(S01-E14) President Eisenhower - Atoms for Peace Speech to the U.N.
In this podcast episode, we feature President Eisenhower delivering a speech named by others as Atoms for Peace at the United Nations in 1953. This speech was delivered during high tensions of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Berlin Blockade had only been resolved a few years earlier in 1948. That event nearly triggered a military confrontation between those who countries then. Both nations were rapidly developing new weapons with even more destructive force than used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two.
President Eisenhower previously was General Eisenhower serving as the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War Two. After the war ended, he retired from the military and was elected President of the United States in 1953. Eisenhower was now in a position to take nuclear energy as a weapon and help repurpose it for peaceful purposes. This speech to the United Nations was part of an intentional campaign called “Operation Candor” to discuss the risks and hopes of a nuclear future for the American people.
In addition to an available download transcript of this speech, I also included another PDF that is a critical entry from Wikipedia providing more context for this speech and the U.S. intentions to influence the European allies and the Soviet Union. I was impressed with the deep analysis of the article. Rather than offering a commentary after this speech, I recommend reading the Wikipedia entry about the speech and the bigger issues.
- Click this link for a transcript of Eisenhower's speech.
- Click this link for the backstory to the writing of Eisenhower's speech.
