IAEA Leader’s Pledge to Secrecy Was His Hallmark Unto Death

(Bloomberg) -- One of Yukiya Amano’s first acts when he took command of the International Atomic Energy Agency was to pull a tighter curtain of secrecy around its activities.

At a board meeting in September 2010, Amano warned his 2,500 workers that they were now subject to his strict code of confidentiality, which they had a “continued obligation” to follow even if they departed the Vienna-based institution. New restrictions on public access to meetings and reduced availability of nuclear data were imposed.

That legacy followed Amano to his death, which occurred July 18 in Japan but wasn’t confirmed by the agency he led until July 22. The IAEA had a “specific request not to disclose it until the family funeral,” the press office said in a statement.

The death of Amano, 72, followed a year-long struggle with illness that saw the career Japanese diplomat become visibly frail and miss day-to-day business activities. The IAEA never revealed his sickness. The agency he left is still at the center of world events -- overseeing Iran nuclear inspections and the clean-up of Fukushima -- but without a clear path to a new leadership. While it was known Amano was preparing his resignation, his death shocked many observers.

“What a loss to the world,” wrote David Hess, a policy analyst at the World Nuclear Association, on Twitter. “I’m kind of reeling from this.”

Deputy Director General Mary Alice Hayward, a former State Department official, will temporarily serve as the acting chief while the IAEA’s secretariat communicates with its member states, according to the press office.

The IAEA’s Chief Policy Coordinator Cornel Feruta as well as Argentine Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi are expected to enter the leadership contest to replace Amano. The agency’s 35-nation board of directors, which is scheduled to meet again only in September, will be in charge of scheduling a vote.

Critical Time

The leadership vacuum comes at a critical time for IAEA inspectors as tensions with Iran rise following the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The agency’s inspectors continue reviewing material for new information about Iran’s past weapons activities, which some members assert could show Amano should never have closed the agency’s initial investigation. Also, agency labs assess environmental samples taken from a warehouse alleged to have stored radioactive material that may not have been declared.

“Saddened to hear of IAEA Chief Yukio Amano’s untimely demise,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter. “He was a stalwart supporter of the JCPOA from its inception, and we expect his successor to follow the same path.”

It will now be up to that successor to decide whether inspectors’ conclusions warrant an IAEA board report.

“What matters most is to appoint a director general who has the character, political skills, integrity and wisdom to uphold the rule of law in the nuclear sphere,” said Peter Jenkins, the U.K.’s former ambassador to the Vienna-based agency. “He or she should also be a good communicator.”

Amano played an instrumental role in several of the most consequential international developments over the last decade. He led the IAEA’s investigation into Iran’s nuclear history after he assumed office in 2009. After the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns two years later, Amano’s agency was charged with assessing the accident’s international impact and drafting new safety standards.

He oversaw the probes that detailed the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear work before issuing the report that ended the IAEA’s active investigation and allowed the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers to come into force. That accord between Iran and world powers gave IAEA inspectors the most robust verification system in existence anywhere in the world, he often claimed.

One of Amano’s overlooked legacy’s may be the battle against cancer control, which he led from the beginning of his time in office. He gave more than 100 speeches in which he talked about the rise of cancer and how nuclear-medical technologies could help manage the disease.

“Cancer remains a key focus of our work,” Amano said in June. “Agency-wide internal coordination has been enhanced through the adoption of the unified approach to cancer control.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Raymond Colitt, Bill Faries

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