ABSTRACT
On the thirtieth anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace speech, this chapter looks at the impact of Eisenhower himself and his outlook on the development of the Atoms for Peace speech and proposal. It also looks at the policy context within which the proposal was developed and the impact of competing objectives within the administration that determined how it was finally developed and presented. The route by which the speech and proposal developed was circuitous, but they were the products of Eisenhower's own concern about the threat of nuclear weapons and his desire to take some action to reduce that threat. Eisenhower was highly skeptical or doubtful about the collective leadership that took over the Soviet Union, even though its tone was more moderate. His hopes with respect to arms control were a good deal more modest, and he got only modest results in this sphere.
