ABSTRACT
Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, once remarked that he would never forget the scene following Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace speech. Eisenhower had come to the United Nations not only to alert the world to the horrible destructiveness of nuclear warfare, but also to promise that the United States would do everything in its power to redirect atoms for war into atoms for peace. Atoms for Peace would become a major part of US foreign policy relating to arms control and disarmament, the international control of nuclear energy and related technology, and post-war European recovery. Eisenhower was determined to develop a peaceful alternative to nuclear weapons, and at the same time to use Atoms for Peace to break the deadlock in disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union. The myth has several variations, but essentially it holds that Eisenhower and his administration fostered Atoms for Peace without due regard for the consequences of nuclear weapon proliferation.
