This internal memo describes Brazil’s relations with oil producers as of 1976. It highlights the importance of Iraq as an oil supplier and the necessity of expanding exports to reduce the deficit in bilateral trade.

On the eve of the trip of American Secretary of State George Shultz to Brazil, the American officer responsible for the Brazilian desk at the Department of State conveys to the Argentine Embassy in Washington that the United States would appreciate an initiative toward the implementation of a system of mutual inspections or a joint declaration in which both countries would renounce the development of a nuclear device, the same two points proposed by American Congressman Paul Finley in 1977.

Argentinian President Bignone informs Figueiredo of the Argentine capacity to enrich uranium.

Report on the bilateral nuclear relationship between Brazil and Argentina from the Alfonsín presidency until the end of the Figueiredo Administration. The main theme is a possible joint declaration on the renunciation of nuclear explosives. Alfonsín and Foreign Minister Caputo are in favor, but elements within the Brazilian government remain opposed.

In this memo, the Latin American department of the Argentine Foreign Ministry conveys its opinion on the Brazilian interest in including the nuclear issue in the agenda of the Special Brazilian-Argentine Committee on Cooperation (CEBAC), that the issue should be subordinated to the solution of the question of Itaipu.

Conversations between Counselor Raul Estrada Oyuela, from the Argentine Embassy in Brasilia, and Luiz Augusto de Castro Neves, Deputy Chief of the Energy and Mineral Resources Division of Itamaraty, on the possibility of nuclear cooperation between Brazil and Argentina.

Vice-President Adalberto Pereira reports on a meeting with Republican Congressman Paul Findley, who proposed, on a personal basis, the creation of a nuclear mutual surveillance system between Brazil and Argentina, with a view to allaying doubts about a possible arms race. Findley had already presented the proposal to Ambassador Geraldo Holanda Cavalcanti, (aide to Minister Silveira) on the occasion of the visit to Brasília on August 23 1977. According to the agreement he proposed, Brazil and Argentina would renounce the intention to develop a nuclear device and would accept mutual inspections of their respective nuclear facilities.

Report from the Brazilian Embassy in Buenos Aires about the visit of Brazil’s Superior War College to the Atucha nuclear plant. There its director, Jorge Cosentino, explained the Argentine nuclear program in detail and expressed interest in finding formulas for cooperation with Brazil in the nuclear field.

Secretary-General of the National Security Council send the president of Brazil a report on attempts to establishing nuclear cooperation with Argentina in the period 1968-1974. In July 1974, on the occasion of the visit of a delegation from the Superior War College to the Argentine Atucha nuclear plant, its director, engineer Cosentino, proposed a cooperation agreement between the two countries with the objective of defusing concerns of the international community about a possible Brazil-Argentina rivalry. Despite the cautious reception of the Argentine proposal by the National Security Council, which also pointed out its possible advantages, President Geisel, in a manuscript note, said that there were several pending issues to be resolved before the establishment of nuclear cooperation between Brasília and Buenos Aires would become possible.

State of nuclear energy development in Brazil and Argentina.