International Atomic Energy Agency, 1957

Dear Delegates,

Eva Guidarini

Welcome to the Historical International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1957. My name is Eva Guidarini and I am a sophomore, planning on majoring in Government, minoring in Economics, and pursuing a language citation in Spanish. At Harvard I am very involved in our Travel Model UN team, Harvard College Faith in Action, and the Harvard Institute of Politics ,where I do I lot of work with the youth vote through survey research. I love living close to Boston, and I have developed a soft spot for Sunday morning Dim Sum in China Town and the late night cannoli in the North End.

I grew up in several different places: San Francisco, CA; Indianapolis, IN; New Plymouth, New Zealand; Midland, MI; and Charleston, WV – and I like to think my hometown is a conglomeration of all these places I have called home. I am a committed olympaholic and an avid sports fan, especially when it comes to football (Go Lions!), baseball (Go Tigers!), and tennis (Rafa Nadal and Kim Clijsters all the way!).  Previous to this year, I spent every summer of my life at a small lake cottage in Michigan, waterskiing from sunrise to sunset. However, this summer I will be working on education reform and women’s issues at a center right polling and consulting firm.

In the Historical IAEA, we will be addressing the implications of the first true nuclear plant disaster that ever took place, the Windscale fire of 10 October  1957. We will commence debate on 11 October 1957, following the significant release of radioactive material throughout the atmosphere in Cumberland, England. We will be debating not only the immediate actions that should be taken to deal with the situation in England, but also developing long term action plans to use in dealing with nuclear plant disasters in the future. You should expect to work with a large and fast paced crisis element in this committee, and you should expect the crisis to affect the direction of your resolution.

From now until the conference, do not hesitate to contact me with any question regarding our committee at IAEA@hnmun.org. I look forward to meeting all of you in February!

Sincerely,

Eva Guidarini
Director, IAEA 1957
Harvard National Model United Nations 2013

In August 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  In 1949, the Soviet Union joined the nuclear club, and then the British, not wanting to be left behind technologically, set up the Windscale plants in Cumberland, England to develop their own advanced nuclear weapons. On 10 October 1957, the core of one of the two nuclear reactors at Windscale caught fire. The fire was eventually stopped, but not in time to prevent a substantial and dangerous release of nuclear radiation into the atmosphere. Our committee will convene on 11 October 1957, as panic sweeps through England in the wake of this first true nuclear disaster.  As a committee, we will have to develop an immediate plan for international action in response to the disaster and deal with breaking news from England and the international community. While this committee will follow history to the letter up to the morning of11  October, 1957, after that point do not expect the normal path of history. In addition, as 1957 is the first the year the IAEA will be meeting; therefore, we will have very few presidents to work off of when dealing with disaster. It will be up to the committee to set the presidents for dealing with all nuclear disasters in the future, and this set of presidents should be the focus of the innovative resolutions that will emerge from this committee. Delegates are encouraged to bring creative ideas and solutions to the negotiating table, and be prepared to write up a set of guidelines that will help to define the world’s nuclear future.