"Atoms for Peace" is a legitimate band. (click here)
The question is; "Is the only default setting we have for nuclear technology electricity generation?"
President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" Speech (click here)
December 8, 1953
Before the General Assembly of the United Nations on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy
Madame President, Members of the General Assembly:
When Secretary General Hammarskjold's invitation to address this General Assembly reached me in Bermuda, I was just beginning a series of conferences with the Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of Great Britain and of France. Our subject was some of the problems that beset our world....
...But the great test and the great accomplishments still lie ahead. And in the confident expectation of those accomplishments, I would use the office which, for the time being, I hold, to assure you that the Government of the United States will remain steadfast in its support of this body. This we shall do in the conviction that you will provide a great share of the wisdom, the courage, and the faith which can bring to this world lasting peace for all nations, and happiness and well-being for all men....
It hasn't really worked out that way, has it? During the entire dialogue by the USA of it's weapon of mass destruction there is always laced a sense of higher purpose for the weapon. The Allied forces had ended the war in the east with it and allowed the struggle in Europe to continue. It was Russia that finally ended the war with Hitler though.
The world bought into this benevolence of power by the USA. The Columbia Physics Department would receive 28 Nobel Prizes for scientific discovery. So, every nation, every leader was well invested in the power of the USA and basically believed everything Eisenhower stated. It was an unspoken promise in his dialogue. Somehow, the USA would contain the power of nuclear potential.
Eisenhower effectively removed the heinousness of the deaths in Japan as a victory and promoted peaceful use of nuclear power. Very clever. Why the world didn't seek to end the insane idea when it was presented is something no one writes about. Who were those that looked into their crystal balls and saw what was to come? Evidently, no one. The genie was out of the bottle and there was no going back.
Russia, while using nuclear technology for electricity generation didn't wait to find their own nuclear military capacity. After all the ignitions in Japan were very near their borders. It was impossible to buy into the idea that the USA was never going to use the weapons again. It had just vanquished Hitler. The Soviet Union wasn't about to settle back in an easy chair without securing it's sovereignty away from a greater threat.
We know today the path "Atoms for Peace" took. Five legitimate nuclear nations all with significant enough arsenals that could wipe out every human life on Earth. And the peaceful use of atomic energy has made it into the hands of nations too scared of The West to never develop it further than electricity generation.
Would the outcome today been so much different if Eisenhower didn't run his propaganda campaign. Would the world be rid of the nuclear weapons of mass destruction if only the concern for the technology were evident?
