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Atoms for Peace or for War?

                "Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility."  - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1945.

            In the 1940’s the United States invented, tested and exploded a new kind of weapon of mass destruction that had never been seen before. The Atomic Bomb. This bomb was so much larger than anything anyone had ever imagined. The United States spent the next 10 years using this weapon to hold over their enemies’ heads and to perhaps boss their way around the world. President Harry Truman and his successor Dwight Eisenhower were both big fans of using this weapon to get their way and as a persuasive tactic (Richard Nixon would later use similar tactics). According to the Oliver Stone, Peter Kusnick book The Untold History of the United States, the U.S.’s stockpile of atomic weapons went from 1,000 to 22,000 during the Eisenhower administration.  But Eisenhower had a greater purpose, perhaps one he didn’t even intend.

            In December of 1953, President Eisenhower delivered a most powerful speech concerning atomic energy. Atomic energy had much been a secret to the public since inception, but the President sort of came clean on the matter in this speech. The President spoke in sincere terms to the General Assembly that night: “I beg you to believe that the facts I shall reveal concerning the atomic power of the United States are not presented boastfully or truculently, or threateningly”. "Eisenhower Archives" He warned the Assembly that the nuclear arms race was completely out of hand and that it threatened the existence of mankind altogether. He called for an agreement between nations possessing nuclear weapons to stop making them and to use the technology for good.

            This speech was perhaps dishonest in its intentions at the time but has since proven to have worked well by allowing nuclear and atomic energy to be used as beneficial for the world instead of for its destruction. In all of the readings that may have shed Eisenhower in a negative light as a cold war proponent and someone willing to drop an atomic bomb on anyone he pleased, I invite them to take a look at one of Eisenhower’s more lasting accomplishments.

            There is a lot to argue on whether the actions President Eisenhower set into motion did more good than bad; perhaps more countries possess nuclear weapons today than would have if not for Eisenhower’s initiatives, but I argue that this was a bold visionary move, risky yes, but one that has done far more good than bad.

            Perhaps the best thing it did was give a name to a band formed by one of my favorite musicians, Thom Yorke.