~10~- \ revenue for the execution of a treaty, as Venezuela did to the Europcan powers in 1902. An interesting form of indirect safcguard is the general exchange of military and naval attachés as a method of removing fears of unfriendly war preparations in derogation of treaties of friendship. The only one of the familiar safeguards which seems to offer any promise in the international control of atomic energy is that of inspection. If it were possible to back up a limitation agreement with a system of disinterested inspection operating on a world-wide basis, the parties to the agreement would have a way of continuouslyreassuring themselves that no preparations were underway Within any state to evade the agreement. But if this were to be the only safein fact as well as in appearance; guard, it would have to be practically infallible/ otherwise the states living up to the treaty would be lulled into a sense of false security and the door opened to easy violation by a potential sroubie“Ganer Furthermore , unless every state confidently believed in the infallabitity oes inspection system, individual nations which had grown suspicious might feel impelled to resort to secret production of atomic weapons as a precautionary measure. This type of safeguard has a precedent in the inspection system developed in connection with the international control of narcotics.3 While this scheme resulted in bringing to light a number of violations, it was by no means infallible, and was scarcely cffective at all against violations condoned by national authorities, . | Some scientists impressed by the great technical difficulties in the way of a really effective inspection system have taken a very gloomy view of the possibilities of such a safeguard. Others who are more impressed by the problems of concealing the large-scale operations involved in the production of atomic weapons are far less pessimistic. The information so far made available is not sufficient to enable the layman to reach a satisfactory conclusion on the 3. This is discussed later in Chapter V, pp, 152-153. 4