Dwight D. Eisenhower: Atoms for Peace Speech

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Eisenhower expanded his call for the peaceful use of nuclear energy in an address before the United Nations on December 8, 1953. The early drafts of this speech were also done by Charles Douglas Jackson. With continuing uncertainty about the leadership of the Soviet Union, Eisenhower hoped to use the United Nations to develop a global consensus on the use of nuclear power for peaceful energy production. He also sought to end the growing arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, to fulfill one of the principles of his foreign policy and so that he could redirect resources toward domestic programs. Finally, Eisenhower hoped to use the world body to develop tools to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Eisenhower's address came after the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 715 on November 28, 1953. The resolution reiterated that the United Nations had a responsibility and interest in arms control and urged member states to work with the UN Disarmament Commission to facilitate global disarmament. The address also followed a five-day summit between Eisenhower, the British prime minister Winston Churchill, and the French prime minister Joseph Laniel that began on December 4, 1953. At that meeting, Churchill reported that British emissaries had approached the new Soviet government in an effort to gauge the possibility of détente. The British diplomats had been rebuffed, but the three Western leaders agreed that they should continue overtures to the Soviets and follow through on an earlier proposal by Eisenhower for four-party arms control talks that would include the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.

In the Atoms for Peace speech, Eisenhower begins by addressing the dangers posed by the growing nuclear arsenals. The president notes that the current atomic weaponry of the United States “exceeds by many times the total equivalent of the total of all bombs and all shells that came from every plane and every gun in every theatre of war in all the years of the Second World War.” He also points out that a growing number of countries, including the Soviet Union, either had or were acquiring nuclear weapons technology. The president acknowledges that the United States had closely collaborated with Canada and the United Kingdom in the development of atomic weapons.

Eisenhower strongly affirms that the United States would use nuclear weapons to retaliate against any atomic attack on its soil, pledging that the nation would “inflict terrible losses upon an aggressor.” The president then makes a transition, however, into a series of proposals to reduce the threat of nuclear armageddon. He assures the Soviet Union that the United States was seeking peace, not conflict, and a way to reduce nuclear stockpiles.

The president then invokes UN Resolution 715 and notes that the document calls for the creation of a “sub-committee consisting of representatives of the Powers principally involved” to develop a report for the world body on how to proceed with disarmament. In response to the resolution, then, Eisenhower proposes that the nations currently producing nuclear materials provide a proportion of that material to a new body, an international atomic energy agency, which would operate under the auspices of the United Nations. Eisenhower envisions that the agency would be “responsible for the impounding, storage and protection of the contributed fissionable and other materials.” The atomic energy agency would also be directed to “apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine and other peaceful activities.” Furthermore, the agency would be tasked with providing “abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world.” He notes that the United States would be “proud” to be involved in the endeavor. To demonstrate his seriousness, Eisenhower declares his readiness to submit a multifaceted plan to the U.S. Congress that would encourage the peaceful use of nuclear energy throughout the world, reduce the nation's atomic weapons arsenal, and launch a new round of disarmament discussions with the Soviet Union, thus demonstrating that “the great Powers of the earth, both of the East and of the West, are interested in human aspirations first rather than in building up the armaments of war.”

Although his proposals for détente with the Soviet Union did not come to fruition, the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as Eisenhower named it, was unanimously approved by the United Nations in October 1956, and the agency began operations the following year. It was indeed charged with promoting the peaceful use of nuclear power and discouraging the proliferation of atomic weapons. The agency would emerge as one of the most important institutions of the United Nations and would play a major role in subsequent world affairs, including the negotiations surrounding the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and both the 1991 and 2003 wars in the Persian Gulf.