Susan Eisenhower, Chairman, The Eisenhower Institute
Panel Chairman:
Dr. Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., President,
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and Shelby Cullom
Davis Professor of International Security Studies, The
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
PFALTZGRAFF:
First of all, I would like to introduce Susan Eisenhower,
who is Chairman of the Eisenhower Institute. She is
an advisor to the Department of Energy. She is also
an Academic Fellow in the International Peace and Security
Program in the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She
has been a member of the International Space Station
Management and Cost Evaluation task force, Director
of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and
the author of two best selling books, which are books
that you would want to recall and to read. Breaking
Free is the first one and the second one is Mrs. Ike,
both excellent books worth your reading, if you haven’t
already done so.
EISENHOWER:
Thank you very much. Thank you very much Dr. Pfaltzgraff.
It is a real pleasure to be here today and to begin
the panel to discuss the background on “Atoms
for Peace.” It’s a particular pleasure for
me because I’m sort a ‘two-fer’ you
could say. I can represent the Eisenhower family in
this process. But it’s a treat to address this
group, as I’ve been in nuclear issues myself for
a very long time. Only people in this room would understand
the thrill of getting inside the third perimeter fence
at Chelyabinsk-70, once a closed nuclear city in the
Ural Mountains of Russia, which I did a number of years
ago as part of the Baker-Cutler Commission.
Being a member of that
Commission gave me, certainly, an opportunity to see
one of the important places in the Cold War confrontation
that we had between ourselves and the Soviet Union,
but it also gave me a real sense and a feel to what
it is we try to do at gatherings like this.
Thank you very much for
that wonderful introduction to the history of this.
Being involved in contemporary affairs with respect
to nuclear weapons, it’s always interesting to
go back and look at many of the historical underpinnings
of where we find ourselves today. And, of course, “Atoms
for Peace” was a very big part of the legacy that
we are now dealing with.
When I came here this
morning I was thinking how appropriate it was that we
were starting the Conference at the crack of dawn because
C. D. Jackson, Eisenhower’s advisor who had been
tasked with writing the early drafts of the “Atoms
for Peace” speech, convened his group to discuss
what the shape of the speech would look like, at the
Metropolitan Club. And since they met early in the morning,
they decided they were going to call it ‘Operation
Wheaties’. So it seemed to mean we were having
an “Operation Wheaties’ here this morning
as well.
In any case, Dr. Robert
Pfalzgraff outlined a wonderful introduction with respect
to how the “Atoms for Peace” speech came
about. Winston Churchill had been briefed about the
speech in advance and praised it, calling it “a
great pronouncement that will resound through the anxious
bewildered world.” I think it would be well to
take a moment and reconstruct that anxious and bewildered
world.
Here we are, after the
Cold War is over. Sometimes it is easy to assume that
it was going to turn out the way it did. But certainly
in 1953, the world looked like a horrifying place indeed.
The nuclear terror that was unleashed by the atomic
carnage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was only heightened
four years later when the Soviet Union tested an atomic
weapon on August of 1949. Great Britain, without help
from the United States, followed suit in October 3,
1952.
And then, with the Korean
War still raging, only a month later, in November of
1952, the world entered the age of the hydrogen bomb.
The destructive capacity of this weapon was awesome
in the old and Biblical sense of the word. On its detonation,
it vaporized the test island and blew open an underwater
crater 15 hundred yards in diameter. Less than a year
later, the Soviets made their own announcement on August
19, 1953 that they had successfully broken the United
States’ monopoly on the hydrogen bomb.
The Soviet Union had been
all but destroyed during World War II making it obvious
that a nation’s wealth was not a prerequisite
for gaining nuclear knowledge and capability. It was
clear to the President that if the world took its current
path, soon others, and possibly all countries, would
be able to acquire and develop nuclear weapons. “Eisenhower,”
wrote one analyst, “sought to reconcile the ambiguities
and contradictions of nuclear politics, offering some
hope for the future.”
On the one hand the hydrogen
bomb had the destructive capacity to bring about a nuclear
holocaust, yet this weapon of unthinkable terror was
also, ironically, the same device that served as a deterrent
central to our national security calculations. At the
same time, advancements in the nuclear field held out
the promise of using the atom to provide ideally limitless
nuclear power for energy and humanitarian purposes.
I would like to take this
opportunity to say that Eisenhower was knowledgeable
about the promise of peaceful nuclear energy and deeply
impressed by it in large measure because of the very
good relationship he had with the scientific community
that dated back not only to his army years but also
the period when he was President of Columbia University.
In any case, Eisenhower felt strongly that this issue
needed leadership and management. He had originally
intended the “Atoms for Peace” speech be
the first major foreign policy address of his administration.
But Stalin’s death at the outset in March of 1953
prompted the Eisenhower administration to think about
approaching the Soviet Union on disarmament talks. President
Eisenhower thought that this would be one way to do
it, to bring about some idea that would create an opportunity
for cooperation, which would then, even if it was “the
tiniest of starts”, he said, could evolve into
something broader than just humanitarian efforts. How
could the tide of nuclear proliferation be stemmed?
After all, it was the belief in 1953 that some, and
possibly all, countries could acquire nuclear technology.
How could we slow down
the number of countries that were likely to go nuclear?
Eisenhower saw his proposal as a way to involve developing
countries as we have heard. Could the post-imperial
world, increasingly restless with the double standards
imposed by developed nations, sit still for long as
the “Nuclear Club” seized the restricted
access to the benefits that nuclear power promised?
And how, and I think this is critically important, how
could the President enhance public understanding of
the issue and garner their support?
General Andrew Goodpaster
will tell you how seriously Eisenhower took that particular
issue. He was crafting the concept and considering countless
drafts of the speech – and, by the way, you would
not have wanted to be a speechwriter for Dwight Eisenhower.
I’d like to remind you that he was a speechwriter
for Douglas McArthur and he knew a thing or two about
drafting a speech.
In any case, after seeing
many of these drafts, President Eisenhower was completely
frustrated and he wrote to a friend, “Every version
I’ve read left listeners with only a new sense
of terror. So I began to search around for a new kind
of idea that could bring the world to look at the atomic
problem in a broad and intelligent way and still escape
the impasse to action create by Russian intransigence
in a matter of mutual and neutral inspection of resources.”
“I wanted, additionally,
to give our people and the world some faint idea of
the distance already traveled by this new science but
to do it in way that would not create new alarm…
I wanted to give them certain knowledge that the taxpayer’s
hard earned tax dollars had not been spent for destructive
purposes alone, that there could be economic and social
benefits from this pioneering research.” “The
atom,” Eisenhower would later say, “was
non-political, neither moral nor immoral, only man’s
choice would determine the way in which it would be
used.”
The speech not only gave
presidential legitimacy to the international pursuit
of atomic energy but, in the context of the Cold War,
it raised the United States standing within the developing
world. Did Eisenhower know the historic forces he set
in play? I believe he did. When I read accounts that
Eisenhower was naïve, I’ll defer to General
Goodpaster on this, but I knew him very well myself.
I don’t think so. I think he understood that there
was probably no other solution at this particular time,
and especially with the belief that all countries could
soon acquire this technology if they so chose, that
we as a nation had an obligation to bring these benefits
to all of humankind.
As we look back now, “Atoms
for Peace” has had some success. Given the 1953
calculation about the potential of nuclear weapons being
available universally, we have to admit that the rate
of those countries that have acquired nuclear weapons
are well below the rate anticipated in 1953. Furthermore,
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the International
Atomic Energy Agency, and the international community
have gained leverage and access to countries that would
have otherwise remained off-bounds because of reasons
of sovereignty. So, I find that issue of access extremely
important.
No nuclear weapon has
been use since World War II and the nations of the world
had essentially at this point stopped testing nuclear
weapons. Nuclear electric power accounts for nearly
one-fifth of the world’s electricity. Nuclear
power has reduced global tensions by replacing oil in
many applications and providing much of the world’s
electricity that is generated without the release of
greenhouse gases or other destructive emissions.
Many other nuclear and
radiation-related technologies, especially in radiopharmaceuticals
and medical advances have saved millions of lives through
cancer treatments and other applications. And while
“Atoms for Peace” as well as the institutions
it created, such as the IAEA and eventually the NPT,
have come under fire in recent years, the complaints,
I believe, are largely a function of poor implementation
rather than conceptualization. “Atoms for Peace,”
let’s not forget, was a vision and not a blueprint.
It’s hard to imagine a world in which country
might have its own nuclear capability without international
oversight and inspection or that the benefits of nuclear
medicine and agriculture would be available only to
a chosen few.
Fifty years later, however,
the nuclear dilemma is still with us. It is now informed
by a different set of threats and concerns, but it seems
to me that the biggest problem that I see is not the
small amounts of material located in research reactors
around the world, although we need to secure those urgently,
but by the legacy of the arms race that continued unabated
well after Dwight Eisenhower left office. The Soviet
Union is gone today. Russia is as our partner in many
areas and so, quite frankly, in my estimation, we have
no excuse.
We have the opening that
Eisenhower hoped for and prayed for and, in some respects,
planned for. And so it seems to me that we need to accelerate
our agenda on a number of issues. Despite the work that’s
already been conducted in Russia, much needs to be done:
for instance, a hundred metric tons of plutonium and
highly enriched uranium have not received security upgrades.
This is an urgent task.
We still have weapons
deployed on high alert. President George W. Bush and
President Vladimir Putin could well direct the immediate
stand down of all forces scheduled for reduction under
the Moscow Treaty. Both presidents could increase the
decision time for nuclear response from minutes to hours.
And even though the Cold War is over, there remains
the potential for catastrophic accident or for the more
remote possibility of unauthorized launch.
The U.S. and Russia must
get a grip on tactical nuclear weapons as well. And
the United States, in my opinion, must think long and
hard about the implications of adding other weapons
to our arsenals, for instance, earth-penetrating “bunker
busters”. Not only could they prompt other countries
to devise a nuclear deterrent against ”bunker
busters”, I think just as worrisome is the fact
that their name and their low yield may lull some people
into thinking they could really be used.
“Atoms for Peace”
institutions, including the IAEA and the NPT, have to
be properly funded, reformed and augmented. Their mandates
need to be broadened. We need to look again at nuclear
power and to step up to the plate. It may be one of
the most effective ways of minimizing our dependence
on foreign oil, and reducing the potential for proliferation
through the use of new reactor technology.
Given the environmental problems that the international
community is facing, we have no alternative, and the
sooner we start moving forward on these issues, the
better off we are going to be.
Let’s look to enhance
the security of the atom but let us not hold the world
hostage to the fears that President Eisenhower tried
to put aside. While the “Atoms for Peace”
speech was given 50 years ago, the impulse to reduce
the dangers of nuclear war and to extend the life-giving
benefits of the atom remains as valid as ever and so
I would like to conclude my remarks by quoting Dwight
Eisenhower in his December 8th address, when he said,
“The United States pledges before you and therefore
to 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.” Thank you very much.
[Applause]
Questions and
Answers: PFALTZGRAFF: We now have an opportunity
for a few minutes at least for questions and comments
from the group here, all participants. I won’t
say the audience because everyone is a participant here
and we hope that you will feel free to intervene at
this point. Would anyone like to ask a question or two
in the time that we have? Yes. And please make sure
that everyone identifies himself or herself.
PFALTZGRAFF:
Any final questions before we conclude the panel?
BRODSKY:
Thank you. I’m Alan Brodsky, Adjunct Professor
at Georgetown University and senior scientist at SCIC.
These excellent presentations bring me back 50 years.
And I remember something else that I think happened
during the Eisenhower administration. He also seemed
to realize that perhaps our efforts would fail. And
I know, since I was part of it after a little while,
that he established an excellent civil defense program,
which was decimated in 1994. And I’ve been trying
to get some of this re-established as a past chairman
of Homeland Security for a healthy society.
And I wonder if you could
tell me, to what degree President Eisenhower really
thought about protecting the population as well as these
other issues?
PFALTZGRAFF:
We have time for one final comment from Susan Eisenhower.
EISENHOWER:
Well, I would like to mention one or two things in conclusion.
You know, every president expresses himself in a different
way and, so, therefore there are different ways to get
to know each person who has been president of the United
States. I would just like to emphasize that Dwight Eisenhower
was a great writer. He really was and he was an avid
diarist and many of these diaries are now available.
The thing that is quite
striking is that he wrote many very deep and penetrating
letters to his personal friends. The Johns Hopkins University
has done a magnificent job of putting these papers together
and you can see the whole transformation, or I should
say the evolution, of Dwight Eisenhower’s thinking
through these letters he wrote to one of his childhood
friends for instance. So, I think it is a wonderful
source.
The only other comment
I want to make really responds to Richard Garwin’s
question. What is striking for me today that in my opinion,
most of what we are trying to accomplish is tactical
and not strategic. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t
matter what you want to say, but Dwight Eisenhower was
a great strategist and was extremely comfortable in
looking at big problems and parsing out the various
elements that went into those big problems. Let’s
face the fact that Eisenhower had a lot of experience
from his time in the Army through the role he played
in World War II.
For instance, there is
a lot of discussion still about his farewell address
in which he identifies the potential unwarranted influence
of the military industrial complex. This was not a speechwriter,
by the way, and I think it is wonderful that at least
five former Eisenhower’s speechwriters claim that
speech. But it’s 100 percent Dwight Eisenhower’s
and it goes back to his experience in the early 1930s,
between the World Wars, when he was placed with the
responsibility of trying to figure out how to reindustrialize
industry in case of war, which, in fact, was only coming
in less than ten years. So he had ‘reverse engineered’
that concept by working the problem on the other side.
In conclusion, if you
want to know more of Dwight Eisenhower, his works are
gloriously available because he wrote up a storm his
entire life and that is very helpful for all of us who
are interested.
PFALTZGRAFF:
Well, I know that everyone will join me in expressing
thanks for this outstanding panel for opening the conference
in the way that it has and setting the stage as it has
and providing for us some unique insights into the life
and times of Dwight D. Eisenhower and especially the
setting in which the “Atoms for Peace” speech
was developed and delivered and discussing its legacy.