[en] The chronology of the AVR fuel procurement closely paralleis the development of coated fuel particles in the United States. At ORNL an AEC-sponsored research and development program and preliminary design study favoring a pebble bed reactor was cancelled in 1962; the AEC felt existing facilities were adequate for developing and testing new fuel concepts, (1) and the BBK/AVR pebble bed reactor was expected to be completed in the spring of 1964. A proposed agreement among the USAEC, the Federal Republic of Germany and Euratom for the Joint development of high temperature graphite fuel was presented to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in April 1963. This agreement postulated testing of U. S. fuel in the German AVR pebble bed reactor over a two-year core burnup period. (2) The AEC would assurne full technical and financia1 responsibility for developing and procuring the first commercial U. S. core, to consist of about 30,000 graphite spheres containing a maximum of 72 kilograms of thorium. The German Government would absorb the full cost of operation for up to two burnup years and, with Euratom, would pay the AEC for the core's derived energy. U. S. and German technical per sonnel would be exchanged, expanding an exi sting technical exchange program, and technical information obtained during the program would be exchanged.