To escape from his nuclear dilemma, Eisenhower had to
persuade his allies that the
In his last year in office, speaking privately with
AEC chair John McCone, he summarized views he had expressed so often in public:
He said that we must find a way to arrest the
development of weapons of mass destruction and to ultimately do away with
them. This objective seemed paramount in
his mind and he related it to a real fear of an ultimate catastrophe to
civilization. At no time did he mention
the
These were views Eisenhower had expressed since the
earliest days of his administration.
Perhaps his concern had grown more intense, but there was nothing
substantively new here. He had always
said that the
The new developments during the second term lay not in
the president's attitudes, but in the obvious drawbacks of relying on nuclear
weaponry for national security. Any
disarmament measure or test moratorium would have helped him escape from his
trap in several ways: reducing the military budget and the risk of nuclear war;
easing the allies’ fears, thus strengthening the “free world” alliance; improving
the
Eisenhower spoke often of the advantages he was
foregoing by avoiding meaningful negotiation with the Soviets. He must have understood them. To the end of
his years in the White House, however, he never seriously pursued negotiations
that could produce agreements. This cannot be credited to mere
stubbornness. His shifting policies
during the Indochina and
This metaphor typified Eisenhower's attitude toward
disarmament throughout his presidency.
He was always trying to accelerate and decelerate the arms
simultaneously; arming and disarming were different ways to manage not only the
threat of war, but all the other perils he feared throughout his
presidency: communist military attack
upon the West, the internal collapse of Western capitalism, and the spread of
communist influence and control by non-military means.
The president and his advisors could not know whether
the Soviet leaders really wanted a moratorium or any disarmament measure. They assumed that the Soviets would never
carry out any arms reduction agreements:
“The President said that of course the heart of the problem was
this: We are trying to bargain in good
faith with a fellow whose good faith we have every reason to doubt.”[5] This was not a conclusion drawn from empirical
experience in implementing agreements.
It was an assumption, one that prevented the
In the long run, though, Soviet intentions did not
really matter to them. They showed
little interest in Soviet policies on disarmament, arms control, or a test
ban. They treated these issues only as
means to the single end of apocalypse management.[6] Once this unifying theme is recognized,
Eisenhower no longer appears to be divided against himself. He appears to be caught in a web, not of
self-contradiction, but of ironies that undermined the security he hoped to
achieve and enhance.
One of Eisenhower’s main motives for pursuing
disarmament was fear of an apocalyptic surprise attack. “If the danger of surprise could be
eliminated no one would attack,” he assured the NSC, adding that he would
accept any way of reducing this danger as long as it demanded no significant
U.S. compromise. Publicly, he explained
that if a disarmament agreement would “relieve the world of the great fear of
surprise, devastating attack, then disarmament will follow step by step almost
automatically.”[7]
Eisenhower continued to press for the “Open Skies”
proposal, although he knew that the advantages it offered the
By 1959, with disarmament negotiations dragging on
fruitlessly, the president was still saying that any verifiable agreement
“would be a great advance toward reducing the danger of war.” But “he pointed out the further advantage to
the Free World of obtaining a set of qualified observers within the
Eisenhower showed how crucial that point was by
revising his policies in order to pursue it.
In 1959, science advisor James Killian asserted that the purpose of
demanding inspection was “breaking through the iron curtain. The President indicated agreement, and
commented that he is considering severing test suspension from the requirement
for progress on disarmament generally, in order to keep the focus on valid
inspection.” This was a major
concession, because
Later that same year, Eisenhower privately announced
another major shift in pursuit of
breaking through the iron curtain: “We
cannot inspect with full effectiveness against atomic weapons. We must therefore start on other things, and
this is why he has previously given attention to the means of delivery of such
weapons.” “We should still put a few
inspection stations into
Eventually he was willing to settle for a mere three
inspections a year because, although they “would be inadequate to provide
effective inspection, even these three would disclose a great deal of their
country.…The President said the fundamental question in his mind is this: is it of primary important to the Soviets
that they want no more nuclear explosions, or is it of primary importance that
they do not want to open up their country?”
The president's disappointment over failing to get an arms control
agreement was in large part a disappointment over failing to penetrate the Iron
Curtain. He was more interested in
reducing
The administration’s disarmament efforts were designed
to support, not undermine, the original premise of the New Look: reliance on nuclear weapons would offer “more
bang for the buck.” Responding to one
disarmament proposal drafted by Dulles, Eisenhower told him: “You would be serving notice on the Soviets
that their refusal to bargain in good faith in the matter of disarmament will
result in much closer military and political collaboration between the nations
of the free world, and this in turn would bring about a more widespread
deployment of nuclear weapons in order that security might be achieved at the
lowest possible cost.”[13]
By early 1956, however, Eisenhower was realizing that
nuclear weapons would not necessarily offer security at the lowest possible
cost. Because he was committed to
nuclear superiority, he was “exceptionally responsive to innovative ideas” in
military technology, according to his science advisor, James Killian. Moreover, as Ambrose notes, “Eisenhower was
sure of himself in DOD matters and spent hours on details, but was unsure of
himself in the nuclear field and thus let Strauss run it.” So he was particularly reluctant to cancel
any possible innovations in nuclear technology.
By the mid-‘50s, there were a large number of nuclear projects still in
the research and development stage. With
all those projects allowed to continue, there was a built-in expansion of costs
when they reached the production and deployment stage. Nuclear weapons were rapidly becoming more
expensive than conventional forces.[14]
To “Alarmist Ike,” this rising cost posed a threat
just as catastrophic as communism. He
continued to insist that military spending could “ruin the
From the president's perspective, the ever-growing military
budget was just as much a threat to American security as the growing Soviet
nuclear arsenal. If not reversed, the armaments
race “would be ended in only one way,” he told the NSC: “a clash of forces which could not result in
victory for anybody, or at the least, stupendous expenditures for an indefinite
period.” In other words, the
As he entered his second term, Eisenhower's desire for
an arms control agreement was driven even more by his hope for restraining
military spending. As hopes for a
general disarmament agreement dimmed, he suggested more modest measures to cut
expenditures, perhaps a step by step test ban or a reduction in conventional
weapons. The
Eisenhower’s overriding motive for pursuing
disarmament was to protect the image of the
Early in 1956 the president pleaded to the NSC, “We
are trying to lead the world back from the brink of disaster.…We have simply
got to find something that will work in this field.” But he said little about the danger of
war. Rather, he based his argument on
“the enormous importance of the psychological and public relations aspect of
the disarmament proposal.” He recognized
that fears of war and fears of testing remained intertwined, so he worried
about “the rising concern of people everywhere over the effect of radiation
from tests, of their reaction each time a test was reported, and their extreme
nervousness over the prospective consequence of any nuclear war.” He wanted to “catch and hold the interest of
the people of the world,” he told aides, or at least “avoid giving to the
Soviets a world of propaganda ammunition.”[20]
“This opinion on the necessity for disarmament is
steadily growing stronger and insisting on results,” the president warned the
NSC. Even the NATO allies were
expressing a “very strong insistence” for progress in disarmament. The
Eisenhower's solutions was to offer official words
about disarmament that would (in his aide Robert Cutler’s words) “provide
flexibility and help with world opinion.”
As Dulles admitted,
Eisenhower acknowledged that his efforts to ease cold
war tensions were driven primarily by a quest for propaganda victories. He admitted to Dulles that their disarmament
policy was still just “wrapping
By the spring of 1958, Eisenhower was warning the NSC
of a serious “psychological erosion of our position with respect to nuclear
testing.” The
When Eisenhower visited
Fear of a public relations disaster directly affected
policy. In the spring of 1958,
Eisenhower told Macmillan that “we are being pushed into a rather difficult
position from the standpoint of world opinion and that we shall have to alter
somewhat the four-power proposals in this respect.” Bowing to world opinion, he allowed
In 1959, he agreed to separate a test ban from other
disarmament issues. He was persuaded
that atmospheric testing was so dangerous it had to stop, or “the Northern
Hemisphere might become uninhabitable.”
But his main concern was, as he told Macmillan, that “our public
position would be much better.” A year
later, he agreed to endorse whatever kind of test ban might be attainable
(though he wanted it “held to a short period”), because without it “there will
be severe cracks and ruptures in the Western position.” He still wanted to “try to work out some
proposal which we could make to the Russians which would have a good public
relations impact.”[27]
In 1959, Eisenhower lamented that “two years ago he
had visualized much propaganda mileage to be gained by a positive stand on this
question.¼However he had given way on
this position in the light of resistance on the part of Defense and AEC.”[28] Now he regretted that he could not get the
same propaganda benefits. But he was being
rather disingenuous when he put the blame on others in his administration. For the most part, he let disarmament
opponents shape policy because he shared their view that agreements with the
Soviets posed serious dangers to American interests.
A test ban might cost the
However, Eisenhower himself was pursuing the same
contradictory goals. In late 1955, his
“Secretary of Peace,” Harold Stassen, officially advised him “that any
substantial disarmament would not really be in the interest of the
Throughout the rest of his years in office, though, he
worried that a disarmament agreement posed unacceptable risks. He feared losing the technological
superiority he was determined to maintain.
The president once “commented that the
To that end, he urged Congress to fund nuclear testing,
which he said was needed to improve
Eisenhower told Dulles that “he had received
suggestions from so many people that he was confused.” But his confusion came from more than
information overload. Every step toward
cold war advantage seemed to carry catastrophic disadvantage. He summarized the dilemma in a wide-ranging
conversation with Dulles in the spring of 1958.
Stopping tests would hurt the
Trying to escape from this intolerable impasse,
Eisenhower pursued a multi-pronged strategy.
For as long as he could, he insisted that there was no danger from
tests. At the same time, he continued to
block the path to any genuine progress toward arms control or a test ban. Early in 1958, with the clamor for an
agreement growing daily, he still instructed the NSC that “this was not the
time to make any new proposals.” When
Dulles acknowledged that the
Another part of Eisenhower's strategy was
duplicity. Even if the
By the end of his second term, he informed the NSC
that the
That uncertainty was a major stumbling block to a test
ban agreement. Despite Eisenhower's
yearning to improve the
For that reason, among others,
The administration's public relations campaign came to
an inglorious end in May, 1960, when the downing of the U-2 allowed Khrushchev
to scuttle the
The aftermath of the failed summit revealed much about
Eisenhower's true intentions. Once an
agreement with the Soviets became impossible, the image of trying to ease cold
war tensions no longer offered any advantage.
So the whole subject of disarmament largely disappeared from his
discourse. Instead, he became a staunch
cold warrior. He told advisors in July,
1960, that he wanted some symbolic action for psychological effect in the face
of Soviet assertiveness in
Eisenhower wanted to pursue disarmament negotiations,
if he could do it on his terms. He
wanted to prevent nuclear war too. And
he used the political process to look for ways to get disarmament and to avoid
war. But he pursued these goals on two
distinct tracks. In policymaking and
discourse, he made no direct link between these two issues. He was never willing to disarm simply to
avoid war. The abolition of nuclear
weapons was a third issue. Ideally,
Eisenhower would have supported abolition to give the
Although he held these three goals, which tended
toward world peace, he was not willing to make any concession, incur any cost,
or take any risk to attain them. He
would not discuss disarmament in the context of real-world processes, with all
their limitations. To enter the real
world of diplomatic give-and-take would have entailed the possibility (and
perhaps the certainty) of risk—the one thing the president was determined,
above all, to avoid. To avoid that risk,
the Eisenhower administration offered words about disarmament and arms control proposals
only as symbolic gestures, meant to build a stronger and higher protective wall
between the U.S. and its foe.
Because the ends and means of policy were so diverse
and often conflicting, the words were bound to fail in their purposes. To prove his desire for peace and
disarmament, the president continued to emphasize his understanding of the
horrors of war. Yet his words only fed a
fear of nuclear weapons that grew much faster than confidence in his peaceful
aims. Thus the administration was
constantly in search of new symbolic images of disarmament, arms control, and a
test ban. In Eisenhower's overall
strategy, the symbolic process was far more important than any actual
agreements it might yield. Not surprisingly,
the process was indeed a “squirrel cage exercise” that yielded no significant
agreements.
Historians have often misunderstood Eisenhower's
warnings about the arms race because they assumed that he was addressing the
nuclear danger as a unique problem superseding all others. But he never addressed any danger, even the
prospect of nuclear war, in isolation.
In a diary entry, he worried that if the
He objected to the bomb because it could be used in
war for evil purposes; i.e., in a surprise attack by communist aggressors. He also objected to the bomb because it
threatened to weaken the “free world” alliance, alienate neutral nations, and
drive up military spending unacceptably if built in excessive numbers. And he objected to it because he could find
no clear, logical way to plan to use it in war.
He had long ago concluded that war should be avoided because it could no
longer be “won,” in the traditional sense of that word. He could see no way that a nuclear apocalypse
could lead to the victory of spiritual good over evil.
But he could never agree that nuclear weapons were
intrinsically evil. He never accepted
the argument that more weapons necessarily meant a greater likelihood that they
would some day be used, causing incalculable death, destruction, and
suffering. He would have called it
simplistic. In fact, he could not
articulate the issue that way within his discursive framework, where the bomb
posed no threat in and of itself. Given
that premise, there was relatively little urgency to eliminate or even control
the development of nuclear weapons.
There was great urgency to avoid war, and great
urgency to prepare to win war if it could not be avoided. That meant, in turn, an urgent need to
produce more and better bombs, and new delivery systems to get them to their
targets. The same symbolic discourse
that created Eisenhower’s expressions of urgency about the nuclear threat also
blunted whatever real sense of urgency he might have felt. Rather than raising new fears, the symbolic
meanings of the bomb only confirmed his existing vision of weaponry and war,
and their attendant fears. Those
symbolic meanings gave no reason to eliminate or reduce the numbers of nuclear
weapons, so he made no real efforts in that direction.
On the contrary, every aspect of his strategy required
that the nuclear arsenal keep growing and diversifying. Ideally, credible plans and threats to use
the bomb would fend off both communist expansion and global war. Promises to use the bomb wisely and to work
for disarmament would hold the alliance together and persuade the allies to
nuclearize their own forces.
Nuclearizing
On the surface, the New Look seemed to demand
risk. It was created in part to avoid
the “hot” war that Eisenhower wanted to avoid.
In effect, he was using his long-standing fear of “hot” war to validate
his strategy for cold war. To make that
strategy work, he had to be willing to bring the nation and the world to the
brink of nuclear war. Ideally, though,
the risks and uncertainties of brinkmanship were supposed to give the
For Eisenhower, the interaction between nuclear policy
and nuclear discourse held the key to eliminating risk. His plans to use the bomb would be credible
only if he offered the right talk about the bomb, and vice versa. He intended to avoid every peril by figuring
out how to use the bomb most effectively in the future and, equally
importantly, how to talk about it effectively in the present. The administration's goals could be secured
only if presidential talk controlled public emotion and gave the bomb a
positive meaning in public discourse.
New Look policies could make sense, at home as well as abroad, only if
But the task was impossible, because the discourse and
strategy encompassed so many contradictions that none of the problems could be
solved. Eisenhower could not keep all
the elements together in a unified rational discourse. His inability ever to define precisely when
and how nuclear weapons would be used was merely one symptom of this larger
problem. Some have credited this to
skillful ambiguity. But his own
admissions of confusion, helplessness, and despair contradict that interpretation. He was quite sincere when he complained that
technology was outstripping all his efforts at clarity. His familiar structures of discourse were
inadequate to respond to the new reality; his strategy was built on
contradictory policies that made perfect clarity and balance impossible.
In 1959, Eisenhower summed up his policy to the NSC
quite concisely: “Our purpose is to
defend ourselves. To defend ourselves
means that we must destroy the present threat to ourselves.”[42] This was the same defensive ideology that
spawned the New Look in 1953. His
underlying intention remained as constant as his policy. And he remained constantly baffled by the
problem that nuclear weapons created:
how to “destroy the present threat to ourselves” without destroying the
nation and the values he aimed to preserve.
He continued to assume that communist aggression could be prevented only
by
The president sometimes commented on this logical
paradox. But he made no serious effort
to extricate himself from it. Instead, he remained committed to the pursuit of
apocalypse management. He would identify
the specific factors that were beyond his control, admit the contradictions in
which he had trapped himself, and then reaffirm the same policies and the same
discursive patterns that had created the contradictions in the first place. He was able to do this for eight long years
primarily because he treated the bomb less as an empirical reality than as a
symbol.
On nuclear issues, as on all others, the president
wanted mental and discursive clarity. If
he were even to aim for, much less achieve, perfect control, he first needed
control over his own conceptual vision.
He demanded of himself a clear understanding of the problems he faced,
the alternative courses of action available, and the probable outcomes of each
one. His discourse and policymaking both
required an assumption that all factors could be brought under control and
perfectly balanced in a single unified plan.
To maintain his illusion of clarity and control,
Eisenhower treated nuclear destruction largely as a distant, abstract
possibility. His apparently fearful
musings expressed a vague sentiment of alarm, but they were never a basis for,
and rarely connected with, concrete policy planning. The strategy of apocalypse management did not
permit any risks. But it required a
reliance on nuclear weapons, which posed the greatest risk imaginable. This gave him more reason to avoid
considering the actual effects of the weapons.
Although his images of destruction gradually became more concrete during
his presidency, he spoke about the dangers of chaos and governmental
regimentation far more than he spoke concretely about charred or irradiated
human beings. The war he said he feared
was always largely an imagined abstraction—just like his fear of communist
world domination and capitalist economic collapse. He seemed to see nothing uniquely threatening
about the prospect of World War III.
Eisenhower was led to abstraction, too, because he
spent his presidency searching for ways to use his nuclear arsenal as a symbol
of power, rather than a military weapon.
He did want to win World War III without fighting it. He wanted to find a way to use the bomb’s
immense destructive power for preservation, so that he could find positive
meaning in his vision of peace as apocalypse management. The only way to solve that problem was to
believe that he could use the symbolic meanings of the bomb to attain control
over the whole global geopolitical situation.
The New Look was supposed to give him that control. Having developed the New Look as his solution
to the manifold problems of the bomb, he clung to it throughout his two
terms. That gave him some sense of
certainty amidst the confusion, and perhaps a feeling that the problems could
ultimately be at least organized, if not resolved. So the bomb became, quite logically, the
primary symbol of a successful strategy of apocalypse management.
By refusing to abandon his illusion of rational
balance, clarity, and control, he could avoid dealing with the contradictions
among the multiple realities in which he was ensnared. The illusion was more important to him than
facing and accepting a reality he could not manage. By rendering the bomb and its threat so
abstractly, Eisenhower was able to maintain both the threatening and promising
sides of his apocalyptic discursive structure and therefore his New Look
strategy. He was able to deal with the
bomb not as an empirical reality, but as a symbol that could make sense in, and
encompass, the totality of his discursive framework. So he created a nuclear discourse and
strategy that was logically consistent because it was rooted in a fantasy of
permanent stability guaranteed by
Discourse and policy reinforced each other in a
vicious cycle. His unshakable commitment
to his pattern of discourse insured that there would be no end to the
development, testing, production, and planning for use of nuclear weapons. His policy decisions to continue development,
testing, production, and war planning deepened his commitment to the discourse. At every step of the way, this dialectic
ensnared him more firmly in the trap his own language and grand strategy had
created, insuring that he would see no need for any fundamental change.
In the ideal changeless world that Eisenhower seemed
to want, there would be both more and fewer nuclear weapons
simultaneously. In that unreal world, he
and his nation would be protected magically against every threat. But in his ideology each threat was rooted in
the ultimate evil of selfishness—what his parents had called sin. In effect, then, he wanted the bomb to
provide a magical protection against sin—what his parents had called salvation
through the grace of Jesus Christ.
In fact, neither salvation nor magical protection was
available. As he contemplated his
nuclear weapons policy, the president encountered the same kind of problem that
plagued him on every other front. Total
control and static global balance were proving impossible, because he was
asking the bomb to perform too many contradictory tasks. Every move toward control in one direction
weakened his control in some other area; by trying to control everything, he
ended up controlling and accomplishing very little. But he could not escape the dilemma, because
he was trying to force radically new facts into old patterns of language.
From 1956 on, with growing frequency, Eisenhower
confessed a sense of helplessness that sometimes verged on despair. His complaints about the problems and dangers
of the nuclear age were really complaints about his apocalypse management
strategy falling apart. He acknowledged
that he had trapped himself into trying to use nuclear weapons to prevent the
very danger they would create. He
acknowledged, too, that the problem was insoluble. Finding no way out of this trap, he learned
to live, speak, and make policy within its ambiguities. While he continued to search for clarity, he
was making a virtue out of necessity:
seeking a way to use the confusion embodied in the weapons, and in their
discourse, as a means to manage apocalyptic danger. Eventually, the ambiguities, confusions, and
threat of annihilation became a routine part of everyday life. “More serious talk of possible war,” Ann
Whitman noted in her diary during the 1958
In the
From 1957 on, though, the promises of invincibility
and flexibility were becoming antipodal poles between which the administration
found itself increasingly stretched, at home as well as abroad. On the domestic left, there was a small but
growing movement that began to reject apocalypse management, with its prospect
of living permanently on the brink of holocaust. On the right, a somewhat larger and growing
movement demanded a military strong enough to deliver cold war victory. In the broad middle lay the demand for the
government to fulfill both of the president's promises: winning every race against the Russians while
effectively pursuing disarmament and easing cold war tensions.
Eisenhower began to see “an actual division of
American opinion and other opinion as to the harmful effects of testing.” Dulles even expressed fear that “the
Even in the second term, though, as more and more
criticisms were leveled at the administration, nuclear issues were rarely high
on the list. When Eisenhower addressed
the issue, the major effect of his words at home was to provoke a desire for
reassurance. He was ahead of his public
in seeing the ambiguities of nuclear discourse.
This allowed him to stay ahead of the public’s anxieties, to offer
gestures of reassurance before the demand for them became too intense, to make
nuclear weapons look like a solution as well as a problem. So he could avoid public pressures for
significant change.
More fundamentally, though, he avoided those pressures
because most of the public did not want significant change. The people heard his words in the larger
context of the paradigm of apocalypse management. Tutored by their president, they wanted a
discourse that would acknowledge their anxieties as permanent, yet give them a
concrete structure that seemed to promise protection from change. Every time he pronounced his commitment to
disarmament, arms control, or a test ban, he reinforced the specter of
apocalyptic disaster yet implicitly promised to use negotiations to manage
every threat and keep Americans secure.
His constant emphasis on foolproof inspection schemes reinforced this
view. It suggested an image of an
omniscient
As hopes for arms control faded in the late ‘50s, the
test ban became the prime symbol of the government’s ability to fulfill its
promise of apocalypse management. In
1959, when Eisenhower traveled the world on peace missions and hosted
Khrushchev at
Of course every time Eisenhower reiterated his
commitment to control through disarmament and a test ban, he had to describe
the dangers he was working so hard to avert, which then demanded more
reassuring words about disarmament and a test ban. He and his public were caught together in
this process of endless repetition. The
process could never end because it was not intended to end, since that would
require genuine compromise, risk, and some loss of control on the part of the
The more Eisenhower preached the dangers of war, the
more he raised anxieties that only genuine disarmament agreements could relieve. The more he preached the dangers of military
spending, the more he raised anxieties that could only be relieved by more
military spending. The impossible task
of meeting both demands simultaneously baffled him. Yet to the very end (as the Farewell Address
demonstrated) his only response was to cling to his familiar pattern of
discourse, which was creating the problems he found so insoluble. By framing his discourse of security the way
he did, he had made promises of security that he could not fulfill. He and his administration had failed by their
own standards, as the public could plainly see. The pursuit of national
security through nuclear weaponry ended up only entrenching the nation more
deeply in its state of national insecurity.
Notes to Chapter 13
[1]
Memorandum of Conference, 8/9/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 694; Eisenhower to
Dulles, 3/26/58, AWF, DDE Diaries Series,
[2] McCone, Notes for the Files, 3/10/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 847.
[3] See Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 9/24/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 775; Memorandum of Conference, 4/27/60, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 49, “Staff Notes April 1960 (1).”
[4]
Eisenhower to Dulles phone call, 4/7/59, AWF, DDE Diaries Series,
[5] NSC, 1/26/56, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 297.
[6] As Gaddis puts it, “the administration more often resorted to negotiations as a means of facilitating these other approaches to containment than as a method in themselves of accomplishing that goal”: Strategies of Containment, 190.
[7]
NSC, 1/26/56, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 298, 299; Press Conference, 8/7/57, PPP,
1957, 598. See also Memorandum of Telephone
Conversation, 5/13/57, John Foster Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series,
[8]
Memorandum of Conference, 8/30/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 718. See also Memorandum of Meeting with President
Eisenhower, 11/5/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 678; Memorandum of Conference with the
President, 4/23/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 489.
Eisenhower also continued to support the version of “Atoms for Peace”
being promoted by Lewis Strauss, which would, as Hewlett and Holl write, “allow
the
[9] Memorandum of Conference with the President, 1/12/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 685; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 2/25/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 711; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 2/2/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 834; NSC, 2/18/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 840.
[10] Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 1/5/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 683; Eisenhower to Christian Herter, 2/21/59, PDDE 19: 1360; Memorandum of Conversation, 5/5/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 739. See also Memorandum of Conference with the President, 1/12/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 685; Eisenhower to Harold Macmillan, 2/23/59, PDDE 19: 1367; Goodpaster memorandum, 2/24/59, cited in PDDE 19: 1367 n.2.
[11] Memorandum of Conference, 11/2/59, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 45, “Staff Notes November 1959 (3)”; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 12/29/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 819. See also Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 9/24/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 775.
[12] Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 8/19/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 903. See also Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 9/24/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 775; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 2/2/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 834: “There is scarcely any proposal in the field of disarmament equitable to the two sides that he would not accept if it can be inspected.”
[13]
Eisenhower to Dulles, 9/17/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 721. The president also insisted to Dulles that
the negotiations must “make reliable agreement conforming to our ideas of right
and justice more probable”: Eisenh ower
to Dulles, 3/26/58, AWF, DDE Diaries Series,
[14] Brendon, Ike, 350; Ambrose, Eisenhower, 345; Dockrill, Eisenhower's New-Look, 224.
[15] Memorandum
of Conference, 4/5/56, FRUS 1955-1957, 19: 288 (see also Memorandum of
Conference with the President, 5/18/56, AWF, DDE Diary Box 15, “May ‘56 Goodpaster”); NSC, 12/8/55, FRUS 1955-1957,
19: 172; Memorandum of Conference, 11/8/56, AWF, DDE Diary,
[16] Eisenhower to Hazlett, 8/20/56, PDDE, 17: 2255; Legislative Leadership Meeting, 12/31/56, AWF, Legislative Meetings Series, Box 2, “Legislative Meetings 1956 (5).”
[17]
NSC, 2/7/56, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 320, 323.
See also Legislative Leadership Meeting, Supplementary Notes, 2/28/56,
AWF, Legislative Meetings Series,
[18] Eisenhower to Macmillan, 6/16/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 628; NSC, 1/11/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 19: 409. See also Dulles to Macmillan, 9/19/57, cited in Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 463; ibid., 397; Memorandum of Conference, 1/12/59, cited in Ambrose, Eisenhower, 491; NSC 12/1/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 808.
[19] Eisenhower
to Edgar Eisenhower, 11/22/55, PDDE 16:1903.
See also, e.g., Eisenhower to John Cowles, 11/24/58, AWF, DDE Diaries
Series,
[20] NSC, 1/26/56, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 297, 298, 299; Memorandum of Conversation, 9/11/56, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 427; Memorandum of Conference, 2/15/56, PDDE, 16: 2041.
[21] NSC, 1/6/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 541; Memorandum of Conference, 3/1/56, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 13, “March 1956 – Goodpaster”; Memorandum of Conference, 6/24/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 639 (compare the same metaphor used in the “Chance for Peace” speech to warn of danger to the world from armaments, not danger to the U.S. from disarmament talks).
[22] Addition to General Cutler’s memorandum on disarmament, 8/9/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 697; Pruden, Conditional Partners, 159; Memorandum of Conversation, Dulles and Stassen, 12/30/55, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 258; Eisenhower to Dulles, 3/24/58, PDDE 19: 821 n. 2. Careful historians draw the same conclusion as Dulles; see Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 382; Osgood, Total Cold War, 141. For Dulles’ interest in arms control as public relations, see also Trachtenberg’s Appendix 7, n. 3, at www.history.upenn.edu/trachtenberg
[23]
Eisenhower to Dulles 1/3/58, quoted in Osgood, Total Cold War, 167 n. 48; Eisenhower to Dulles, 2/58, quoted in
Ambrose, Eisenhower, 446. See also Memorandum of Conference, 3/1/56,
AWF, DDE Diaries Series,
[24] NSC, 4/3/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 588; Eisenhower to Dulles, 3/26/58, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 31, “DDE Dictation March 1958”; Memorandum of Conference with the President, 8/18/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 648; Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, 182; Eisenhower to Macmillan, 8/20/58, PDDE 19: 1060. See also Dulles to Macmillan, 8/2/58, quoted in PDDE 19: 1062 n. 2 and Dulles to Eisenhower, 8/8/58, quoted in Osgood, Total Cold War, 181: “The danger of being isolated, encircled and strangled is even greater than the threat of a massive atomic attack so long as we retain our retaliatory power.”
[25]
Radio and Television Broadcast with Prime Minister Macmillan in
[26] Eisenhower to Macmillan, 3/28/58, PDDE 19: 805; Eisenhower to Dulles phone call, 5/1/58, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 33, “Telephone Calls May 1958.”
[27] Eisenhower to Harold Macmillan, 1/12/59, PDDE 19: 1289; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 3/24/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 862; Herter, Memorandum of Conversation, 1/23/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 832. See also Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 7/7/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 891, and Ambrose, Eisenhower, 581.
[28] Memorandum of Conference with the President, 1/12/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 684.
[29] Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 155-156; pre-press notes, 4/23/58, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 32, “Staff Notes April 1958 (1)”; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 3/24/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 571; NSC, 1/6/58, cited in Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for War and Peace, 470; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 3/24/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 572. See also Eisenhower to Dulles phone call, 2/5/58, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 30, “Telephone Calls, February 1958”; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 8/20/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 650; Memorandum of Conference, 8/16/60, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 51, “Staff Notes August 1960 (2).”
[30] Report on Disarmament to National Security Council, undated [1/56], FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 260-68; Memorandum of Conversation, Dulles and Stassen, 12/30/55, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 258; Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades, 390. Stassen would later promote disarmament negotiations, evoking resistance from Dulles; see Tal, “The Secretary of State vs. the Secretary of Peace.”
[31]
Eisenhower to JCS, 3/56, quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower,
312; Roman, Eisenhower and the Missile
Gap, 200. See also, e.g., diary,
10/29/57, AWF, DDE Diaries Series,
[32] Memorandum of Conference with the President, 3/4/59, FRUS 1958-60, 3: 186; NSC, 4/17/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 19: 480-486.
[33]
Eisenhower to
[34] Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 401; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 3/24/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 570.
[35] NSC, 1/6/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 542; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 3/24/58, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 570; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 3/19/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 718.
[36] Eisenhower to Edward Teller, 8/22/58, PDDE 19: 1068; Eisenhower to Herter, 3/20/59, quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower, 523. See also Memorandum of Conference, 3/17/59, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 40, “Staff Notes March 15-31, 1959”; Memorandum of Conference, 9/22/59, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 44, “Staff Notes September 1959 (1)”; Memorandum of Conference, 8/14/58, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 35, “August 1958 Staff Notes (2).”
[37] NSC, 3/24/60, quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower, 565; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 8/19/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 903.
[38] Tal, “Eisenhower's Disarmament Dilemma.”
[39] Eisenhower to Dulles, 3/7/58, AWF, DDE Diaries Series, Box 31, “DDE Dictation March 1958.” For strategizing to manipulate negotiations, see, e.g., Dulles to Eisenhower, 11/16/58, PDDE 19: 1214 n.2; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 2/17/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 708; Memorandum of Conference with the President, 1/12/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 685; Memorandum of Conversation, 3/20/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 719; Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 3/22/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 725. Michael Mandelbaum points out that the Eisenhower administration often aimed to get the Soviets to reject proposals, in order to make them look “anti-peace” (while the Soviets used the same strategy against the U.S.): The Nuclear Question, 34.
[40] Memorandum of Conference, 7/19/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 422; NSC, 7/25/60, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 429.
[41] Diary, 1/10/56, PDDE 16: 1949.
[42] NSC, 1/22/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 176.
[43] Oakes, The Imaginary War, 160.
[44] Ann Whitman diary,
3/5/59, AWF, Ann Whitman Diary Series,
45 Robert Divine argues that all fears about nuclear testing were symbols of, or surrogates for, fears of nuclear war: Blowing on the Wind, 37-43. His argument was foreshadowed by AEC Commissioner (and early advocate of a test moratorium) Thomas Murray in Nuclear Policy for War and Peace, 75. Eisenhower himself recognized the link midway through his second term: Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 1/12/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 688.
[46] Memorandum of Conference with the President, 6/24/57, FRUS 1955-1957, 20: 639; Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 397; Memorandum of Conversation, 5/5/59, FRUS 1958-1960, 3: 738.
[47] See Allen, Eisenhower and the Mass Media, 170.