Required Readings

• A Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy (The Acheson-Lilienthal Report), a report prepared for the Secretary of State’s Committee on Atomic Energy (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1946).

 Also see, U.S. Department of State, Press Release No. 235 (April 9, 1946).

• Henry Sokolski, “The Acheson-Lilienthal Report and Baruch Plan Lecture Notes,” and “Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Lecture Notes,” Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Updated October 2021.

• Henry Sokolski, The Baruch Plan, in Best of Intentions: America’s Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001), 13-21. Password Protected PDF

Recommended Readings

The Acheson-Lilienthal Report and the Baruch Plan

• Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Vintage Books, May 1, 2006.

• Paul Boyer, By The Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 27-106. Password Protected PDF

• “Declaration on Atomic Bomb by President Truman and Prime Ministers Attlee and King” (Washington, November 15, 1945).

• J. Franck, et al. “The Franck Report,” reprinted in Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 560-565. Password Protected PDF

• Zay Jefferies, et al., “Prospectus on Nucleonics (The Jeffries Report),” reprinted in Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 539-559. Password Protected PDF

• Dexter Masters and Katherine Way, ed., One World or None (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1946). Password Protected PDF

• National Committee on Atomic Information, “One World or None,” filmed 1946, YouTube video, posted by FA Scientists, 9:12, posted August 5, 2013.

• Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists’ Movement in America, 1945-47 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965).

Part 1 and 2: Password Protected PDF

Part 3: Password Protected PDF

Part 4: Password Protected PDF

• Arthur Steiner, “Denaturing Through the Years,” AJS 10-6-75.

• Jacob Viner, “The Implications of the Atomic Bomb for International Relations,” in Symposium on Atomic Energy and its Implications: Papers read at the joint meeting of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences, November 16 and 17, 1945 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1946). Password Protected PDF

• Albert Wohlstetter, et al., “On Keeping ‘Dangerous’ Activities in Check,” in Swords from Plowshares: The Military Potential of Civilian Nuclear Energy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 47-70. Password Protected PDF

Atoms for Peace

• Leonard Beaton, Must the Bomb Spread? (London: Penguin Books, 1966).

• Paul Boyer, By The Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 107-130. Password Protected PDF

• Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Atoms for Peace,” address to the 470th Plenary Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, December 8, 1953.

Also see the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Atoms for Peace online document collection.

A short clip of President Eisenhower’s speech.

• Matthew Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance: How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012).

 Also see, Henry Sokolski, “Atoms for Peace: Catalyzing Bombs for Cheats,” review of Atomic Assistance: How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity by Matthew Fuhrmann, Nonproliferation Review 20, no. 1 (2013): 179-184.

• Matthew Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements,” International Security 34, no. 1 (Summer 2009): 7-41.

• J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Atomic Weapons and American Policy.” Foreign Affairs 31, no. 4 (July 1953).

• Joseph Pilat, ed., Atoms for Peace: An Analysis after Thirty Years (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985).

• “Report by the Panel of Consultants of the Department of State to the Secretary of State,” Washington, January 1953, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, Vol. II, Part 2, National Security Affairs, Document 67.

• Thomas Soapes, “A Cold Warrior Seeks Peace: Eisenhower’s Strategy for Nuclear Disarmament,” Diplomatic History 4, no. 1 (Winter 1979-1980): 57-72.

• U.S. National Security Council, “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” NSC 68, April 14, 1950.

• U.S. National Security Council, “Basic National Security Policy,” NSC 162/2, October 30, 1953.

• Albert Wohlstetter, “Spreading the Bomb without Quite Breaking the Rules,” Foreign Policy 25 (Winter 1976): 88-94.

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