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3 Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" Speech: A Case Study in the Strategic Use of Language Martin J. Medhurst Personally, I think this [speech] will be a ·sleeper" as far as this country is concerned -but one of these days when the deserts do bloom, and atomic reactors are turning out electricity where there was no fuel before, and when millions ofpeople are eating who never really ate before ... the President's December 1953 speech and proposal will be remembered as the starting point of it all.1 c. D. Jackson, Special Assistant to the President for Psychological Warfare February 5, 1955 More than thirty years later the deserts have not bloomed, famine is still a reality, and the nuclear reactor, once the hopeful sign of a better tomorrow, stands as a technological indictment of humanity's inability to see beyond the visions of the moment. Dwight Eisenhower was not the first president to speak of the peaceful uses of atomic energy, yet it was his "Atoms for Peace" speech, delivered in front of the United Nations's General Assembly on December 8, 1953, that marked the public commencement of a persuasive campaign the dimensions ofwhich stagger the imagination. Planned at the highest levels of government, shrouded in secrecy, aided by the military-industrial complex, and executed over the course of two decades, the campaign to promote the peaceful use of the atom was conceived in pragmatism, dedicated in realism, and promoted in the spirit of idealism. At each stage of the campaign rhetorical purposes, some lofty, some base, motivated both words and deeds. Space does not permit a complete explication of this persuasive effort nor even a perfunctory glance at each of its component parts. That must await some future forum. In this essay the pragmatic atmosphere that prompted Eisenhower to deliver a speech advertised as a step away from the nuclear precipice will be described. At the same time, the realist 30 Martin J. Medhurst assumptions and motives that reveal Eisenhower's true purposes for delivering his "Atoms for Peace" speech on December 8, 1953, will be explicated. The argument has three parts. First, despite American protestations to the contrary, Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" speech was, in fact, a carefully crafted piece of Cold War rhetoric specifically designed to gain a psychological victory over the Soviet Union. It was part of an American peace offensive launched, in part, as a response to an ongoing Soviet peace offensive. Second, the speech creates one audience on the level of explicit argument, but a much different audience when the implicit arguments are examined. Explicitly, the speech is addressed to the world at large, particularly those nonaligned nations in the midst of industrialization. It is aimed at that amorphous animal called world opinion. Implicitly, it is addressed to the Soviet Union, partly as warning, partly as challenge. Third, the speech is intentionally structured to invite the world at large to understand "Atoms for Peace" as a step toward nuclear disarmament. In addition to the internal structure, the persuasive campaign carried on immediately before and after the speech was designed explicitly to portray "Atoms for Peace" as part of the free world's (read America's) commitment to nuclear arms control. That the speech was not, in fact, related to disarmament talks but was, rather, an attempt to gain a psychological Cold War victory will be demonstrated. CONCEIVED IN PRAGMATISM To understand fully how "Atoms for Peace" evolved to the form in which it was delivered, one must return to the opening weeks of the Eisenhower administration, specifically the events of February, March, and April of 1953. Three events are particularly worthy of note. In February, a top-secret report commissioned by President Truman was delivered to the new secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. Known internally as the Oppenheimer Report, the document "declared that a renewed search must be made for a way to avert the catastrophe of modern war." Essential to this goal, the report held, was "wider public discussion based upon wider understanding of the meaning of a nuclear holocaust. ,,2 As discussion of the policy implications of the Oppenheimer Report ensued, a new factor changed the complexion of American foreign policy: Stalin died. Announced to the world on March 6, 1953, the death of Stalin was viewed as a unique opportunity for advancing the cause of freedom, both in the occupied countries of Europe and within the Soviet Union itself. As historian Louis Halle puts it, the hope...

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