ABSTRACT
The US policy was augmented by the equally outlandish idea that the United States, possibly in conjunction with Great Britain, could effectively block Soviet nuclear development by buying up all the known uranium production in the free world. The failure of the policy of denial, and the arms race that followed, led the pendulum to swing toward advocacy of spreading nuclear technology as a nonproliferation tool, which was central to Atoms for Peace. Atoms for Peace appealed to the highest human ideals: international cooperation; assistance to less developed countries; technological advancement for the benefit of all humankind; and, embodied in its name, the figurative beating of swords into plowshares. A confluence of commercial and national security interests came together to produce the Atoms for Peace program. If proliferation is viewed in its narrowest sense, the actual acquisition and testing of nuclear weapons, Atoms for Peace does not appear to have made much of a contribution.
