ABSTRACT
Many American scientists like Oppenheimer, were interested in using the alarm over nuclear fears to effectuate some means of disarmament. With the signing of the Geneva agreements on July 21, American power was left to fill what Washington considered a vacuum that had to be filled to contain the ambitions of the Peoples Republic of China. A member of a prominent aristocratic Vietnamese Catholic family, Diem visited the United States in 1950. American involvement along the Pacific’s western perimeter was thus firm, from north to south, with a regional treaty added to unilateral obligations. As Dwight D. Eisenhower had anticipated—and warned against—Senator Know-land then demanded vigorous action. Atoms-for-peace was soon seen as the “one real crusade of General Eisenhower’s period of the Presidency.” The Eisenhower offer, then, was a challenge to the Russians that contained none of the earlier strategic advantages for the United States.
