Atoms for peace and war, 1953-1961. A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Vol. 3

Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. – 732 pp. (Book + foto only). This volume, the third in the official history of the Atomic Energy Commission, makes sizable contributions in several areas, including the Eisenhower presidency. Contents. Foreword. Preface. A Secret Mission. The Eisenhower Imprint. The President and the Bomb. The Oppenheimer Case. The Political Arena. Nuclear Weapons: A New Reality. Nuclear Power for the Marketplace. Atoms for Peace: Building American Policy. Pursuit of the Peaceful Atom. The Seeds of Anxiety. Safeguards, EURATOM, and the International Agency. Nuclear Issues: A Time for Decision. Nuclear Issues: The Presidential Campaign of 1956. In Search of a Nuclear Test Ban. Politics of the Peaceful Atom. EURATOM and the International Agency, 1957-1958. Toward a Nuclear Test Moratorium. A New Approach to Nuclear Power. Science for War and Peace. The Test Ban: A Fading Hope. The Great Debate. Appendix. Index. Based on highly classified and for the most part unpublished sources, Atoms for Peace and War provides for the first time a detailed understanding of nuclear policy making at the highest level of the Eisenhower Administration during the critical years when the nation and the world were struggling with the unprecedented issues posed by the discovery and early development of nuclear energy. Focusing on the relationship between the Atomic Energy Commission and President Eisenhower, the book covers many important issues: the building of an arsenal of nuclear weapons in response to the Cold War; the origins of President Eisenhower's Atoms-for-Peace plan; the politics of rafting the new Atomic Energy Act of 1954; the Commission's behind-the-scene role in the Oppenheimer security hearing; the Commission's response to the Administration's attack on TVA through the Dixon-Yates contract; internal planning for the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in Nevada and the Pacific and the problems caused by radioactive fallout from those tests; the Eisenhower Administration's reactions to the extraordinary political and international issues posed by the March 1954 thermonuclear test in the Pacific with its worldwide fallout; conflicting policy issues in U.S, support of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the EURATOM treaty; the Commission's struggle to develop a nuclear power industry with the support of private industry; and the conflicting goals of the Commission and the president in efforts to achieve international agreement on nuclear disarmament and the banning of nuclear testing. With access to the highly classified records of the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Security Council, the Department of State, and the FBI, the authors have been able to describe in detail the emergence of policy in these areas. They reveal through many examples the President's decisive influence at the most crucial points in policy formulation and his willingness to let the Commission take the political heat for unpopular decisions. It is also clear that Eisenhower took a firm stand, almost alone in his Administration, on the questions of a nuclear test ban and disarmament, a position never before clearly understood. The extraordinary detail on the inner workings of the Eisenhower Administration presented in this book will require a reappraisal of existing studies of that era, not only on issues relating to nuclear energy but also on broader questions of domestic policies and international relations. In fact, the authors conclude that the issues raised by the development of atomic energy in the 1950s were as fundamental in their moral implications as any encountered since the Civil War. Richard G. Hewlett And Jack M. Holl ; With A Foreword By Richard S. Kirkendall And An Essay On Sources By Roger M. Anders. Includes Bibliographical References. v. 2. Atomic shield, 1947/1952 / Richard G. Hewlett, Oscar E. Anderson, Jr. v. 3. Atoms for peace and war, 1953-1961 / Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl.