President Dwight D. Eisenhower was determined to solve “the fearful atomic dilemma” by finding some way by which “the miraculous inventiveness of man” would not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life. In his Atoms for Peace speech before the United Nations General Assembly on December 8, 1953, President Eisenhower sought to solve this terrible problem by suggesting a means to transform the atom from a scourge into a benefit for mankind. Although not as well known as his warning about the “military industrial complex,” voiced later in his farewell radio and television address to the American people, President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace speech embodied his most important nuclear initiative as President. From it sprang a panoply of peaceful atomic programs. With it President Eisenhower placed the debate over the control of nuclear science and technology, which had largely been the province of government officials and contractors, squarely before the public. Indeed, the present public controversy over nuclear technology and its role in American society can be traced back to President Eisenhower’s determination that control of nuclear science was an issue for all Americans.
The Atoms for Peace speech reflected the President’s deep concern about “Atoms for War.” The escalating nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, which included the development of thermonuclear bombs, brought President Eisenhower to the United Nations. Since Hiroshima, the destructive power of nuclear weapons had increased dramatically. Nuclear weapons technology, thus far a product of American expertise, would also eventually enter the arsenals of the Soviet Union through the normal processes of technological development. President Eisenhower felt a moral imperative to warn the American people and the world of this new reality.
Rapid strides in nuclear weapons in nuclear weapons technology had begun at the end of World War II. In 1945 the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan had killed an estimated 106,000 people and had injured approximately 110,000 others. The larger of the two, the Nagasaki bomb, had released the explosive equivalent of 23,000 tons of TNT. In 1948 the United States had tested even larger atomic bombs in the Pacific, and by 1949 the Soviet Union had achieved its own nuclear capability with the detonation of a nuclear device. In response to the Soviet atomic bomb program, the United States had embarked upon a crash program to develop an even larger weapon, the hydrogen bomb, which promised explosive power in the range of millions of tons of TNT. The United States successfully detonated a hydrogen device in November 1952; just a few days after Eisenhower won the presidency. The awesome 10-megaton blast had destroyed the test island of Elugelab, creating an underwater crater 1,500 yards in diameter. With it the United States and the world entered the thermonuclear age.
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Documents:
Atoms For Peace Draft from the C. D. Jackson Papers, 1934-1967, Box 25, Folder "Atoms for Peace - Evolution (2)
Memorandum regarding "Operation Candor," July 22, 1953
Memorandum, Charles Norberg to H.S. Craig regarding "Project Candor and the Soviet H Bomb," August 10, 1953
Newsclipping, Washington Post, "Eisenhower Pushes Operation Candor," September 21, 1953
Memorandum of Conversation regarding Bermuda Meeting, December 4, 1953
Memorandum of Meeting regarding Bermuda, December 5, 1953
Press Release, "Atoms for Peace" Speech, December 8, 1953
Press Wire, Chronology of Soviet Bloc Reaction to Eisenhower's U.N. Speech, December 14, 1953
General Outline for Agronsky Program, December 16, 1953
Letter, President Eisenhower to friend Swede Hazlett, December 24, 1953 (pages 4 and 5 only)
Memorandum, President Eisenhower to C.D. Jackson, December 31, 1953
Operations Coordinating Board Working Draft, February 4, 1954
Preliminary Proposal for an International Organization to Further the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, June 8, 1954
Letter, Asst. Director for Legislative Reference to President Eisenhower on H.R. 9757 "To amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 . . ."
Letter, Charles Robbins to C.D. Jackson, September 15, 1954
Chronology of Atoms for Peace Project, September 30, 1954
Letter, C.D. Jackson to Merlo Pusey, Washington Post, February 5, 1955
Memorandum from Theodore Repplier, Advertising Council, August 3, 1955
President Eisenhower's Reaction to the Repplier Proposal, August 3, 1955
Letter, Ann Whitman (President Eisenhower's personal secretary) to Marie McCrum (C.D. Jackson's personal secretary), January 27, 1956
Letter, President Eisenhower to Winston Churchill, April 27, 1956
Photographs:
President Eisenhower delivering his Atoms for Peace speech before the U.N. General Assembly, December 8, 1953
President Eisenhower receives a report from Lewis L. Strauss, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, on the hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific, March 30, 1954
President Eisenhower and Lewis L. Strauss face questioners at a press conference, March 31, 1954
President Eisenhower signs H.R. 9757, an act "to amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1946." The signing was witnessed in his office by various senators, congressmen and members of the Atomic Energy Commission, August 30, 1954
President Eisenhower with five of his top advisers who he summoned to discuss his Atoms for Peace program, January 13, 1956
