The origins of the Brazilian nuclear programme, 1951–1955

Abstract

In the early years of the atomic era, several developing countries attempted to establish a nuclear programme, yet Brazil's case is less well-known. As new documents show, from 1951 Brazil aimed to acquire the nuclear fuel cycle capability in spite of legislation imposed by the United States to limit the emergence of new nuclear powers. This article will analyse the origins of the Brazilian nuclear programme from 1951 to 1955 and will explore its cooperation in the atomic field with international partners.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ryan Berger, Mara Drogan, Rogério de Souza Farias, William Glenn Gray, Jacques Hymans, Lee Mackey, Mary McPartland, Nuno Monteiro, Alexandre Moreli, Leopoldo Nuti, Matias Spektor, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Notes

¹ It is important to note that Brazil, a country rich in atomic minerals, received an important proposal of cooperation in April 1946 when a Dutch private company, the Technisch Bureau S.K.F. from Rijswijk, offered to sell nuclear power plants to Brazil. Memorandum from Ramiro Saraiva Guerreiro to the Head of the Political Division, 2 April 1946. 524.25. Diversos do Ministério. 136/4/10. Divisão Política. Informações e Relatórios. 1939–47. Arquivo Histórico do Ministério das Relações Exteriores – Rio de Janeiro [Hereafter AHMRE-RJ]. On the Indian and South African cases see, respectively: Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Postcolonial State (London: Zed Books, 1998); Anna-Mart Van Wyk, ‘Ally or Critic? The United States' Response to South African Nuclear Development, 1949–1980’, Cold War History 7, 2 (2007): 169–225.

² On the US nuclear nonproliferation policy at the beginning of the atomic age, see: Barton J. Bernstein, ‘The Quest for Security: American Foreign Policy and International Control of Atomic Energy, 1942–1946’, The Journal of American History, 60 (1974): 1003–1044; Shane J. Maddock, Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 47–80.

³ Jonathan E. Helmreich, Gathering Rare Ores. The Diplomacy of Uranium Acquisition, 1943–1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 49–57.

⁴ According to that principle, any exporting of minerals to the United States or other countries should be ‘compensated’ either through collaboration in geological prospecting on Brazilian soil, providing technical or scientific equipment, or training Brazilian personnel in important nuclear energy research centres outside Brazil.

⁵ Brazil's nuclear policy began on 20 January 1947, when the Brazilian National Security Council established the Commission for the Study and the Control of Strategic Minerals (Comissão de Estudos e Fiscalisação dos Minerais Estratégicos). For an account of the nuclear policies adopted in Brazil between 1947 and 1953, see: ‘From Caiado de Castro to Vargas. Relatório sobre a política governamental no setor da energia nuclear.’ E.M. 771. Secret. 25 November 1953. Energia Atômica. Tomo I. 1951/1953 Arquivo Histórico do Ministério das Relações Exteriores – Brasília [Hereafter AHMRE-B]. Ata da Décima Sessão do Conselho de Segurança Nacional. Secret. 27 August 1947 – Rio de Janeiro. Coleção Conselho de Segurança Nacional. Arquivo Nacional – Brasília. [Hereafter AN-B].

⁶ See the interview with José Israel Vargas, CPDOC-Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), 2010.

⁷ On the evolution of the scientific sector in Brazil see Prelu´dio para uma histo´ria: ciência e tecnologia no Brasil, ed. Shozo Motoyama, (São Paulo: Edusp, 2004).

⁸Comissão Brasileira de Energia Nuclear. The document of April 1946 is part of Álvaro Alberto's personal archive at the University of São Paulo [Hereafter AA/USP]. The number of the record within the archival electronic catalogue will be shown in square brackets [Q002001]

⁹ Law n° 1310 of 15 January 1951 established the CNPq, which became operative on 17 April 1951 after the beginning of Vargas's presidency. See Leandro Batista Pereira, ‘Vitória na derrota: Álvaro Alberto e as origens da política nuclear brasileira’ (M.A. thesis, FGV, 2013), 55.

¹⁰ The Nation Defence League was established in 1916 by a group of Brazilian nationalists and with the support of the army in order to promote Brazil's support to the Entente during the First World War. ‘Liga de Defesa Nacional’, CPDOC/FGV, Accessed on 4 May 2014, http://cpdoc.fgv.br/producao/dossies/AEraVargas1/anos20/CentenarioIndependencia/LigaDeDefesaNacional.

¹¹ Brazilian nuclear scientists, along with other members of the CNPq, visited research centres in North America (e.g. Canada and the United States) and Western Europe (e.g. France, Italy, West Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, Sweden and Norway). A detailed but undated report on this mission is present in Álvaro Alberto's personal archive [Q045009].

¹² Álvaro Alberto to Getulio Vargas. E.M. 723. Confidencial. 10 November 1951. AA/USP.

¹³ On the 1951 amendment to the US Atomic Energy Act see Byron S. Miller, ‘Atomic Energy Act: Second Stage’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1 (1952), 14.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ It is important to note that the Brazilian government attempted to establish a large cooperation programme with the United States. Despite personal meetings between Álvaro Alberto and the USAEC chairman, Lewis L. Strauss, in March and August 1953, the US government was not willing to transfer both research reactors and nuclear power plants to Brazil due to limitations imposed by US legislation on atomic energy. Lewis Strauss to Ribeiro de Carvalho. 24 September 1953. Emb. Washington/1122/592.01(22)/1953/Anexo Único. Energia Atômica. Tomo I. 1951/1953. AHMRE-B.

¹⁶Construção do cíclotron. Alberto to Vargas. 30 October 1952. AA/USP [Q127022].

¹⁷ On the Canadian-Brazilian talks see Reunião entre C.J. Mackenzie (Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa do Canadá), Álvaro Alberto e Orlando Rangel (CNPq). 15 October 1951. Confidential. AA/USP [Q037021].

¹⁸ The ambassador in Brazil (Johnson) to the Secretary of State, 11 December 1951. Secret. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), I: 791. (hereafter FRUS, with appropriate year, volume and page numbers).

¹⁹Construção do cíclotron. Alberto to Vargas, 30 October 1952. AA/USP [Q127022].

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Paul Harteck was one of the 10 German nuclear scientists arrested by the allies and incarcerated at Farm Hall for six months in 1945 under Operation Epsilon. He moved to the United States in 1951. Mark Walker, Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, And The German Atomic Bomb. (New York: Plenum Press, 1995), 208, 236. Mary A. McPartland, ‘The Farm Hall Scientists: The United States, Britain, and Germany in the New Atomic Age, 1945–46’, (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 2013).

²² In 1943, uranium enrichment to 5% was achieved in German laboratories; however, technical difficulties hindered large-scale production. Klaus Hentschel and Ann M. Hentschel, eds., Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources. (Stuttgart: Birkhäuser, 2011). Appendix F., xxix. On the American reason for dropping the research on the ultracentrifuge enrichment method during the Second World War, see the letter sent by Arthur H. Compton to Álvaro Alberto, 10 December 1958. AA/USP. [Q071061]

²³ Paul Harteck to Álvaro Alberto, 18 August 1952. AA/USP [Q071001].

²⁴ Paul Harteck to Álvaro Alberto, 27 February 1953. AA/USP [Q071002].

²⁵Pesquisas sôbre Energia Atômica. Missão Almirante Álvaro Alberto. Brazilian Embassy in France to CNPq. Cable 140/524.6. Secret. 17 July 1953. AA/USP [Q027100].

²⁶ Robert Terrill to Gordon Arneson. Secret cable. Security information. 31 March 1953. 21.10 Country File: Brazil a. General, 1953–54. Box 79 Special Assistant to the Secretary for Energy and Outer Space, Records Relating to Atomic Energy Matters. Finding Aid A1, Entry Number 3008/A. General Records of the State Department, RG 59. National Archives at College Park [Hereafter S/AE].

²⁷ Álvaro Alberto to Getulio Vargas. E.M. 722. Confidential. 9 November 1951. AA/USP.

²⁸ During an interview with Brazil's newspaper O Globo, Alberto announced the CNPq's willingness to acquire a heavy water reactor from Norway. ‘Água pesada da Noruega para as pesquisas nucleares do Brasil’, O Globo, 9 February 1953, Night Edition, 11.

²⁹ Paul Harteck to Álvaro Alberto. 18 August 1952. AA/USP [Q071001]. Conversações com o Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer nos Estados Unidos da América. August 1953. Confidential. AA/USP. [Q085010]

³⁰ Gordon Arneson to Herschel Johnson. Secret cable. Security information. 15 March 1953. 21.10 Country File: Brazil a. General, 1953–54. Box 79. S/AE. L. Denivelle (Comissariat à l'Energie Atomique) to J. Costa Riberio (CNPq Scientific Director). Personal letter. 19 February 1953. AA/USP. [Q027028]

³¹ After having visited France, Alberto went to Italy where he signed an agreement for the exchange of researchers and scholars with the Italian National Research Council (CNR). Álvaro Alberto to Vicente Rao (Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs). 1989. 524.26 (96). 28 September 1953. Secret. Energia Atômica. Tomo I. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B.

³² Álvaro Alberto to Getulio Vargas (with Vargas's approval). E.M. 723-1-1951. Confidential. 10 November 1951. AA/USP [Q037004]. The same document reports that the US general Walsh, responsible for the emigration of German scientists, supported the idea since Heisenberg and his colleagues, in that period, could ‘be seduced by Soviet proposals’.

³³ On the episode see Ruth Stanley, ‘German-speaking Armaments Engineers in Argentina and Brazil 1947–1963’ in Revisiting the National Socialist Legacy: Coming to Terms with Forced Labor, Expropriation, Compensation, and Restitution, ed. Oliver Rathkolb (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2002), 213.

³⁴ Ibid., 214.

³⁵ Álvaro Alberto to Getulio Vargas. E.M. 737. Contrato de técnicos alemães para o CNPq. Confidencial. 20 November 1951. AA/USP.[Q037015].

³⁶ Confirming the secrecy of the operation, it is important to note that the archive of Brazil's Foreign Ministry does not possess specific documents on the Brazilian–German cooperation during the 1950s. It is also confirmed by the Brazilian diplomatic record. João Batista Pinheiro to the Secretary-General. Memorandum. N. 4. 4 January 1955. Secret. Page 9. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B.

³⁷ Álvaro Alberto to Getulio Vargas. E.M. 737. Contrato de técnicos alemães para o CNPq. Confidencial. 20 November 1951. AA/USP.[Q037015].

³⁸ Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer to Álvaro Alberto. 21 August 1952. AA/USP. [C280001]. Weizsäcker visited Brazilian research centres in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

³⁹ Álvaro Alberto to Caiado de Castro (Chief of the Military House). Atividades do Conselho e medidas necessárias à execução do seu programmea. E.M. 639/1952-2. 30 June 1952. AA/USP. [Q007032].

⁴⁰ Caiado de Castro to Getulio Vargas (with Vargas's approval). Energia Atômica – Política Governamental. E.M. 772. 25 November 1953. Secret. AA/USP. [Q085021]

⁴¹ As Abraham noted in his study on the Indian case, ‘atomic energy can be and has been used with equal ease to invoke economic progress or military supremacy’. Abraham, 11. The same consideration can be applied to the Brazilian quest for mastering nuclear energy. Starting from that moment, Brazil wedded economic development with national security. This dyad became the basis of Brazil's defence strategy during the military regime (1964–1985). Currently, the 2008 National Defence Strategy still underlines the strong connection between defence and development. ‘Estratégia Nacional de Defesa,’ Ministério da Defesa, accessed 2 August 2013, http://www.defesa.gov.br/projetosweb/estrategia/arquivos/estrategia_defesa_nacional_portugues.pdf, p. 8.

⁴²Sobre as reações termo-nucleares na bomba de implosão. CNPq internal document. Secret. 25 December 1953. Major Wener Hjamar Gross to Admiral Álvaro Alberto. AA/USP.

⁴³ Oppenheimer visited Brazil for several weeks between June and July 1953. On 18 August 1953 Alberto met him in the United States. Even if Oppenheimer was asked to reveal the secrets on how to produce an atomic device, he constantly refused to provide any details. Conversações com o professor J. Robert Oppenheimer nos Estados Unidos da América. Confidencial. August 1953. AA/USP. [Q085010].

⁴⁴ According to the available documentation the German centrifuges could produce only low-enriched uranium. However, during the 1980s a US research study confirmed that equipment similar to that produced by the Germans was able to produce high-enriched uranium. Alexander Glaser, ‘Characteristics of the Gas Centrifuge for Uranium Enrichment and Their Relevance for Nuclear Weapon Proliferation’, Science and Global Security 16 (2008): 8, 17.

⁴⁵ On the possibility of producing weapon-grade plutonium through a particle accelerator and using it in an ‘implosion-bomb’ see R. Scott Kemp, ‘Nuclear Proliferation with Particle Accelerators’, Science and Global Security 13 (2005): 184.

⁴⁶ Álvaro Alberto to Walther Moreira Salles (Brazilian ambassador in the United States). E.M. 29/53. Secret. 25 March 1953. AA/USP.

⁴⁷ Harald Müller and Andreas Schmidt, ‘The Little-Known History of Deproliferation: Why States Give Up Nuclear Weapons Activities’, in Forecasting Nuclear Proliferation in the 21st Century. Volume I: The Role of Theory, ed. William C. Potter and Gaukar Mukhatzhanova (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 132.

⁴⁸Notas sobre a bomba atômica. Orlando Rangel. 20 August 1945. AA/USP. [M025002].

⁴⁹ In 1947, Colonel Bernardino Corrêa de Mattos Netto, the official charged with the supervision of the export of atomic minerals underlined the need to develop a nuclear sector ‘since it is necessary to prepare the field for future wars’. It is important to note that a few years later Colonel Bernardino was appointed as the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, a branch of the Brazilian National Research Council that existed between April 1955 and August 1956. Ata da Décima Sessão do Conselho de Segurança Nacional. Secret. 27 August 1947 – Rio de Janeiro. Coleção Conselho de Segurança Nacional. AN-B.

⁵⁰ Although in that period the two countries were trying to forge an alliance, renovating the Argentine–Brazilian–Chilean (ABC) Pact of Non-Aggression of 1915, Brazil's programme could represent a response to the Argentine one, whose director in 1951 publicly announced that nuclear fusion had been achieved in a laboratory scale. The supposed success of Peron's nuclear project was actually a failure since the announcement was a bluff. Jacques Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions. Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 222–223.

⁵¹ Groth was supposed to receive three Brazilian chemists in Bonn in March 1954. According to the contract between the CNPq and Groth the UZ (ultracentrifuges) were to be built in German laboratories and assembled later in Brazil by Groth and Beyerle, who were supposed to spend one year in a laboratory in Petrópolis training Brazilian scientists. Álvaro Alberto to Wilhelm Groth. 20 March 1954. Confidential. 139/1954-2. AA/USP [Q071005]

⁵² ‘Remembering the old times in 1953 you have been the only man in the free world of big influence, who gave us that encouraging order to erect three gas centrifuges. Only this order enabled us to make a remarkable step forward on the way to the present state of the art’. Konrad Beyerle to Álvaro Alberto. 16 May 1961. AA/USP [Q071075]

⁵³ Álvaro Alberto to Bernard Baruch. Cable n° 866. 30 June 1954. AA/USP [C102017].

⁵⁴Ibid. ‘Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito para Proceder a Investigações sobre o Problema da Energia Atomica no Brasil – Relatório’. 1956. AA/USP [Q141009], 40–45. On the meeting between Conant and Alberto see William Burr, ‘The “Labors of Atlas, Sisyphus, Hercules”? US Gas Centrifuge Policy and Diplomacy, 1954–60’, International History Review, (2014). http://dx.doi.org//10.1080/07075332.2014.918557.

⁵⁵Comissão parlamentar de inquérito sobre política nuclear do Brasil. Carvalho e Souza (Head of the Division of Political and Cultural Affairs) to the Foreign Minister. Doc. 7. Secret. 19 July 1956. P. 8 Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B.

⁵⁶ On the meetings of Alberto with James B. Conant and Lewis Strauss, see: Renato Archer: Energia Atômica, Soberania E Desenvolvimento: Depoimento, ed. Álvaro Rocha Filho and João Carlos Vítor Garcia (Rio de Janeiro: Contraponto, 2006), 74–75.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 76.

⁵⁸ Ibid.

⁵⁹ Robert Terrill to Gerard C. Smith. Top Secret Cable. 7 June 1954. 21.10 Country File: Brazil a. General, 1953–54. Box 79. S/AE.

⁶⁰ Burr, ‘Labors of Atlas, Sisyphus, Hercules’, 2.

⁶¹ Gerard Smith to Robert Terrill. Air Mail. Official – Informal. Confidential. 12 October 1954. 21.10 Country File: Brazil a. General, 1953–54. Box 79. S/AE.

⁶²Resposta dada ao deputado Aliomar Bareeiro pela Casa Militar no final de novembro de 1954. 3954-2. Secreto. AA/USP [Q1270072].

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴Documento secreto n°4 mencionado na Exposição de Motivos n°1017 de 25 de novembro de 1954 desta Secretaria Geral ao Gabinete Militar. In Ofício n°0215/Gab./81, 24 July 1956. From the Chief of the Military House to the President of the Chamber of Deputies. Renato Archer Personal Archive [Hereafter RA] DF 1956.02.10-XVI-A10. CPDOC/FGV.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Gerard C. Smith to Robert P. Terrill. Air Mail. Official – Informal. Confidential. 12 October 1954. 21.10 Country File: Brazil a. General, 1953–54. Box 79. S/AE.

⁶⁷ On the US–Brazilian negotiations between 1947 and 1953, see the long report Conversações sôbre a cooperação Americana–Brasileira no Campo da Energia atômica. E.M. 29 – 1953-2. Alberto to Vargas. 5 October 1953. AA/USP. On the new Brazilian nuclear policy approved by Brazil's President Café Filho, see: Távora to Café Filho. Política de energia atômica. N.98. 5 April 1955. Secret. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B.

⁶⁸ Robert P. Terrill to Gerard C. Smith, 10 December 1954, 12G Power and Research Reactors, 6. Reactors (Contribution of Aid to Other Countries) 1954, S/AE. Apud Drogan, Mara. ‘Atoms for Peace. US Foreign Policy and the Globalization of Nuclear Technology, 1953–1960’ (PhD thesis. University of Albany, 2011), 225.

⁶⁹ Robert P. Terrill to Gerard C. Smith, 5 July 1955, 21,10 Country File: Brazil m. d. General 1955–56, S/AE. NARA Apud Mara Drogan, 228.

⁷⁰ Robert P. Terrill to Gordon Arneson. 4 March 1953. Confindential. Country File: Brazil a. General, 1953–54. Box 79. S/AE.

⁷¹ Robert P. Terrill to Gordon Arneson. 26 February 1953. Restricted. 21.10 Country File: Brazil a. General, 1953–54. Box 79. S/AE. When the US government began to discuss Alberto's ‘americanism’, at least three different opinions were present. The US ambassador to Brazil, Johnson, considered Alberto an ultra-nationalist, while the USAEC Chairman, Dean, in an opposite way declared that he had a pro-American position. Robert Terrill, the economic counsellor at the US embassy in Rio de Janeiro, had a quite different position and noted the latent anti-American attitude of Alberto. John Hall to Gordon Arneson. Memorandum. 9 February 1953. Confidential. Security information. 21.10 Country File: Brazil a. General, 1953–54. Box 79. S/AE.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³Portaria n. 46. 13 May 1955. Reserved Comissão de Energia Atômica. Cessão de Reator. Rio de Janeiro to Brazilian Embassy in Washington. 10 May 1955. Dec/De/Dpo. Secret. 2085. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B. On the first attempts at negotiating the transfer of a nuclear research reactor, see: Raul Fernandes to Juarez Távora. 22 March 1955. G/DE/524.26. Secret. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B.

⁷⁴Cooperação Americana no desenvolvimento da energia atômica no Brasil. João Batista Pinheiro to the Secretary-General of Itamaraty. Memorandum. N. 115. Secret. 6 January 1955. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B. It is curious that 21 years later, in 1976 João Batista Pinheiro, Brazilian ambassador in Washington, was the protagonist of secret negotiations between the US government and Brazil on a possible Brazilian renouncement to sensitive technologies to be obtained after a Brasília–Bonn nuclear deal was signed in 1975.

⁷⁵ The US Battle Act specified that the American government could ‘retire its assistance towards countries that collaborate to the military strengthening of nations enemies of peace’. Relatório secreto da política exterior do Brasil no tocante a materiais estratégicos. Posição do Brasil no sistema Pan-americano e no Bloco Ocidental. Secret. May 1956. Page 17. Acordos entre o Brasil e os Estados Unidos da América, para cooperação no campo das aplicações pacíficas da energia atômica. Bina Machado to Café Filho. 2 August 1955. E.M. 286. Secret. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B.

⁷⁶ Raul Fernandes (Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations) to Dunn (US Ambassador to Brazil). 3 August 1955. DE/DAI/524.26. Secret. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B. Brazil's President, Café Filho, immediately approved the exchange of notes. Acordos entre o Brasil e os Estados Unidos da América, para cooperação no campo das aplicações pacíficas da energia atômica. Bina Machado (Chief of the Military Home) to Café Filho. 2 August 1955. E.M. 286. Secret. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B.

⁷⁷Acordos entre o Brasil e os Estados Unidos da América, para cooperação no campo das aplicações pacíficas da energia atômica. Heitor Grillo (temporary Chairman of the CNPq) to Café Filho. 30 July 1955. E.M. 286. Secret. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B. The same folder contains the agenda of the discussions between Brazilian and American nuclear scientists on the research reactor, nuclear fuel, mineral prospections and atomic power plants. Tópicos da Agenda discutidos com a Delegação Americana no CNPq. CNPq-CEA internal document. Secret. 22 July 1955. Acordos entre o Brasil e os Estados Unidos da América, para cooperação no campo das aplicações pacíficas da energia atômica. Bina Machado to Café Filho. 2 August 1955. E.M. 286. Secret. Energia Atômica. Tomo II. 1951/1953 AHMRE-B.

⁷⁸ Gerard Smith to Robert Terrill. Air Mail. Official Use Only. 20 December 1954. According to Smith in that moment the planning of the IAEA was exclusively in the hands of the following countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, France, Portugal, South Africa,and Australia.

⁷⁹ Leandro Batista Pereira, 107–110.

⁸⁰ On the ‘Plano das Metas’ see Werner Baer, A economia brasileira (São Paulo: Nobel, 2002), 81. On the inclusion of nuclear energy in the ‘Plano de Metas’ see Leandro Batista Pereira, 117.

⁸¹Von 3 Gaszentrifugen an den Nationalen Forschugerst. Deutsch-Brasilianische Zusammen Arbeit auf dem Atomgebiete und der Nuclearforschung, Vom 5-9-1951 Bis 30-5-1958 Auswartiges Amt (AA) – Politisches Archiv (PA) [Hereafter AA/PA] 1346.

⁸² Wilhelm Groth visited Brazil in November 1958 and gave a lecture on the development of atomic energy in Germany and on the installation of the centrifuges in Brazil. See: CNPq to RFA embassy. 28 November 1958. Atomfragen und kernenergie – Versorgung Hier: Brasilien Vom 1-12-1951 Bis 3-11-1961 AA/PA 849.

⁸³ Ibid.

⁸⁴ Ana Maria Ribeiro De Andrade and R.P.A. Munis, ‘The Quest for the Brazilian Synchrocyclotron’, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 36 (2006): 311–327.

⁸⁵Política Nacional de Energia Nuclear – Diretrises – Presidência da República. No date. Top Secret. In Aviso n°2-2S-SG/CSN-BR from General Jayme Portella De Mello (Secretary-General of the National Security Council) to José de Magalhães Pinto (Brazilian Foreign Minister) – 1 September 1967. Confidencial. Paulo Nogueira Batista personal archive at the Getulio Vargas Foundation ad 1967.02.23.

Additional information

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Carlo Patti

Carlo Patti is Assistant Professor at the Federal University of Goiás. E-mail: [email protected]