Cold War was prodigious: geologists gained a complex understanding of the origins and locations of the element, mineralogists discovered dozens of new uranium minerals, and mining engineers arrived at numerous methods for concentrating and treating a host of uranium ores. For more on how advances in geosciences as stimulated by nuclear programmes affected Western European geopolitics see Matthew Adamson, Lino Camprubí and Simone Turchetti, ‘From the ground up: uranium surveillance and atomic energy in Western Europe, 1945–1960’, in Turchetti and Roberts, op. cit., pp. 23–44.

4 Doel, Ronald E., ‘Constituting the postwar earth sciences: the military's influence on the environmental sciences in the USA after 1945’, Social Studies of Science (2003) 33(5), pp. 635–666Google Scholar, 636. For a suggestive essay on how scientists served as diplomats and intelligence agents see Doel, ‘Scientists as policymakers, advisors, and intelligence agents: linking contemporary diplomatic history with the history of’, in Thomas Söderqvist (ed.), The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology, 1997, pp. 215–244. For French uranium prospecting see Antoine Paucard, La mine et les mineurs de l'uranium français, 3 vols., Paris: Editions Thierry Parquet, 1992–1996; and the works of Pierre-Christian Guiollard et al. (All Editions Pierre-Christian Guiollard), 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, and 2005.

5 Krige, John, ‘Hybrid knowledge: the transnational co-production of the gas centrifuge for uranium enrichment in the 1960s’, BJHS (2012) 45, pp. 337–357CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 John Krige, ‘Embedding the national in the global: US–French relationships in space science and rocketry in the 1960s’, in Naomi Oreskes and John Krige (eds.), Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2014, pp. 227–250, 228–229.

7 Connelly, Matthew, ‘The French–American conflict over North Africa and the fall of the Fourth Republic’, Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer (1997) 84(315), pp. 9–27Google Scholar. Samya El Machat, Les Etats-Unis et le Maroc: Le choix stratégique, 1945–1959, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1996. For analysis of the US–French ‘cold alliance’ see Frank Costigliola, France and the United States: The Cold Alliance since World War II, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1992.

8 Although I do not wish to make this an actor-network theory analysis, the allusion to microbes in Latour's Pasteurization of France is inescapable. See Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France (tr. Alan Sheridan and John Law), Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1988.

9 Peter Galison notes that subjective secrets, though shorter-lived than objective secrets, in all likelihood far outnumber objective secrets and constitute the bulk of state secrecy. Galison, Peter, ‘Removing knowledge’, Critical Inquiry (2004) 31, pp. 229–243CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Zoubir, Yahia H., ‘The United States, the Soviet Union and decolonization of the Maghreb’, Middle Eastern Studies (1995) 31(1), pp. 58–84Google Scholar, 62. As Edward Said has noted, the sort of geography as imagined by the French and the Americans does not require that the natives acknowledge or even be aware of the distinctions created by the colonial powers – precisely the point of SOMAREM's secrecy. Edward Said, Orientalism, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978, p. 54.

11 Documents on the SOMAREM episode are available in the US National Archives and Records Administration, especially in folders of the correspondence of Special Assistant for Atomic Affairs to the Secretary of State and the Paris embassy, as well as somewhat similar documents at the Archives diplomatiques (La Courneuve), which provide us with the perspective of the Quai d'Orsay. Finally, in the archives of the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique, one finds copious documentation of SOMAREM's operations as a registered private enterprise.

12 In fact, by the end of the summer, two separate missions had been sent to la grande île, one to meet old radium producers, the other to chart the island's uranium minerals. Antoine Paucard, La mine et les mineurs de l'uranium français, vol. 1, Les temps légendaires, Paris: Editions Thierry Parquet, 1992, p. 153.

13 The agreement, however, led to headaches. The Portuguese delayed the granting of shipping licenses, demanded post facto taxes, and in the end delivered ores to France that turned out to be difficult to process, convincing the French to halt purchases. For details, see the Procès verbaux du CoEA, 7 June 1949 and 19–21 September 1949, CEA, as well as ‘Discussion with Mr. Robert Terrill, Deputy Counselor for Economic Affairs, US Embassy/Paris, on April 10 1952, on Status of the French CEA’, dated 28 April 1952, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (subsequently NARA), RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.33, France e. General, 1951–1952, 2 of 2; and Antoine Paucard et al., La mine et les mineurs de l'uranium français, tome IV, vol. 1, Paris: Areva, 2007, p. 525.

14 The French army chief of staff told the Paris embassy's attaché about the La Crouzille deposit. Military attaché, Paris, to Department of the Army, Washington, 23 February 1949, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.33, France e. General, 1945–1950. More channels with more information followed.

15 Bertrand Goldschmidt, The Atomic Complex: A Worldwide Political History of Nuclear Energy (tr. Bruce M. Adkins), La Grange Park, IL: American Nuclear Society, 1982, pp. 250–251.

16 Henry Lowenhaupt, ‘Subject: review of the French atomic energy development’, 25 July 1946, NARA, RG 77, Entry 22, Box 173. Bain is mentioned as a source in Lowenhaupt's footnotes.

17 Camille Arambourg and Jean Orcel, ‘Observations préliminaries sur la presence d'un vanadate d'urane dans les gisements de phosphates du Maroc’, Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences (July–December 1951) 233, pp. 1635–1636, originally deposited as a secret document in September 1945. See also Jean Orcel, ‘Exposé sur les ressources en minerais d'uranium de la France et de son empire’, 21 August 1945, and the note appended, ‘Note complimentaire sur les ressources des colonies françaises en mineraux uranifères’, Classeur non-classé entitré ‘Documents pour mes notices sur F. et I. Joliot-Curie (publiée dans La Pensée)’, Dossier ‘Lettres à Joliot-Curie pour l'organisation des recherches d'uranium, 1945–’, Orcel Collection, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle.

18 Benjamin Rivkin characterizes Morocco's ambiguous post-war status: ‘Juridically, Morocco represented an anomaly. It was not a colony but a sovereign entity; although sovereign it was not independent; and although it was a French dependency, it was not part of the French Union. This anomalous character was unsatisfactory to all concerned. Both the French and the Moroccans wanted it removed – but each in a different way.’ Rivkin, Benjamin, ‘The United States and Moroccan international status, 1943–1956: a contributory factor in Morocco's reassertion of independence from France’, International Journal of African Historical Studies (1982) 15(1), pp. 64–82Google Scholar, 69.

19 The Bureau de recherches et de participations minières (BRPM) aided mineral exploration programmes and often took a stake in mining operations. The geological office of the Service des mines had mapped the protectorate during the 1930s and oversaw the granting of research and mining permits. (A glance at the Notes et mémoires du Service des mines du Maroc provides a year-by-year exposé of the important geological research by this office before and after the war.) The Office chérifien des phosphates (OCP) possessed a powerful monopoly on exploration and mining of phosphates. A new post-war entrant, the Bureau de recherches de pétrole (BRP), explored Morocco and the rest of North Africa for oil. Finally, hovering above these agencies was the French Residence-General, overseeing and coordinating the economic affairs of the protectorate with input from the Quai d'Orsay.

20 See Lucius to Schuman, 16 October 1948; Jay H. Ennis, Beckman Instruments, to the BRPM, October 1948; Alphone Juin (resident-general) to Schuman, 23 October 1948; Henri Bonnet to Schuman, 11 January 1949. All in Archives diplomatiques, La Courneuve (subsequently AD), Maroc 1944–1955, 422. In fact, the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, intervened personally to persuade the Americans to grant the export licenses, at the beginning of 1949.

21 See many examples of the difficulties of mining and getting to port cobalt, zinc, lead, molybdenum and so on in Archives diplomatiques, Maroc 1944–1955, 422. For Morocco's most significant mineral resource of all, its phosphates, see Lino Camprubí, ‘Resource geopolitics: Cold War technologies, global fertilizer, and the fate of Western Sahara’, Technology and Culture (forthcoming).

22 Marion Carson, colonel, GSC and military attaché in Tangier, to the director of intelligence, WDGS in Washington, 27 March 1947, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

23 Mission de l'ECA au Maroc, 24 June 1949, AD, Maroc 1944–1955, 423.

24 For the CPA policy the best source is still Helmreich, op. cit. (2). For ECA aid to the Société minière Bouazzer (l'Omnium Nord-Africain) and cobalt export to the United States see Azzou, El Mustafa, ‘Les hommes d'affaires américains au Maroc avant 1956’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains (1995) 180, pp. 131–143Google Scholar, 138–139.

25 See Roubault to Dautry, 14 April 1950, and Roubault to Dautry, 24 October 1950 (Roubault quotes Lenoble's letter here), CEA, FAR-2006-10-12.

26 Frank Woods McQuiston Jr, ‘Metallurgist for Newmont Mining Corporation and US Atomic Energy Commission, 1934–1982’, an oral history conducted in 1986 and 1987 by Eleanor Swent, Regional Oral History Office, the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1989.

27 Frank McQuiston, memorandum entitled ‘Moroccan uranium’, dated 3 July 1950, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.34, France – Colonies. McQuiston to Jesse Johnson (USAEC), 25 May 1951, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

28 Note that since his participation in the ECA mission, Bandy had filed a longer report on Bou Azzer with increased estimates of the brannerite available, five hundred to five thousand tons. Mark C. Bandy, Strategic Materials and Non-ferrous Metals Section, to Robert Terrill, ‘Report on the occurrence of radioactive material Bou Azzer Morocco’, 2 September 1950, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General 1946–1952.

29 Terrill to Arneson, 7 September 1950 and Paris embassy to Secretary of State, Washington, DC, 16 November 1950, RG 59, Box 5353, Folder 2.

30 Jesse Johnson to Gordon Arneson, 24 July 1950, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.34, France – Colonies. Arneson to Terrill, 13 April 1951, and Terrill to Arneson, 26 April 1951, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General 1946–1952.

31 For ‘Friendly silence’ see Robert Terrill to Gordon Arneson, 23 July 1951, and Arneson's reply to Terrill, 5 September 1951, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.33, France e. General 1951–1952, 1 of 2. For more on the French–Indian agreement see Helmreich, op. cit. (2), p. 170; and Goldschmidt, op. cit. (15), p. 311. A note from the Service de coopération économique of the Direction générale des affaires économiques and financières, 13 March 1953, identifies the exact date of the agreement to export beryl as 14 September 1951. AD, Maroc 1944–1955, 425. See also Procès verbaux du Comité de l’énergie atomique, 27 September 1950 and 20 June 1951, CEA; and Helmreich, op. cit. (2), pp. 181–182. The agreement was in a sense an exchange, as the mine at Zenega providing the beryl would receive much-needed ECA counterpart funds.

32 Both Zoubir, op. cit. (10), and Connelly, op. cit. (7), stress how carefully the United States tread for fear that a move in Morocco might destabilize the Fourth Republic.

33 Arneson to Terrill, 2 July 1951, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

34 Terrill to Arneson, 10 July 1951, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.33, France e. General 1951–1952, 1 of 2.

35 Press rumors described by John Madonne (Consul General, Casablanca) to Washington, air pouch, 26 June 1951, letter to Truman reported by Acheson to Madonne, 12 September 1951, NARA, RG 59, Box 5353, Folder 2.

36 Memorandum of Conversation, 17 July 1951, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

37 Sangmuah, Egya N., ‘Sultan Mohammed ben Youssef's American strategy and the diplomacy of North African liberation, 1943–1961’, Journal of Contemporary History (1992) 27(1), pp. 129–148Google Scholar, 138. See also Charles-André Julien, Le Maroc face aux impérialismes 1415–1956, Paris: Editions Jeune Afrique, 1978, p. 189.

38 Terrill to Arneson, summary of events, 28 December 1951, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.33, France e. General 1951–1952, 1 of 2.

39 The Americans might have been particularly alarmed by how wide-ranging the French researches were described as being, from the south slope of Atlas, to the Anti Atlas and Djebel Sghe, as well as investigation of several granite-bearing formations in other parts of the protectorate. Paris to Washington, Air Pouch, Despatch 973, 8 October 1951, Bruce to Washington, 13 November 1951, John H. Madonne to the Secretary of State, 1 February 1952, NARA, RG 59, Box 5353, Folder 2.

40 R.N. Slawson to Gordon Arneson, 3 January 1952, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952. CIA report, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder Intelligence Reports, 1952.

41 André Lenoble, Henri Salvan and Valéry Ziegler, ‘Découverte de l'uranium dans les niveaux phosphatés du Maroc’, Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences (January–June 1952) 234, pp. 976–977; Valéry Ziegler, Charles Bizard, Pierre Bourrieau and Paul Frehring, ‘Sur la présence de scheelite et d'or natif et leurs modes de gisement, dans la bordure orientale du massif granite-dioritique du Tichka (Haut-Atlas, Maroc)’, Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences (January–June 1952) 234, pp. 862–865; Antoine A. Guntz, ‘Sur la présence d'uranium dans les phosphates nord-africains’, Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences (January–June 1952) 234, pp. 868–870.

42 Terrill to Arneson, 5 February 1952, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.33, France e. General 1951–1952, 1 of 2. Terrill to Arneson, 27 February 1952, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

43 Helmreich, op. cit. (2), pp. 225–226.

44 Procès verbal du Comité de l’énergie atomique, 8 November 1951, CEA.

45 James Dunn to Robert Schuman, 15 April 1952, AD, Maroc 1956–1968, 419.

46 The French were also impressed to hear how much uranium the US would consider purchasing: at minimum two million dollars' worth, when the entire DREM budget was approximately three million. Terrill to Arneson, 25 April 1952, NARA, RG 59, Box 47, Folder 21.33, France e. General, 1951–1952, 2 of 2.

47 For questions prepared for the 23 April meeting see ‘Questions à poser le 23 avril 1952’ (undated). For Foreign Office internal summary of stakes see Note, 1 April 1952. For report of meeting to Schuman see Note pour le Président Schuman, 5 May 1952. All documents in AD, Maroc 1956–1968, 419. Notably, the French showed a similar concern about American encroachment in the process of building the air force bases; the French insisted on strict limits to the number of American workers permitted in the protectorate, which Leon Blair claims raised costs and time of construction. Leon Blair, Western Window in the Arab World, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970, 148–150.

48 Azzou, El-Moustafa, ‘Le Sultan Mohammed Ben Youssef et les américains (1945–1961)’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains (2004) 214, pp. 137–142Google Scholar, 139.

49 Goldschmidt assured the Americans in Paris that the IJC decision was ‘sufficiently satisfactory’. Terrill to Arneson, 29 August 1952, NARA, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

50 John Hall to Gordon Arneson, 7 November 1952, NARA, RG 59, Box 5, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

51 John Hall to Gordon Arneson, 15 July 1952, and Howard Robinson to Gordon Arneson, 29 August 1952, NARA, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

52 Arneson to Robinson, reporting on conversation with Perrin, Goldschmidt, Johnson and Hall in Washington, 12 September 1952, NARA, Box 47, Folder 21.33, France e. General 1951–1952.

53 ‘Accord établissant les bases d'une collaboration en vue de la prospection et de l'extraction éventuelle d'uranium au Maroc’, 2 March 1953, AD, Maroc 1956–1968, 419. For the American perspective see Gordon Arneson, ‘Note for the Secretary of State’, 12 March 1953, NARA, RG 59, Box 510, Folder 21.62, Country File Morocco b. General, 1953–1955.

54 Robinson to Arneson, 10 January 1953, NARA, Box 510, Folder 21.62, Country File Morocco b. General, 1953–1955.

55 Bulletin officiel (29 May 1953) 21–18.

56 See CEA, FAR-2006-10-1. Some 2,590 of SOMAREM's shares (five thousand francs per share) were held by the CEA – just over two-thirds. The OCP claimed 680, the BRPM 670. The rest were distributed at ten shares per person among six people: five CEA administrators and one BRPM administrator.

57 Robinson to Arneson, 8 May 1953, NARA, RG 59, Box 510, Folder 21.62, Country File Morocco b. General, 1953–1955.

58 Jacques de Courlon, ‘Note pour M. Asty’, 22 December 1952, CEA, FAR-2006-10-7.

59 Blair, op. cit. (47), 147.

60 Here Vermeir and Margócsy's call to consider not secrets but secrecy and its effect ‘on practices of inclusion, exclusion and group formation’ extends scientific affairs to geopolitical ones. Vermeir, Koen and Margócsy, Daniel, ‘States of secrecy’, BJHS (2012) 45(2), pp. 153–164Google Scholar.

61 Bizard, Charles, ‘Précisions sur les caractères de sedimentation des niveaux phosphatés et leur relation avec la radioactivité dans le gisement des Ouled Abdoun (Maroc central)’, Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des sciences (January–June 1953) 236, pp. 1587–1589Google Scholar. See also Rapport annuel, 1952, p. 23, CEA. Bizard was a CEA geologist.

62 John Hall to Gordon Arneson, 19 September 1952, NARA, RG 59, Box 51, Folder Morocco b. General, 1946–1952.

63 Susan Gilson Miller, A History of Modern Morocco, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 151.

64 Sangmuah, op. cit. (37), pp. 129–148, 141–142. Dulles quoted in Zoubir, op. cit. (10), p. 63.

65 Organizational charts, CEA, FAR-2006-10-9. Howard Robinson, memo concerning the meeting of 9 April 1953, NARA, RG 59, Box 510, Folder 21.62, Country File Morocco b. General, 1952–1955.

66 See Compte rendu du Conseil d'administration de l'Assemblée générale annuel des actionnaires, SOMAREM, 15 May 1954, CEA, FAR-2006-10-4, as well as organizational charts, CEA, FAR-2006-10-9.

67 Organizational chart 2, CEA, FAR-2006-10-9. Foote's published work included ‘Airborne exploration for uranium’, Mines Magazine (October 1954) 44, pp. 31–32; ‘How geophysics helps find uranium’, Engineering and Mining Journal (September 1954) 155, pp. 96–97; ‘A small bore scintillation gamma logging unit for detecting uranium in sedimentary rocks [abs.]’, Mining Geology Geophysics Division Annual Meeting (February 1953), p. 6. Beall, John, ‘Phosphate rock in the United States’, Phosphate and potash – Minerals to Feed the World: Mining Engineering (1966) 18, pp. 80–99Google Scholar.

68 After the head of the DREM, Jacques Mabile, was received by his American counterparts, two other top CEA officials enjoyed similar edifying tours: Jacques Yvon, reactor specialist, and Pierre Taranger, Pierre Guillaumat's right-hand man responsible for industrial development. As for the French nuclear geologists, they came away from their travels with a better understanding of the uses of aerial radioprospection, and a keener appreciation for private prospection efforts. Antoine Paucard, La mine et les mineurs de l'uranium français, vol. 2, Les temps des conquêtes, Paris: Editions Thierry Parquet, 1994, p. 73. According to Paucard, the technical lessons also included an appreciation for the need for lighter and more sensitive and rapid-reading Geiger counters and scintillometers. This is something, however, that CEA prospectors must surely have sensed and would not need to have learned abroad.

69 See CEA, FAR-2006-10-8, for announcement, including conditions and prices offered.

70 Rapport du Conseil d'adminstration à l'Assemblée générale ordinaire annuelle tenue en juin 1955, CEA, FAR-2006-10-4.

71 Robert D. Nininger, Minerals for Atomic Energy, New York: Van Nostrand, 1954, p. 146.

72 Procès verbal du Conseil d'administration, 20 April 1955, CEA, FAR-2006-10-2; and Rapport du Conseil d'adminstration à l'Assemblée générale ordinaire annuelle tenue en juin 1955, CEA, FAR-2006-10-4.

73 Secretary of State to the United States Mission at the United Nations to Washington, 11 December 1954, NARA–FRUS, vol. XI, Morocco, p. 662.

74 Helmreich, op. cit. (2), 226. See also Adamson, Camprubí and Turchetti, op. cit. (3).

75 Projet du Rapport du Conseil d'administration à l'Assemblée générale ordinaire du juin 1956, 18 April 1956, CEA, FAR-2006-10-4. Ultimately, SOMAREM's only production consisted of a few dozen tonnes of uranium oxides from the beleaguered Azegour mine, all of it sent to France. Projet du Rapport du Conseil d'administration à l'Assemblée générale ordinaire du juin 1956, 18 April 1956, CEA, FAR-2006-10-4.

76 Connelly, Matthew, ‘Taking off the Cold War lens: visions of North–South conflict during the Algerian War of Independence’, American Historical Review (2000) 105(3), pp. 739–769Google Scholar, 756.

77 See, for example, Consul at Rabat (Porter) to the Department of State, 25 October 1954, NARA–FRUS, vol. XI, Morocco, pp. 658–659.

78 Guillaumat to Vergne, 11 February 1955, CEA, FAR-2006-10-7.

79 Projet du Rapport du Conseil d'administration à l'Assemblée générale ordinaire du juin 1956, 18 April 1956, CEA, FAR-2006-10-4. See also Procès-verbal du Conseil d'administration, 2 December 1955, CEA, FAR-2006-10-2.

80 See administrator-director of the Bureau de recherches et de participations minières (BRPM) to Guillaumat, 15 April 1955, AN, Maroc 1956–1968, 419. One wonders if the American agent detected by the French intelligence service, reported to be ‘Robert Christofer [sic], born January 1, 1924’, was not Robert C. Christopher, Time correspondent in Rome and North Africa during the 1950s. For more on the geopolitical implications of pursuing and distributing mineral research permits in North Africa see Roberto Cantoni, ‘Oily deals: exploration, diplomacy and security in early Cold War France and Italy’, PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 2014.

81 Azzou, El-Mostafa, ‘Les relations entre le Maroc et les Etats-Unis: Regards sur la période 1943–1970’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains (2006) 221, pp. 105–116Google Scholar, 108.

82 It is interesting to note that since the late 1950s Morocco has been the recipient of more American aid than any other Middle Eastern country except Egypt and Israel. Yahia H. Zoubir, ‘The U.S. and Morocco’, in Robert Looney (ed.), Handbook of US–Middle East Relations, London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 237–248, 238.

83 The former diplomat was Kenneth Pendar, a vice-consul in Morocco during the war, well known for helping to arrange the ceasefire between the French forces and Allied forces during the Torch landings. Note pour le Secrétaire général, from the Direction générale, Affaires marocaines et tunisiennes, Secrétariat d’état, 5 April 1956, AD, Maroc 1956–1968, 419.

84 Rabat to Paris, telegram, 5 July 1956, AD, Maroc 1956–1968, 419.

85 Note pour le Secrétaire d’état, from the office of the Secrétaire d’état aux Affaires etrangères chargé des affaires marocaines et tunisiennes, sous-direction du Maroc, 13 October 1956, AD, Maroc 1956–1968, 419.

86 Exercise 1956, Rapport du Conseil à l'Assemblée générale, undated, summer 1956, CEA, FAR-2006-10-4. See also Mabile to J. Robelin, Chef du Service administratif et financier of the DREM, 22 May 1956, CEA, FAR-2006-10-4.

87 Guillaumat to the Secrétaire d’état aux affaires etrangères chargé des affaires marocaines et tunisiennes, 27 July 1956, AD, Maroc 1956–1968, 419.

88 Antoine Paucard, La mine et les mineurs de l'uranium français, vol. 3, Les temps des grandes aventures, Paris: Editions Thierry Parquet, 1996, p. 241–247.

89 A 1970 US Defense Department study noted that lifting secrecy in a given technological field often had the effect of stimulating the field's advance – citing Atoms for Peace and civilian nuclear power as one such example. Steven Aftergood, ‘Government secrecy and knowledge production: a survey of some general issues’, in Judith Reppy, ed., Secrecy and Knowledge Production, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Peace Studies Program, 1999, pp. 17–29, 26.

90 The Moroccan minister of higher education and scientific research announced that from 2015 the OCP will be producing uranium from phosphates in cooperation with Areva. There is no confirmation that such production has started. Adam Sfali, ‘Lahcen Daoudi: Le Maroc produira de l'uranium à partir de 2015’, 29 November 2013, at www.lemag.ma/Lahcen-Daoudi-Le-Maroc-produira-de-l-Uranium-a-partir-de-2015_a77621.html, accessed 12 July 2015.

91 ‘Uranium prospects in Morocco’, Bureau des hydrocarbures et des mines, 2011, at www.onhym.com/ONHYM/pdf/ANG/promotion%20sheets/Uranium%20in%20Morocco_English_Nov%202011.pdf, accessed 13 August 2012. The link has recently disappeared, but one can still find on the ONHYM website encouragement to prospect in the ‘southern provinces’ not only for uranium, but for niobium, tantalum, iron and rare earths. For a recent brochure promoting uranium exploration in the disputed territory see www.onhym.com/pdf/promotion/Uranium%20Provinces%20du%20Sud_Janvier%202015.pdf, accessed 12 July 2015.

92 Nielsen and Knudsen note how Danish scientists' prospection for uranium in Greenland was an expression of Denmark's sovereignty there. See Nielsen, Henry and Knudsen, Henrik, ‘Too hot to handle: the controversial hunt for uranium in Greenland in the early Cold War’, Centaurus (August 2013) 55, pp. 319–343CrossRefGoogle Scholar.