The Fourth Country Problem: Eisenhower's Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy.
"Soon even little countries will have a stockpile of these bombs, and then we will be in a mess," exclaimed President Dwight D. Eisenhower in spring 1954.(1) Eisenhower had hoped to energize an American nonproliferation policy that had languished since the failure of the Baruch Plan in 1946, but these efforts proved fruitless. Although no one in the Eisenhower administration proposed recanting Washington's opposition to nuclear spread, some officials, such as Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Lewis Strauss, began to wonder if attempting to halt nuclear dissemination was akin to an effort to hold back the tides. Arms race advocates exhibited disdain for nonproliferation schemes and intense suspicion of the Soviets, concluding that all disarmament agreements would erode U.S. security. Other U.S. policy makers, such as John Foster Dulles and Harold Stassen, believed that the arms race threatened U.S. security but also rejected comprehensive disarmament proposals as naive and idealistic. Instead, they embraced arms control plans that attempted to manage the arms race rather than end it. Eisenhower tried to forge a consensus in his administration between the arms control and arms race advocates. He too believed that an unchecked arms race posed a serious threat to U.S. survival, but he also harbored deep suspicions regarding Soviet intentions and reliability. He concluded that an already dangerous international system would become even more threatening if other countries beyond the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union acquired nuclear weapons.Eisenhower took action on both the national and international levels to resolve the "fourth country" problem. He met with limited success when both Great Britain and the Soviet Union expressed interest in U.S. nonproliferation proposals. But ultimately, cold war suspicions, disagreement within the Eisenhower administration, and presidential impotence led to subordination of nonproliferation to other policy goals, especially maintaining North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) unity and winning the support of nonaligned nations with Atoms for Peace aid. In the face of this inaction, other countries initiated their own nuclear weapons programs, including France, Israel, and the People's Republic of China. Eisenhower's failure to conclude a nonproliferation agreement therefore raises important questions about the ability of two international rivals to cooperate in areas of mutual national interests, about the acceleration of the nuclear arms race, and about Eisenhower's presidential leadership. It also indicates that the withering of U.S. hegemony, which became most palpable in 1960s and 1970s, had roots reaching back to the zenith of American power.
Eisenhower entered the presidency with a more sophisticated understanding of nuclear weapons and their role in U.S. strategy than any of his predecessors or successors. While U.S. army chief of staff from 1945 to 1948 and later as supreme commander of NATO from 1951 to 1952, Eisenhower helped supervise the integration of atomic weapons into U.S. strategy. As president, he combined this experience with his adherence to the German military thinker Karl von Clausewitz's theories on the interconnection of war and politics.(2) But his reading of Clausewitz provided him with contradictory impulses toward nuclear weapons. Eisenhower feared that if he sustained the high level of defense spending he had inherited from Truman, it would damage the U.S. economy. He warned an aide, "If we let defense spending run wild, you get inflation ... then controls ... then a garrison state ... and then we've lost the very values we were trying to defend."(3) A military policy based primarily on nuclear deterrence offered a feasible means to reduce defense spending while offering sufficient striking force to check Soviet aggression.(4) But the new president also worried that nuclear weapons used in massive numbers violated the Clausewitzian principle that military victory must serve a clear political purpose.(5) At a meeting with military leaders, Eisenhower challenged them to imagine the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. He observed, "Here would be a great area from the Elbe to Vladivostock and down through Southeast Asia torn up and destroyed, without government, without its communications, just an area of starvation and disaster. I ask you what would the civilized world do about it?"(6) Later in his administration, as Soviet nuclear strength increased, he remarked, "You can't have this kind of war.... There just aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets."(7)
The president also contended that nuclear armaments posed a greater threat to American than to Soviet national security, if only because atomic weapons favored "the side that attacks aggressively and by surprise." Because, in his opinion, the United States would never initiate an undeclared war, the continued existence of the nuclear threat actually worked to the Soviets' advantage.(8) The abolition of nuclear weapons, therefore, would favor the United States because the Soviet Union could not match its industrial capacity in the event of conventional war.(9) Eisenhower's fears about the consequences of nuclear weapons compelled him to embrace nuclear disarmament as the third major pillar of his national security policy, along with defense and deterrence.(10) But these three national security approaches did not receive equal emphasis because the president could not divorce arms control negotiations from the overarching anti-Soviet thrust of U.S. foreign policy. The Eisenhower administration therefore achieved few clear disarmament successes. More important, the United States failed to develop a consistent and effective nuclear nonproliferation policy from 1953 to 1961. Eisenhower did not fully understand the intricacies of nuclear physics and the multiple avenues of potential proliferation.
The most telling example of the president's ignorance of proliferation hazards emerged from his Atoms for Peace proposal of December 1953. The new plan would emulate the spirit and design of the Truman administration's Marshall Plan and Point IV program. With the sponsorship of the U.S. government, private firms would spread American products around the globe and demonstrate the greater technological development and prosperity possible under liberal capitalism than under communist economies.(11) Atoms for Peace would also demonstrate to the American people that all the money and energy invested in atomic energy could have positive as well as destructive uses.(12) By offering other countries aid in creating nuclear power plants, the Eisenhower administration ignored the primary findings of Truman administration officials: peaceful and military technologies cannot be segregated.(13) Although cast in terms of beating swords into plowshares, the Eisenhower administration ignored the fact that nuclear plowshares could be recast as swords.(14) British Prime Minister Winston Churchill did try to warn the president of the proliferation danger, but Eisenhower brushed Churchill's worries aside, asserting that the materials and information promised under the plan would not constitute a threat.(15) But the president made this claim before consulting the General Advisory Committee of the AEC. Even after consultations with nuclear physicists, the administration appeared more concerned with the possibility of sudden military seizure of internationally controlled uranium and plutonium stores than with the gradual diversion of fissionable materials from nuclear reactors into weapons development.(16) Rather than being a first step toward an international nonproliferation agreement, Eisenhower's speech on December 8, 1953, opened the door to unchecked nuclear proliferation.(17) Few commentators noted this danger immediately after the speech. Congressional leaders, the press, and foreign governments generally praised Atoms for Peace.(18) Even leaders of some American peace groups supported the plan.(19) A few disarmament advocates, however, believed it failed to go far enough and noted its lack of safeguards.(20) Critics among nuclear nationalists labeled the plan "Watts for Hottentots" and saw it as an ill-conceived government giveaway program.(21) The critics, despite their small number, proved prescient. Through Atoms for Peace, the United States indirectly aided several nuclear weapons programs, including India, Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, South Africa, and Israel.(22) At the end of Eisenhower's first year in office, U.S. nonproliferation policy barely clung to life.
In 1954, the status of nuclear nonproliferation policy changed dramatically. Two explosions, one thermonuclear and the other diplomatic, awakened American nonproliferation policy from its slumber. The first blast occurred in the Marshall Islands, a U.S.-administered, United Nations (UN) trusteeship. The AEC detonated its first deliverable hydrogen bomb, code-named Bravo, on March 1, 1954. The blast's fireball expanded outward for nearly four miles, and radiation spread out even farther, bathing American servicemen, scientists, and the people of the Marshall Islands with dangerous radiation.(23) U.S. physicists had miscalculated the level of thermonuclear reaction in the bomb core, allowing the experiment to run almost out of control.(24)
The Eisenhower administration tried to restrict public knowledge of the test's unexpected results. The AEC simply announced that a minor accident had occurred during a routine nuclear test. But the AEC's public relations campaign collapsed when reports started to emanate from Japan about a crew of ill fisherman. On March 14, the ironically named Japanese tuna trawler Fukuryu Maru--the Fortunate Dragon--returned to its home port with irradiated fish in its hold and its crew exhibiting signs of radiation sickness.(25) The American and world public demanded a full explanation about the dangers of nuclear experiments. Eisenhower had hoped to delay any public statements until the end of the month, when AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss returned from observing the nuclear test series. But during a press conference on March 24, the president responded to criticism about the "uranium curtain" around the test by admitting that the explosion's intensity had "surprised and astonished the scientists."(26) While the public's hunger for information intensified, the president and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles also received pleas from NATO allies to halt the propaganda debacle.(27) Dulles contacted the AEC chair before his scheduled arrival to warn him that the "hysteria" surrounding the Fortunate Dragon exposure could turn U.S. allies away from NATO and lead them to a "policy of neutrality and appeasement."(28) Strauss arrogantly dismissed the whole incident as "grossly exaggerated" and a ploy by people "who wish we did not have such a weapon and don't care if Russia has it."(29)
Upon his return to Washington, the AEC chair uttered more extreme accusations. He told Eisenhower's press secretary James Hagerty that the Fortunate Dragon was probably part of a "Red spy outfit" and implied that the contaminated fish could be part of a Soviet plot. He warned, "If I were the Reds I would fill the oceans all over the world with radioactive fish. It would be easy to do!"(30) Although less inflammatory, the admiral's statements during a March 31 press conference agitated, rather than soothed, public worries. Strauss assured the American people that fallout posed no future health threat and promised that the Marshall Islanders and fishermen would recover fully. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, the AEC chair also claimed that the contamination of the ship occurred only because it had strayed well within the boundaries of the exclusion zone. If Strauss had stopped there, he might have succeeded in calming public opinion. But during the question period, he stumbled when he admitted that a hydrogen bomb could destroy any city, even New York. The next day, headlines across the country featured the admiral's remarks.(31) The negative publicity multiplied when publications around the world ran stories about the potential dangers of fallout and the genocidal implications of thermonuclear war.(32) Dulles privately admitted that if Strauss kept "shooting off these big bombs," U.S. allies might demand an immediate nuclear disarmament agreement.(33) The secretary appeared prophetic. Within days, calls for an end to thermonuclear tests sounded around the world. American opinion fragmented, with voices both clamoring for a test moratorium and declaring that a large nuclear arsenal provided vital security in the face of the Soviet threat.(34) International opinion, however, leaned heavily in favor of halting tests. In Britain, the minority Labour Party introduced a resolution supporting a great-power summit to negotiate a test ban. The Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, defeated this measure but promised to seek a conference on nuclear weapons in the near future. In Asia, negative sentiment toward nuclear testing ran high, with many voicing their consternation that Asian people had suffered most from nuclear weapons. On April 2, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave substance to this outcry when he called for an immediate test moratorium and UN negotiations toward a comprehensive disarmament agreement.(35)
Dulles had seen and heard enough. During a National Security Council meeting on April 6, he scribbled a note to the president, advising that the administration "should consider whether we could advantageously agree to Nehru [sic] proposal of no further experimental explosions."(36) The president immediately asked Strauss to study the idea. The moratorium concept gained quick support from UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and the British government, although both thought it better to place limits only on very large explosions.(37) A public relations victory, not arms control, emerged as the primary motivation of test ban proponents in the Eisenhower administration.(38) The president wanted to get off the defensive and announce a test moratorium. He urged his subordinates to complete the technical studies in time for him to incorporate a proposal in his May commencement address at Columbia University.(39) As the administration studied the feasibility of a moratorium, calls for an end to testing continued. In late April, for example, Pope Pius XII and noted humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer importuned both the United States and the Soviet Union to halt nuclear experiments.(40)
Some scientists, however, argued that a test moratorium could serve as the first phase in a nuclear nonproliferation scheme, contending that without the ability to conduct experiments, few countries would risk the large expenditure required to construct a nuclear arsenal.(41) But a test ban, even if comprehensive, would not be sufficient to halt nuclear dissemination. The bomb used against Hiroshima had never been tested and served as a historical reminder that crude, but effective, atomic weapons could be constructed without experimental explosions. Other measures, including a ban on the production of fissionable materials such as uranium-235 and plutonium, in combination with a test ban, would provide a stronger check against nuclear dissemination. The danger in promoting a test ban as a nonproliferation measure, however, lay in the possibility that some government officials and portions of the public would believe that a moratorium alone would prevent nuclear spread.
The test ban policy debate in 1954 established the contours of the bureaucratic struggle for the remainder of the Eisenhower administration. The AEC, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Defense Department all rejected a test moratorium as a threat to U.S. national security because they feared Soviet cheating and did not believe that the United States had a decisive advantage in nuclear technology.(42) Even Dulles eventually backed away from a test ban. His support for limitation had been predicated on a potential public relations windfall. When he realized that such a proposal might "boomerang" to the Soviet Union's advantage by allowing it to renew its call for outlawry of nuclear weapons or giving it the chance to present a more sweeping test ban agreement, he quickly reversed his opinion.(43) Disgusted with the resistance to action within his administration and worried about Washington's international reputation, Eisenhower fumed, "Everybody seems to think we're skunks, saber-rattlers, and warmongers."(44) The president personally favored making a test ban proposal, believing that the United States would keep pace with the Soviets in a nuclear arms race without testing. But he failed to exert vigorous leadership on the issue and allowed his advisers to pursue a policy at odds with his own wishes.(45)
In 1955, the bureaucratic deadlock within the administration eventually persuaded Eisenhower to appoint Harold Stassen as a special consultant on disarmament in the hopes of restoring order to an inchoate U.S. arms control policy.(46) During his reevaluation of U.S. proposals, Stassen concluded that without arms control, within ten years numerous countries would have nuclear weapons, including Canada, France, Japan, the People's Republic of China, West Germany, India, and Argentina. Stassen, however, initially hesitated to recommend a strict commitment to nonproliferation because he conceded that smaller nuclear forces might act "as an essential counterpoise to a growing USSR nuclear weapons threat."(47) But gradually, as Moscow showed more signs of cooperativeness on arms control issues, he moved nonproliferation to the forefront by making it one of the three main goals of U.S. disarmament policy, along with reducing the threat of surprise attack and impeding the development of the Soviet nuclear arsenal.(48) The Defense Department emerged as the leading opponent of Stassen's nonproliferation proposals when it questioned whether the spread of nuclear weapons actually threatened U.S. security. The Pentagon contended that nuclear proliferation could not be prevented and suggested that proliferation would work to the advantage of the United States because the Soviet Union would not allow its unreliable Eastern European allies to acquire nuclear weapons. Production of nuclear weapons by U.S. allies such as France and Japan, on the other hand, would add to the Western advantage in nuclear weaponry.(49)
Undaunted, during the summer of 1956, Stassen eliminated the vagueness of his earlier plan and enumerated specific nonproliferation measures as well as selective proliferation proposals designed to maintain U.S. control over Western nuclear policy. These included limiting the production of fissionable material to peaceful uses only; creation of both a small UN nuclear weapons force, dubbed "Atoms for Police," and an elite NATO group armed with tactical weapons and atomic bombs; a comprehensive nuclear alliance with Great Britain; gradual transfer of previously produced fissionable material to peaceful purposes; and a nuclear test ban.(50) Although more detailed than his earlier proposal, Stassen's ideas still lacked the support of careful technical studies. The only staff work consisted of a two-page checklist of reasons why countries might or might not abstain from producing nuclear weapons. The paper claimed that the majority of the motivations for proliferation, such as internal political and economic constraints and psychological factors, lay outside direct U.S. control. But the report also suggested two possible U.S. initiatives to inhibit uncontrolled nuclear spread--namely, supplying allies with American nuclear weapons and creating multilateral nuclear arsenals under UN or collective security arrangements.(51) The new plan immediately came under fire from the AEC and the Pentagon. The joint chiefs of staff regarded the proposals as too vague and opposed any change in the U.S. position on a test ban.(52) AEC Chairman Lewis L. Strauss dismissed Stassen's claims of a "fourth country problem" as overly speculative and charged that a July 1, 1957, deadline for the fissionable material cut off and the test ban would compromise U.S. security.(53)
Presidential politics further disrupted the momentum of both nonproliferation and the test ban. Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic presidential candidate, made a test moratorium a major feature of his campaign. Eisenhower initially remained silent, hoping to keep arms control out of politics. But the president sabotaged his own wish when he called a unilateral moratorium on large tests a "theatrical national gesture."(54) This exchange transformed nuclear testing into a central campaign issue, with Stevenson and the administration accusing one another of risking American lives and national security.(55) Eisenhower won the election easily, but he had gone on record as opposed to a test moratorium. In addition, during the election, Stassen had badly damaged his political standing within the administration and with Republican members of Congress when he spearheaded a campaign to remove Richard Nixon from the national ticket. Any agreement that Stassen negotiated, therefore, would be sure to undergo careful scrutiny. The disarmament adviser and his staff, however, remained convinced that nuclear dissemination frightened the Soviets. The prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of the West Germans just might persuade the Soviets to compromise on arms control.(56)
In early 1957, during the UN Disarmament Subcommittee meetings in London, the Soviet delegate Valerian Zorin informed Stassen that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wanted a test ban to control proliferation. American policy, however, explicitly rejected a separate test ban accord. Stassen decided to violate his instructions to probe the seriousness of the Soviet offer. In preparation for further meetings with Zorin, Stassen asked his staff for studies of the relationship between test limitation and nuclear spread.(57) In the meantime, the disarmament adviser began to hint in both informal bilateral discussions and the official sessions of the Disarmament Subcommittee that test limitation separate from a comprehensive disarmament treaty might be acceptable to the United States.(58)
When Dulles discovered Stassen's activities, he chastised him for offering "personal" proposals to the Soviets, but the secretary conceded that the possibility of controlling the fourth country problem justified taking some risks.(59) Eisenhower also approved Stassen's emphasis on nonproliferation, hoping that the Soviets' desire to prevent nuclear spread "might prove a valuable bargaining point."(60) Buoyed by his meetings in Washington, Stassen received more good news upon his return to London. The Soviets seemed intent on more bilateral discussions, especially on the nonproliferation issue.(61) Stassen formulated a new set of disarmament proposals that included a pledge by all nonnuclear states not to manufacture or use nuclear weapons, a cutoff of fissionable material production, and a twelve-month test moratorium.(62)
Fearing that the U.S. disarmament plan had become "too grandiose," Dulles called Stassen back to Washington for consultations.(63) The political atmosphere in the capital had changed for the worse in the month that the disarmament adviser had spent in London. An interdepartmental study on the interconnection of test limitation and the fourth country problem had uncovered deep divisions within the national security bureaucracy. Neither the Defense Department nor the AEC believed that the threat of nuclear proliferation warranted the risk of a comprehensive test ban. A consensus emerged that partial limitation of testing had little hope of containing nuclear spread because many nations could construct primitive nuclear weapons without needing to test them.(64) The AEC, moreover, opposed even a twelve-month moratorium, labeling it akin to an agreement to "stop breathing for three hours."(65) If tests were ever stopped, the Pentagon and the AEC feared that public opinion would prevent their resumption.(66)
Eisenhower shared Stassen's belief that the Soviets truly wanted nuclear arms control.(67) He feared that without an end to the arms race, the United States would face serious financial problems. But displaying his characteristic caution and ambivalence, he counseled that any disarmament agreement "should not incur serious risks" to U.S. national security.(68) The president's wary approach to arms control worked in combination with the AEC's and Pentagon's opposition to mute the nonproliferation features of Stassen's proposals. The Defense Department successfully argued that the fourth country problem should not be the controlling feature of any U.S. disarmament plan. This policy shift forced Stassen to revise the provision for nuclear abstinence by all nonnuclear powers. Signatories to the agreement would pledge not to manufacture weapons, but they could still receive them from any of the nuclear powers and use them independently in the event of war.(69) The production cutoff and transfer of fissionable material to peaceful purposes also underwent revision to enable the nuclear powers to maintain a "very substantial nuclear weapons capability."(70) The twelve-month test moratorium emerged relatively unscathed from these meetings. But without the no-weapons pledge and fissionable material cutoff to support it, a pause in nuclear experimentation seemed to hold little potential to inhibit nuclear spread.
On May 31, Stassen sabotaged his chances for success when he gave Zorin an informal memorandum detailing the new U.S. proposals. The disarmament adviser had not consulted NATO allies, nor had he received departmental approval of the plan's language.(71) When Washington and the allied governments found out about Stassen's negotiating ploy, a political firestorm broke out on both sides of the Atlantic. The French labeled the action "worse than Suez" and claimed it provided clear evidence that European nations needed to undertake their own nuclear weapons programs.(72) London and Bonn also soon lodged formal protests with Washington.(73) Eisenhower and Dulles could hardly contain their anger. Eisenhower confided to Dulles that "for the first time his confidence in Stassen was seriously shaken" and suggested that preparations be made to appoint a replacement.(74) The secretary formally reprimanded Stassen and ordered him to ask Zorin for the return of the talking paper.(75) Dulles still desired a solution to nuclear proliferation before the spread of nuclear weapons eroded American power and made NATO a hollow shell.(76) But the uproar over the Zorin-Stassen affair made nuclear dissemination an extremely sensitive issue within the alliance. Dulles, therefore, revised the U.S. proposal further and removed the explicit no-weapons pledge.(77)
In late July, the president decided to send Dulles to London in order to "take command" of the talks.(78) The move served to calm West Germany and other distressed allies, but it also signaled that Stassen no longer had authority to speak for the United States. On August 27, tired of waiting for a new Western proposal, Zorin blasted the United States and its allies for scuttling the conference and demanded "an immediate stop to atomic and hydrogen weapons tests."(79) By September 6, all the delegates agreed to recess the subcommittee session. It never reconvened.(80) Once he returned to Washington, Stassen worked to salvage the progress he had achieved in his discussions with Zorin. But the "informal note" debacle had critically wounded the disarmament adviser politically. Viewed with suspicion by everyone in the administration, including the president, Stassen's new proposals had little chance of acceptance. After limping along for several months, Stassen resigned in February 1958.(81)
Stassen's resignation diminished Eisenhower's commitment to controlling proliferation via arms control agreements. Officials continued to give lip service to the test moratorium as an obstacle to nuclear spread, but few believed it would be sufficient to control the problem. Throughout the remaining years of Eisenhower's presidency, he used the test ban negotiations primarily to quiet public protests and preserve the American lead in the nuclear arms race. The burden of preventing proliferation thus shifted to measures that the United States could implement unilaterally or in cooperation with allies, especially the seemingly contradictory policy of nuclear sharing.
This element of Eisenhower's nonproliferation policy saw expanded NATO access to atomic weapons as an effective means to control nuclear spread. Throughout his first term, the president and his subordinates worked to relax restrictions on sharing nuclear data with allies and urged NATO countries to incorporate tactical nuclear weapons into their "conventional" war plans.(82) The launching of Sputnik in October 1957 provided further impetus to nuclear sharing. The satellite raised the specter of Soviet superiority in nuclear delivery vehicles because nuclear missiles and space technology went hand-in-hand.(83) Cries of a missile gap persuaded many on the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) that the United States should take measures to offset Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The basing of intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Europe seemed to offer a quick solution.(84)
But German and French nuclear ambitions posed the central problem. Despite Anglo-American discussions on the fourth country problem, neither Britain nor the United States had developed a clearly defined policy on how to approach the Franco-German problem. If Washington and London appeared too hostile, NATO might splinter, and a neutral bloc in Western Europe might form.(85) But the creation of an independent French or a Franco-German nuclear force also could spur nationalist impulses that would gradually erode alliance cohesiveness. This problem took on greater urgency in late 1957 and early 1958, as France and Germany began a brief "nuclear flirtation." French and German defense officials, at times in cooperation with their Italian counterparts, discussed the creation of a West European arms consortium that would produce both nuclear and conventional weapons.(86)
Dulles became a leading advocate of steps to block this challenge to American hegemony. He called for the revision of the Atomic Energy Act's restricted data provisions, which prevented the sharing of nuclear data with U.S. allies. Eisenhower concurred, publicly labeling the law "a deplorable incident in American history."(87) The administration took immediate steps to amend the Atomic Energy Act to implement nuclear sharing while the JCAE seemed more amenable to change.(88) The United States proposed a NATO IRBM force, an enlarged stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons, and the pooling of military research and development.(89) The new NATO nuclear policy offered solutions to two problems--NATO vulnerability to Soviet missile attacks and the potential for European proliferation. Dulles told the JCAE that the proposals would hopefully appease "those allies who presently have a potentiality themselves of developing nuclear weapons and they will not go into the expensive business that would be involved in trying to develop themselves an independent nuclear capability."(90) The United States saw the problem of nuclear dissemination through the economic lens of comparative advantage: to wit, the administration would make it more financially attractive for the Europeans to acquire the weapons from the United States than it would be to develop them independently. Although Washington would continue to exert control over the use of these weapons through its dominance of the NATO command structure, European allies might deem the new arrangement sufficient to claim they had access to nuclear weapons for national defense. The United States therefore could dodge what it saw as the greater destabilizing effects of independent European nuclear forces.
When Eisenhower first presented the new nuclear sharing policy to NATO in December 1957, it seemed to be a great success. From the beginning, however, the United States anticipated trouble with French acceptance of the new policies. Although France seemed willing to accept IRBM bases and a tactical weapons stockpile on its soil, it also seemed intent on obtaining an independent nuclear force.(91) When Charles de Gaulle came to power in June 1958, he soon challenged American leadership in NATO. Committed to restoring France as the preeminent power in Western Europe, the new French leader would not countenance any nuclear arrangements with the United States that were functionally inferior to the Anglo-American nuclear alliance.(92) Eisenhower harbored some sympathy toward France's quest for a closer nuclear relationship. But the president drew the line at treating de Gaulle "like God."(93) In 1958, however, little possibility existed that the JCAE would revise the Atomic Energy Act to appease the French. In the first bilateral discussions with de Gaulle in July, Dulles explained that American policy aimed at discouraging independent nuclear forces because proliferation would destabilize both the international system and the Western alliance while complicating arms control negotiations. He placed the new NATO nuclear-sharing arrangements in this context and explained that given France's history of political instability since World War II, the JCAE did not feel comfortable elevating Paris to the same level as London in nuclear affairs. If de Gaulle established a healthy political environment in France, the JCAE might reverse its earlier decision.(94) The general clearly found Dulles's presentation disingenuous. He told the secretary that all countries pursue nationalist policies designed to increase their world stature. At times, leaders attempted to obscure these selfish motivations: Khrushchev used Marxism and the United States used "the American Congress."(95) Dulles and de Gaulle had staked out each side's positions, but the two countries still had deep differences in their attitudes toward proliferation and the Western alliance. The Eisenhower administration needed an alternative to French proliferation to preserve NATO and prevent rapid nuclear spread.
de Gaulle's vision of French resurgence sent disruptive ripples through the Western alliance. Upon his ascension to power, the general immediately terminated the exploratory talks with Bonn on nuclear energy cooperation. He refused to allow any other nation to have a hand in determining France's nuclear course, de Gaulle's actions led the West Germans to turn against their former nuclear collaborators. Adenauer attempted to sow suspicions among U.S. policy makers that the French might turn to the Soviets for nuclear aid.(96) West German Defense Minister Franz Joseph Strauss called on incipient nuclear powers to pledge publicly not to produce atomic weapons in order to bring "moral pressure" on other would-be proliferators to forgo nuclear weapons.(97) By November, West Germany had balanced these explicit and implicit condemnations of the French program with a secret request for American IRBMs.(98) But Washington had to tread lightly down this path. Nuclear missiles in the hands of West Germany might provoke both Soviet and Western European fears.(99)
The prospect of Bonn's embracing U.S. nuclear-sharing policies impelled Khrushchev to act. In November, the Soviet premier issued an ultimatum to the West, vowing to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany, thus terminating American, British, and French occupation rights in the western sectors of Berlin.(100) Khrushchev viewed Berlin as "the testicles of the West. Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on Berlin."(101) In 1958, he sought an overall German settlement, barring nuclear weapons from German territory.(102) The United States defended its nuclear-sharing policies against charges of proliferation with claims that it still owned the warheads. But to the Soviets, who owned the bullets mattered less than whose finger was on the trigger. Moscow had initially attempted to use diplomacy in the form of the Rapacki Plan to head off German proliferation. When that failed, the Soviets resorted to ultimatums.
The United States stood fast on Berlin but compromised on the nuclear question.(103) NATO Commander Lauris Norstad informed the State Department that no military need existed for basing IRBMs in West Germany, and Dulles, embroiled in the Berlin crisis, contended that current political conditions also militated against the utility of increased nuclear sharing with Bonn.(104) But to rebut West German claims that NATO nuclear-sharing polices discriminated against them, Washington included Bonn among the powers slated to manufacture second-generation IRBMs for the NATO stockpile, using U.S. blueprints.(105)
By early 1959, the nuclear-sharing proposal that had received such early acclaim had produced more negative than positive consequences for NATO unity and U.S. security. The French refused to cooperate, the other NATO countries balked at German participation, and because many countries feared either Soviet reprisals or domestic political problems, only Italy and Turkey actually received IRBMs under the program.(106) Eisenhower, moreover, intervened to kill plans for sending missiles to Greece, claiming that nuclear weapons so close to Soviet territory would be too provocative. He told his advisers, "If Mexico or Cuba had been penetrated by the Communists, and then began getting arms and missiles from them, we would be bound to look on such developments with the gravest concern and in fact [I think] it would be imperative for us to take positive action, even offensive military action"(107) Why missiles in Turkey, on the Soviet border, did not prompt the same response remains unclear. But these early IRBMs, which would quickly be made obsolescent by improving missile technology, offered meager gains to U.S. security and NATO solidarity,(108) Instead, nuclear sharing helped set in motion the Berlin crisis, the most serious threat to European peace since 1948-1949. The failures of the December 1957 nuclear-sharing proposals left the Eisenhower administration groping for a solution to European nuclear ambitions.
Unable to resolve the French problem, the Eisenhower administration concentrated on quenching Bonn's thirst for nuclear weaponry. The State Department soon offered an alternative to land-based IRBMs. Robert Bowie, former head of the State Department policy planning staff, helped devise a new corporate control proposal. While serving as an outside consultant preparing an evaluation of NATO's role in the upcoming decade, Bowie advocated a sea-based missile force under multilateral control. The missiles and warheads would be provided by the United States and still subject to an American veto, but they would be under the physical control of mixed-manned NATO forces. Eisenhower embraced the idea, believing it would help build an esprit de corps within the alliance.(109) But because he introduced the program so late in his term, decisions about how to establish the multilateral force (MLF) became the responsibility of the incoming Kennedy administration. John F. Kennedy never found a solution to the twin dilemmas of Soviet and French opposition to the scheme and consistently delayed implementing the proposal. Until 1967, however, the MLF always seemed to retain enough life to inhibit U.S.-Soviet nonproliferation negotiations and complicate U.S. relations with its European allies. The scheme ultimately never aroused sufficient support on either side of the Atlantic to overcome congressional, French, and Soviet objections.(110)
Despite Eisenhower's desire to control the arms race, he left office having done more to encourage nuclear proliferation than to prevent it. He often viewed nuclear spread only from the American perspective and displayed little knowledge of the risks incurred by increasing access to nuclear technology via Atoms for Peace aid and NATO nuclear-sharing plans. He viewed the cold war as a zero-sum game and attempted to avoid risks that might squander the U.S. advantage in the nuclear arms race. In instances when he did wish to explore the possibility of an arms control agreement with the Soviets, he allowed bureaucratic opponents to sidetrack his plan. On other occasions, U.S. European allies objected to superpower cooperation, fearing that Moscow and Washington might reach agreement at their expense.
Eisenhower's nonproliferation record suggests that even when two states seem to share a foreign policy goal, daunting obstacles can prevent their cooperation. Neither Washington nor Moscow proved successful in placing nonproliferation efforts outside the boundaries of their cold war rivalry. The president championed nuclear-sharing policies despite their negative effect on U.S.-Soviet relations and squandered opportunities to conclude a nonproliferation agreement because the trade-off between arms control and alliance cohesiveness seemed far too risky. Agreement with the Soviets appeared elusive at best and would likely become a reality only after years of negotiation. The damage to alliance cohesion, however, would be immediate if other NATO members believed the United States was willing to compromise Western European security to conclude a treaty with Moscow. By the same token, although Eisenhower supported a test ban treaty, his desire to reap a public relations victory led him to divorce this measure from other more complicated nonproliferation measures. The Eisenhower administration's most imaginative nonproliferation plan, the MLF, actually advocated putting nuclear weapons in the hands of numerous countries. In each case, short-term advantages trumped any potential long-term gains.
The MLF proposal served as a fitting epitaph for the Eisenhower presidency's convoluted thinking on the fourth country problem. The plan emerged as an attempt to balance the risks of nuclear proliferation with the need for a strong Western alliance. The manner in which it emerged indicated continuing American hegemony in Europe. When confronted with the question of how to counter the threat of Soviet missiles, NATO relied on U.S. initiative to move forward. But the MLF also emerged at a time when the first hints of the European resistance to Washington's dominance began to emanate from Gaullist France. Passage of an MLF agreement would thus require vigorous presidential leadership. Eisenhower balked at pushing forward without consensus within the bureaucracy. A controversial scheme such as the MLF was also sure to face stiff congressional resistance. In 1956, Eisenhower proved sufficiently prescient to warn that, without vigorous action, the United States "may find we have failed to do things that would have made the difference between mutual destruction and survival."(111) The president's foresight, however, never became translated into action. When subsequent presidents looked to adopt a more vigorous nonproliferation policy, they discovered that previous inaction, especially during the crucial decade of the 1950s, had brought several key potential proliferators within reach of nuclear weapons, including France (1960), China (1964), and Israel (1970s). When confronted with nuclear dissemination, Eisenhower's vaunted "hidden-hand" leadership style proved as ineffective as no effort at all, helping to delay the conclusion of a nonproliferation treaty until 1968.(112)
The author would like to thank the Eisenhower Institute for World Affairs for a travel grant to do research at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. The author would also like to thank Thomas G. Paterson, J. Garry Clifford, A. William Hoglund, Edmund S. Wehrle, and Deborah Kisatsky for their suggestions on revising this text.
Notes
(1.) Memorandum of Discussion at the 199th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, May 27, 1954, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954: National Security Affairs (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1984), 2: 1452-56 (hereafter FRUS with year and volume number).
(2.) William B. Pickett, "Eisenhower as a Student of Clausewitz," Military Review 65 (July 1985): 21-27; Zachary Shands Davis, "Eisenhower's Worldview and Nuclear Strategy" (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1989), pp. 43, 273.
(3.) Quoted in Michael Sherry, In the Shadow of War: The United States in the 1930s (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 193-94.
(4.) John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 133-36, 147-52; H. W. Brands, "The Age of Vulnerability: Eisenhower and the National Insecurity State," American Historical Review 94 (October 1989): 963-89; Samuel F. Wells Jr., "The Origins of Massive Retaliation," Political Science Quarterly 96 (Spring 1981): 31-52.
(5.) Gaddis, Strategies, p. 135.
(6.) Diary entry, June 19, 1954, The Diary of James C. Hagerty: Eisenhower in Mid-Course, 1954-1955, ed. Robert H. Ferrell (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), p. 69.
(7.) Quoted in Sherry In the Shadow of War, p. 218.
(8.) Memorandum by the President to the Special Assistant to the President (Jackson), December 31, 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1321-22.
(9.) Summary of Meeting in the White House, January 16, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1342-43; Memorandum of Discussion at the 203d Meeting of the National Security Council, June 23, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1467-72.
(10.) Oral History Interview, Andrew J. Goodpaster, January 16, 1978, pp. 98-99, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library Abilene, Kansas. For evidence of how Eisenhower's distrust of the Soviets tempered his desire for disarmament, see President Dwight D. Eisenhower to Grenville Clark, June 9, 1953, Grenville Clark Papers, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (hereafter Clark Papers).
(11.) Bernard Brodie to Lewis Strauss, October 28, 1953, "Brodie Bernard 1953-54" folder, Atomic Energy Commission (hereafter AEC) series, Box 11, Lewis L. Strauss Papers, Herbert Hoover Library, West Branch, Iowa (hereafter Strauss Papers). For more on the use of the Marshall Plan and Point IV to demonstrate the power of American capitalism, see Thomas G. Paterson, Meeting the Communist Threat: Truman to Reagan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 18-34, 147-58.
(12.) For Eisenhower's desire to demonstrate that the American government's nuclear programs had produced more than military technologies, see Memorandum of Discussion at the 132d Meeting of the National Security Council, February 18, 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1106-9; Diary entry--Speech before the United Nations, December 10, 1953, "DDE Diary Oct.-Dec. 1953" folder, DDE Diaries series, Box 4, Ann Whitman File, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas (hereafter Whitman File).
(13.) Memorandum of Discussion at the 170th Meeting of the National Security Council, November 12, 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1244-47; Peter Pringle and James Spigelman, The Nuclear Barons (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1981), p. 122.
(14.) Pringle and Spigelman, Nuclear Barons, p. 201; George H. Quester, Nuclear Diplomacy: The First Twenty-Five Years (New York: Dunellen, 1970), pp. 143-44; J. A. Camilleri, "The Myth of the Peaceful Atom," Millennium 6, no. 2 (1977): 111-27.
(15.) First Restricted Tripartite Meeting of the Heads of Government, Mid Ocean Club, Bermuda, December 4, 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954: Western European Security (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1983), 5: 1750-54.
(16.) Minutes of the Thirty-Eighth Meeting of the General Advisory Committee to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, January 6, 7, and 8, 1954, Document 152, National Security Archive, U.S. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy, 1945-1991, ed. Virginia Foran (Washington, DC: Chadwyck-Healey and National Security Archive, 1993) (hereafter NSA, Non-Proliferation).
(17.) Joseph S. Nye Jr. contends, in contrast, that Atoms for Peace helped pave the way for a U.S.-Soviet nuclear nonproliferation regime. See Joseph S. Nye Jr., "U.S.-Soviet Cooperation in a Nonproliferation Regime," U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, Lessons, ed. Alexander L. George, Philip J. Farley, and Alexander Dallin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 336.
(18.) Senator B. B. Hickenlooper's Statement Regarding President Eisenhower's Speech of December 8 before the United Nations, December 1953, "Atoms for Peace 1949-54" folder, AEC series, Box 8, Strauss Papers; Summary of Reaction to President Eisenhower's Speech before the General Assembly, December 8, 1953, Document 147 NSA, Non-Proliferation; Letter from John J. McCloy to President Eisenhower, December 18, 1953, Document 145 NSA, Non-Proliferation; Charles Albert Appleby Jr., "Eisenhower and Arms Control, 1953-1961: A Balance of Risks" (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1987), pp. 35-36.
(19.) See Letter from C. D. Jackson to John Foster Dulles, "RE: Atomic Energy, Atomic Weapons and Disarmament 1954" folder, Selected Correspondence series (hereafter SCS), Box 78, John Foster Dulles Papers, Eisenhower Library, which describes support from U.S. peace groups.
(20.) Grenville Clark to Reno, December 10, 1953, Clark Papers.
(21.) Quoted in Gregg Herken, Counsels of War (New York: Knopf, 1985), p. 104.
(22.) Considerations on the Nth Power Problem, April 18, 1960, Document 639, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Pringle and Spigelman, Nuclear Barons, pp. 210-16; Memorandum of Conference with the President, April 22, 1960, "Staff Notes April 1960 (1)" folder, DDE Diaries, Whitman File, Box 49; Memorandum to Goodpaster from McCone, December 1, 1960, "AEC, 1960-61" folder, Administration series, Whitman File, Box 5; Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in India to the Department of State, December 24, 1959, Document 612, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telegram from the Department of State to the Delegation at the SEATO Council Meeting, June 1, 1960, FRUS, 1958-1960: East-Asia-Pacific Region; Cambodia; Laos (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1992), 16: 187-90; Leonard S. Spector (with Jaqueline R. Smith), Nuclear Ambitions: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, 1989-1990 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990), pp. 63-65; George Quester, The Politics of Nuclear Proliferation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), pp. 58-59; Douglas Little, "The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and Israel, 1957-68," Journal of Middle East Studies 25 (1993): 567; Seymour Hersh, The Sampson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), pp. 46-92.
(23.) Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 172-74; Robert Divine, Blowing on the Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954-1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 3-5; Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 541.
(24.) Rhodes, Dark Sun, p. 541.
(25.) Divine, Blowing, pp. 6-7; Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, pp. 175-76; Burton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 148-51. Many secondary sources translate Fukuryu Maru as Lucky Dragon. But contemporary accounts refer to the ship as Fortunate Dragon. So that is the form used here.
(26.) Quoted in Divine, Blowing, p. 8.
(27.) Prime Minister Churchill to President Eisenhower, undated, FRUS, 1952-1954: Western Europe (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1983), 6: 1018-19; Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (Strauss), March 29, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1379-80.
(28.) Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (Strauss), March 29, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2:1379-80.
(29.) Ibid.
(30.) Diary entries, April 2 and 6, 1954, Hagerty, pp. 40, 42.
(31.) Divine, Blowing, pp. 12-13; Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, p. 177.
(32.) Divine, Blowing, pp. 18-19.
(33.) Memorandum for Mr. Strauss's Files, April 1, 1954, "Dulles, John Foster 1953-1954" folder, AEC, Box 26A, Strauss Papers.
(34.) Divine, Blowing, pp. 18-19. See also the petition flyer "Stop the H-Bomb Test!" in "Leaflets, Files, Etc.--1954-1955" folder, Fellowship of Reconciliation (U.S.) Records, Box 27, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and the argument in Eugene J. Rosi, "Mass and Attentive Opinion on Nuclear Weapons Tests and Fallout, 1954-1963," Public Opinion Quarterly 29 (Summer 1965): 280-97. Rosi shows that public opinion mirrored government policy and seemed to shift only when it did. The attentive public seemed even more sensitive than the mass public to U.S. policy shifts.
(35.) Divine, Blowing, pp. 19-21; Appleby, "Eisenhower and Arms Control," pp. 165-66; Statement by the Indian Prime Minister (Nehru) to Parliament Regarding Nuclear Tests, April 2, 1954, Documents on Disarmament, 1945-1959 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1960), 1:408-11.
(36.) Handwritten memorandum, undated, "Eisenhower, Dwight D., 1954January-June" folder, AEC, Box 26D, Strauss Papers.
(37.) The United States Representative at the United Nations (Lodge) to the Department of State, April 12, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1383; Memorandum of Conversation, April 12, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 5: 499-501; Memorandum of Dinner Conversation with Sir Winston Churchill, April 12, 1954, Folder 13, White House Memorandum series (hereafter WHM), Box 1, John Foster Dulles Papers/Eisenhower Administration Files, Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University (hereafter D/E/P).
(38.) The sole exception, AEC Commissioner Thomas Murray, never earned the trust of Eisenhower and constantly battled with Strauss over AEC policy. See Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, pp. 222-23, 274.
(39.) Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, Augusta, Georgia, April 19, 1954, Folder 13, WHM, Box 1, D/E/P.
(40.) Divine, Blowing, p. 21.
(41.) David Rittenhouse Inglis, "H-Bomb Control: Safeguarding the World," Nation 179 (1954): 67-70.
(42.) Memorandum of Luncheon Conversation with the President, May 11, 1954, WHM, Box 1, D/E/P; Telephone Conversation with Mr. Allen Dulles, May 18, 1954, Telephone Conversation Series (hereafter TCS), Box 2, D/E/P; Acting Secretary of Defense (Anderson) to the Secretary of State, May 17, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1437-40; Memorandum by the Director of Central Intelligence (Dulles) to the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council (Lay), May 25, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1445-47.
(43.) Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant) to the Director of the Policy Planning Staff(Bowie), May 25, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1448; Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the Acting Secretary of Defense (Anderson), the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (Strauss), and the Director of Central Intelligence (Dulles), May 26, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1448-49.
(44.) Memorandum of Discussion at the 195th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday May 6, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2: 1423-29.
(45.) Scholars have argued that Eisenhower used the National Security Council as a means to achieve consensus and did not see it as a decision-making forum. See Douglas Kinnard, "President Eisenhower and the Defense Budget," Journal of Politics 39 (August 1977): 596-623. But these arguments ignore instances when the president's desire for consensus allowed the bureaucracy to "decide" policy against his wishes. For a similar argument, see H. W. Brands, "The Age of Vulnerability: Eisenhower and the National Insecurity State," American Historical Review 94 (October 1989): 963-89. For another instance, when the bureaucracy managed Eisenhower rather than the reverse, see Tor Egil Forland," `Selling Firearms to the Indians': Eisenhower's Export Control Policy, 1953-1954," Diplomatic History 15 (Spring 1991): 223-23, 244.
(46.) H. W Brands, Cold Warriors: Eisenhower's Generation and American Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), pp. 139, 209.
(47.) Progress Report Prepared by the President's Special Assistant (Stassen), May 26, 1955, FRUS, 19551957: Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1990), 20: 93-109.
(48.) Progress Report Prepared by the President's Special Assistant (Stassen), November 1, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 227-33.
(49.) Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, November 18, 1955, Document 219, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Informal Notes of a Meeting of the National Security Council Planning Board, Washington, DC, December 21, 1955, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 245-50; Memorandum of Conversation among the President's Special Assistant (Stassen) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pentagon, Washington, DC, January 24, 1956, 4 p.m., FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 276-79.
(50.) Memorandum from the President's Special Assistant (Stassen) to the President, June 29, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 402-8.
(51.) Revised Outline List of Reasons, Motivations or Incentives for "Fourth Countries" to Abstain or Not from Nuclear Weapons Fabrication or Possession, June 8, 1956, Document 259, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(52.) Telephone Call to Admiral Radford, 8:57 a.m., July 20, 1956, TCS, Box 5, D/E/P.
(53.) Letter from Lewis Strauss to Harold Stassen, July 26, 1956, Document 267, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(54.) Quoted in Divine, Blowing, p. 88.
(55.) Adlai Stevenson and Nuclear Weapons, September 21, 1956, AEC, Box 107, Strauss Papers; Memorandum from Bryan La Plante to Lewis Strauss, October 16, 1956, AEC, Box 107, Strauss Papers; Draft of Memorandum for the President (pre-press conference) on the Subject of a Moratorium on Tests of Atomic Weapons, AEC, Box 26E, Strauss Papers. See also Divine, Blowing, pp. 88-98.
(56.) Appleby, "Eisenhower and Arms Control," pp. 189-90.
(57.) Telegram from U.S. Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Secretary of State, March 22, 1957, Record Group 59, State Department Decimal File, National Archives, Washington, DC (hereafter SDDF).
(58.) Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Secretary of State, March 29, 1957, SDDF; Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Secretary of State, March 28, 1957, SDDF; Appleby, "Eisenhower and Arms Control," p. 192.
(59.) Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, pp. 385-87; Memorandum of Conversation, Department of State, Washington, April 20, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 474-82.
(60.) Memorandum of Conference with the President, Augusta, Georgia, April 23, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 486-90.
(61.) Telegram from the Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Department of State, April 27, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 491-93.
(62.) Telegram from the Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Department of State, April 28, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 494-96; Telegram from the Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Department of State, April 28, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 496; Letter from the President's Special Assistant (Stassen) to the Secretary of State, May 5, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 499-500.
(63.) Telephone Call to the President in Gettysburg, May 13, 1957, TCS, Box 12, D/F./E.
(64.) Working Level Defense Answers to Questions Pertaining to Nuclear Weapons Tests and "Fourth Countries," April 3, 1957, White House Office (hereafter WHO): Office of the Special Assistant for Disarmament (OSAD), Box 4, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas (hereafter Eisenhower Library); Central Intelligence Memorandum for the Disarmament Staff-Subject: Questions on Nuclear Weapons Tests and Fourth Countries, April 3, 1957, WHO: OSAD, Box 4, Eisenhower Library; Atomic Energy Commission Memorandum to the Acting Director of Disarmament Staff-Subject: Reply to "Questions Pertaining to Nuclear Weapons Tests and `Fourth Countries,'" April 16, 1957, WHO: OSAD, Box 4, Eisenhower Library; Draft Background Paper on Nuclear Testing and the "Fourth Country Problem," April 29, 1957, WHO: OSAD, Box 2, Eisenhower Library; Draft Background Paper on Nuclear Testing and the "Fourth Country" Problem, May 8, 1957, WHO: OSAD, Box 2, Eisenhower Library; Summary Minutes-Meeting of the President's Special Committee on Disarmament Problems, May 1, 1957, WHO: OSAD, Box 4, Eisenhower Library.
(65.) Summary Minutes-Meeting of the President's Special Committee on Disarmament Problems, May 1, 1957, WHO: OSAD, Box 4.
(66.) Memorandum to the Chairman, May 15, 1957, AEC, Box 26A, Strauss Papers; Memorandum to the Chairman-Subject: Background Material for Conference with Governor Stassen, May 17, 1957, AEC, Box 107, Strauss Papers; Letter from the Secretary of Defense (Wilson) to the Secretary of State, May 17, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 510-13.
(67.) Letter from President Eisenhower to Prime Minister Macmillan, May 10, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957: Western Europe (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1992), 27: 773-75.
(68.) Memorandum of Discussion at the 324th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, DC, May 23, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 532-38.
(69.) Letter from the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Quarles) to the Secretary of State, May 24, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 539-43; Informal Record of Meeting, Secretary Dulles's Office, Department of State, Washington, May 24, 1957, 2 p.m., FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 545-50; Memorandum of Conference, White House, Washington, DC, May 25, 1957, 9-11:20 a.m., FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 551-55.
(70.) Informal Record of Meeting, Secretary Dulles's Office, Department of State, Washington, DC, May 24, 1957, 2 p.m., FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 545-50.
(71.) Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom, May 30, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 565; Editorial Note, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 572-73; Informal Memorandum from the Chairman of the Delegation to the Subcommittee of the United Nations Disarmament Commission (Stassen) to the Chairman of the Soviet Delegation (Zorin), May 31, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 57483. Stassen's memoir of his tenure in the Eisenhower administration does not discuss the circumstances leading up to his resignation in 1958. See Harold Stassen and Marshall Houts, Eisenhower: Turning the World Toward Peace (St. Paul, MN: Merrill-Magnus, 1990), which ends its narrative shortly after Khrushchev's rejection of the Open Skies plan. Stassen imputes most of his difficulties during this period to his political rivalry with Dulles.
(72.) Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in France to the Secretary of State, June 3, 1957, SDDF.
(73.) Telegram from the Office of the Permanent Representative at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the Department of State, June 2, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 585-87; Telegram from the Embassy in the Federal Republic of Germany to the Department of State, June 5, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 604-7; Telegram from the Embassy in the Federal Republic of Germany to the Department of State, June 5, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 607-8.
(74.) Memorandum of Conversation with the President, June 4, 1957, WHM, Box 6, Dulles Papers, Eisenhower Library.
(75.) Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom, June 4, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 595; Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom, June 4, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 595.
(76.) Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between the President and the Secretary of State, Washington, DC, June 11, 1957, 5:37 p.m., FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 618; Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, pp. 396-97.
(77.) Memorandum from the Secretary of State to the President, June 18, 1957, FR US, 1955-1957, 20: 629.
(78.) Quoted in Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, p. 458; Editorial Note, FRUS, 1955-1957, 20: 664-65; Telephone Conversation between the Secretary and Mr. Herter, July 27, 1957, TCS, Box 7, D/E/E.
(79.) Soviet Statement on the Disarmament Talks, August 27, 1957, Documents on Disarmament, 1945-1959, 2: 849-68; Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Secretary of State, August 28, 1957, SDDF; Telegram from the Department of State to Stassen, August 28, 1959, SDDF.
(80.) Western Working Paper Submitted to the Disarmament Subcommittee: Proposals for Partial Measure of Disarmament, August 29, 1957, Documents on Disarmament, 1945-1959, 2: 868-74; Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Secretary of State, September 4, 1957, SDDF; Telegram to the Secretary of State and Gerard C. Smith from Stassen, September 5, 1957, SDDF; Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Secretary of State, September 5, 1957, SDDF; Appleby, "Eisenhower and Arms Control," pp. 219-20.
(81.) Letter from Harold Stassen to the President, February 14, 1958, Administration series, Box 35, Whitman File.
(82.) Memorandum by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, March 7, 1955, Document 190, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Letter from Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson to AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss, April 2, 1955, Document 196, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Memorandum on Cooperation with Other Nations Concerning Reactors for Military Use, April 27, 1955, Document 200, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Letter from President Eisenhower to Senator Clinton Anderson, June 15, 1955, White House Central File: Confidential File: Subject Series, Box 7, Eisenhower Library.
(83.) Memorandum from CIA Director Allen Dulles to General Andrew Goodpaster, October 28, 1957, Document 346, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Robert Divine, The Sputnik Challenge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 43.
(84.) Gaddis, Strategies, pp. 182-85; Edgar M. Bottome, The Balance of Terror: A Guide to theatres Race (Boston: Beacon, 1971), pp. 39-73.
(85.) Memorandum of Discussion at the 340th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, DC, October 17, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 27: 172-81; National Security Council Paper-Statement of U.S. Policy on France, October 19, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 27: 181-93.
(86.) Foreign Service Despatch from the U.S. Embassy in West Germany to the Department of State, February 17, 1958, Document 388, NSA, Non-Proliferation. For the phrase nuclear flirtation and further details on the Franco-German nuclear talks, see Wilfred L. Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), pp. 54-61; Catherine McArlde Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), pp. 146-53.
(87.) Quoted in Timothy J. Botti, The Long Wait: The Forging of the Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1987), p. 201.
(88.) Memorandum to Lewis L. Strauss-Subject: Review of Atomic Energy Act of 1954 with the View toward Suggesting Revisions Necessary for Increased Cooperation with Selected Allies, October 24, 1957, Document 344, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Memorandum to All Members of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, October 31, 1957, Document 350, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telephone Call to Lyndon Johnson in Abilene, October 23, 1957, TCS, Box 7, D/E/P.
(89.) For the final version of this proposal, see Memorandum of Discussion at the 348th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, DC, December 12, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957: Western Europe and Security and Integration (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1986), 4: 214-17; Proposed Text of the President's Speech to the NATO Heads of Government Meeting, undated, Document 376, NSA, Non-Proliferation. For the early germs of these ideas, see Memorandum of Meeting Held at the State Department, November 8, 1957, Document 353, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Report of the Meeting Held in the State Department, November 27, 1957, Document 363, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telephone Call to Adlai Stevenson in Chicago, October 28, 1957, TCS, Box 7, D/F/P.
(90.) Quoted in Roger Kelly Smith, "The Origins of the Regime: Nonproliferation, National Interest, and American Decision-Making, 1943-1976" (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1990), p. 268.
(91.) Telephone Call to Admiral Strauss, January 2, 1958, Folder 4, TCS, Box 8, D/E/P; Memorandum of Conversation, February 21, 1958, FRUS, 1958-1960: Western Europe (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1993), 7: 3; Memorandum from Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Elbrick) to Secretary of State Dulles, April 24, 1958, FRUS, 1958-1960, 7: 317-19.
(92.) Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Elbrick) to the Secretary of State Dulles, June 26, 1958, FRUS, 1958-1960, 7: 40-42; Memorandum of Conversation, June 27, 1958, FRUS, 1958-1960, 7: 42-45; Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in France to the Department of State, October 24, 1958, Document 486, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(93.) Memorandum of Conversation, June 9, 1958, Document 431, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(94.) Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in France to the Secretary of State, June 27, 1958, Document 440, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in France to the Secretary of State, June 28, 1958, Document 441, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Memorandum of Conversation-Subject: The Secretary's Talks with General de Gaulle in Paris, July 5, 1958, FRUS, 1958-1960, 7: 53-64. For de Gaulle's version of this meeting, see Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor, trans. Terence Kilmartin (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970; 1971), pp. 208-10.
(95.) Memorandum of Conversation-Subject: The Secretary's Talks with General de Gaulle in Paris, July 5, 1958, FRUS, 1958-1960, 7: 53-64.
(96.) Memorandum of Conversation with Chancellor Adenauer (Bonn, Germany), July 26, 1958, Document 445, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(97.) Foreign Service Despatch from U.S. Embassy in West Germany to the Department of State, July 31, 1958, Document 448, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(98.) Telegram from U.S. Ambassador to NATO (Thurston) to the Department of State, November 22, 1958, Document 497, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Memorandum for the Record of London Meeting Between Secretary McElroy, Minister Strauss, and Mr. Irwin, December 17, 1958, Document 501, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(99.) Foreign Service Despatch from the U.S. Embassy in West Germany to the Department of State, May 21, 1958, Document 424, NSA, Non-Proliferation. For the argument that Adenauer had no desire for American intermediate-range ballistic missiles, see Christopher Bluth, Britain, Germany, and Western Nuclear Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 63-64.
(100.) For recent analyses of the Berlin crisis, see Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 169-234; William Burr, "Avoiding the Slippery Slope: The Eisenhower Administration, and the Berlin Crisis, November 1958-January 1959," Diplomatic History 18 (Spring 1994): 177-205; Vladislav M. Zubok, "Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis (1958-1962)," Working Paper No. 6, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC; Hope M. Harrison, "Ulbricht and the Concrete `Rose': New Archival Evidence on the Dynamics of Soviet-East German Relations and the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1961," Working Paper No. 5, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC.
(101.) Quoted in Dean Rusk (as told to Richard Rusk), As I Saw It, ed. Daniel S. Papp (New York: Norton, 1990), p. 227.
(102.) Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, pp. 170-91; Zubok, "Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis," pp. 26-27.
(103.) Burr, "Avoiding the Slippery Slope," pp. 177-205.
(104.) Telegram from Thurston to the Department of State, November 22, 1958, Document 497, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Memorandum-Subject: Actions in re IRBM Programs, January 2, 1959, Document 503, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telegram from Thurston to the Secretary of State, January 3, 1959, Document 505, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telegram from Secretary of State Dulles to Thurston, January 9, 1959, Document 510, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(105.) Telegram from U.S. Embassy in France to Secretary of State, October 24, 1958, Document 486, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telegram from U.S. Embassy in West Germany to the Department of State, November 17, 1958, Document 495, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(106.) Memorandum of Conversation at the White House, July 30, 1958, Document 447, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telegram from the U.S. Embassy in Italy to the Department of State, September 3, 1958, Document 471, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Foreign Service Despatch from U.S. Embassy in Italy to Department of State-Subject: Deployment of IRBMs in Italy, October 7, 1958, Document 480, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Telegram from Thurston to the Secretary of State, January 12, 1959, Document 511, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Memorandum-Subject: Political Considerations in Deployment of IRBM's to Greece and Turkey, February 2, 1959, Document 522, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Memorandum for the President-Subject: Completion and Announcement of IRBM Agreement with Turkey during Khrushchev Visit, September 16, 1959, Document 589, NSA, Non-Proliferation; John Newhouse, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age (New York: Knopf, 1989), p. 132.
(107.) Memorandum of Conference with the President, June 16, 1959, Document 562, NSA, Non-Proliferation. He reiterated these views the next day in a larger meeting. See Memorandum of Conference with the President, June 17, 1959, Document 561, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(108.) Telegram from Secretary of State Dulles to Thurston, January 9, 1959, Document 509, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Letter from Dulles to Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy, February 3, 1959, Document 523, NSA, Non-Proliferation; Memorandum-Subject: IRBM's, undated, Document 520, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(109.) "The North Atlantic Nations-Tasks for the 1960's: A Report to the Secretary of State by Robert R. Bowie, August 21, 1960," Nuclear History Program Occasional Paper 7, College Park, Maryland, 1991; Memorandum of Conference with the President, September 12, 1960, Alphabetical subseries, Subject series, WHO: Office of the Staff Secretary, Box 4, Eisenhower Library; Memorandum of Conference with the President, August 16, 1960, DDE Diaries, Whitman File, Box 51; Memorandum of Conference with the President, October 13, 1960, DDE Diaries, Whitman File, Box 53; Memorandum of Conversation, Department of State, November 16, 1960, Subject subseries, NSC series, WHO: Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Box 6; Memorandum of Conversation, August 2, 1960, Box 85, Lauris Norstad Papers, Eisenhower Library; Memorandum of Conversation, Department of State, October 17, 1960, Policy File series, Box 89, Lauris Norstad Papers, Eisenhower Library.
(110.) Memorandum of Conversation with President Eisenhower, August 3, 1960, FRUS, 1958-1960, 7: 608-11. For more on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations' approach to the multilateral force, see Thomas Schwartz, "Victories and Defeats in the Long Twilight Struggle: The United States and Western Europe in the 1960s," in The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade: American Foreign Relations During the 1960s, ed. Diane B. Kunz (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 11-48; Frank Costigliola, "Lyndon B. Johnson, Germany, and `the End of the Cold War,'" in Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World: American Foreign Policy, 1963-1968, ed. Warren I. Cohen and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 173-210; Shane J. Maddock, "The Nth Country Conundrum: The American and Soviet Quest for Nuclear Nonproliferation, 1945-1970" (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1997), pp. 299-524.
(111.) Memorandum of Conference with the President, September 11, 1956, Document 274, NSA, Non-Proliferation.
(112.) For this interpretation of Eisenhower's leadership style, see Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (New York: Basic Books, 1982). For discussion of other important contributions in Eisenhower revisionism, see Richard Immerman, "Confessions of an Eisenhower Revisionist: An Agonizing Reappraisal," Diplomatic History 14 (Summer 1990): 319-42, and Stephen G. Rabe, "Eisenhower Revisionism: A Decade of Scholarship," Diplomatic History 17 (Winter 1993): 97-115. For an account of post-Eisenhower nuclear nonproliferation policy, see Maddock, "Nth Country Conundrum," pp. 299-550.
SHANE MADDOCK
U.S. Coast Guard Academy
Shane Maddock, Ph.D., University of Connecticut, is currently a lecturer at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He is currently completing a larger study of U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy from 1945 to 1970.
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| Title Annotation: | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
|---|---|
| Author: | MADDOCK, SHANE |
| Publication: | Presidential Studies Quarterly |
| Article Type: | Biography |
| Geographic Code: | 1U9WA |
| Date: | Jun 22, 1998 |
| Words: | 11667 |
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