September 30, 2011
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2011 October 5 - 11 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]
Presidential dishonesty |
“The United States pledges before you--and therefore before the world--its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma--to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.”
On December 8, 1953 at the United Nations General Assembly, when U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower went back to his seat after finishing his speech, a massive round of applause filled the venue, recalled Lewis Strauss, the then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki plunged the world into the abyss of a nuclear arms race. As the competition heated up between the United States and the Soviet Union to develop ever more formidable nuclear arsenals, international concern mounted over the threat to human survival.
Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech was intended to defuse to such concern while securing the moral high ground over the Soviet Union.
In the speech, he proposed the establishment of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and called on the Soviet Union to join the organization. He also talked about the “peaceful use of atomic energy,” saying, “The United States would seek more than the mere reduction or elimination of atomic materials for military purposes.”
The U.S. subsequently decided to provide enriched uranium and certain nuclear-related expertise and information to other countries, and swiftly proceeded to conclude atomic energy agreements with 37 countries, including Japan. With the 6-kilogram enriched uranium provided by the U.S., Japan started on the path to emerging as a country with numerous nuclear power plants.
In regard to the “morality” of his speech, however, the reality was the opposite.
The Eisenhower administration was fully committed to its dependence on nuclear weapons, as demonstrated clearly in a secret document of the National Security Council dated October 30, 1953 (NSC162/2).
Anticipating an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union, the strategy stipulated the requirement of retaliatory capabilities far exceeding those of the enemy, saying “the United States will consider nuclear weapons to be [just] as available for use as other munitions.” In other words, it was a “Massive Retaliation Strategy.”
The U.S. nuclear arsenal increased from 1,000 in 1953 to 26,700 in 1961. In 1960, its total nuclear yield peaked at 20,500 megatons, equivalent to 1.4 million Hiroshima type A-bombs.
The blatant nuclear build-up under the pretext of the “peaceful use” of atomic energy irked even some members of the U.S. administration.
Gerard C. Smith, who worked as a special assistant for atomic energy matters under Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, stated in an oral history recorded in 1990:
“They (commissioners of the Atomic Energy Commission) hadn’t been consulted at all about it except for Strauss (Chairman of the AEC)… One of them, Harry Smythe…I’ll never forget his observation [that it] was a thoroughly dishonest speech… (H)is first reaction was, it was dishonest because it did not look at the questions about how do you separate peaceful uses from military uses of atomic energy.”
(To be continued)
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