ATOMS PEACE WAR Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission Richard G. Hewlett and lack M. Roll With a Foreword by Richard S. Kirkendall and an Essay on Sources by Roger M. Anders University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London Published 1989 by the University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Prepared by the Atomic Energy Commission; work made for hire. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hewlett, Richard G. Atoms for peace and war, 1953-1961. (California studies in the history of science) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Nuclear energy—United States—History. 2. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission—History. 3. Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969. 4. United States—Politics and government-1953-1961. I. Holl, Jack M. II. Title. III. Series. QC792. 7. H48 1989 333.79'24'0973 88-29578 ISBN 0-520-06018-0 (alk. paper) Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii List of Figures and Tables ix Foreword by Richard S. Kirkendall xi Preface xix Acknowledgements xxvii 1. A Secret Mission 1 2. The Eisenhower Imprint 17 3. The President and the Bomb 34 4. The Oppenheimer Case 73 5. The Political Arena 113 6. Nuclear Weapons: A New Reality 144 7. Nuclear Power for the Marketplace 183 8. Atoms for Peace: Building American Policy 209 9. Pursuit of the Peaceful Atom 238 10. The Seeds of Anxiety 271 11. Safeguards, EURATOM, and the International Agency 305 12. Nuclear Issues: A Time for Decision 326 13. Nuclear Issues: The Presidential Campaign of 1956 351 14. In Search of a Nuclear Test Ban 375 15. Politics of the Peaceful Atom 403 16. EURATOM and the International Agency, 1957-1958 430 17. Toward a Nuclear Test Moratorium 449 18. A New Approach to Nuclear Power 489 19. Science for War and Peace 515 20. The Test Ban: A Fading Hope 537 21. The Great Debate 562 CONTENTS Appendix 1: Personnel 569 Appendix 2: AEC Ten-Year Summary of Financial Data 576 Appendix 3: AEC Ten-Year Summary of Employment 578 Appendix 4: Announced U.S. Nuclear Tests, 1953-1958 579 Appendix 5: Procurement of Uranium Concentrates (U308) 580 Appendix 6: Agreements for Cooperation in the Civil and Military Uses of Atomic Energy 581 Appendix 7: AEC Operations Offices 582 Appendix 8: AEC Organization Charts, May 1953—September 1958 583 Appendix 9: Eight Basic Reactor Systems Being Developed 590 List of Abbreviations 593 Notes 595 vi Essay on Sources by Roger M. Anders 657 Index 675 ILLUSTRATIONS (following page 374) 1. Commissioners of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the General Manager 1953 AEC-53-4802 2. Dr. Oppenheimer seated at his desk in his office at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ January 2, 1954 Library of Congress—LC USZ62-61847 3. President Eisenhower signs the Atomic Energy Bill August 30, 1954 DOE Archives (Signal Corps photo) 4. Nevada Proving Ground—Complete destruction of House #1, located 3,500 feet from ground zero, by atomic blast at Yucca Flat March 17, 1953 AEC-53-4622—Photos 1 and 2 from a series of eight AEC-53-4625—Photo 3 from a series of eight AEC-53-4623—Photo 7 from a series of eight 5. Castle-Bravo Device—Inside the shot house February 1954 DOE Archives B-83485 6. White House discussion on the Atoms-for-Peace Program. Left to right: George Humphrey, President Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, ILLUSTRATIONS Dillon Anderson, Lewis L. Strauss, and Charles E. Wilson January 13, 1956 Eisenhower Library-72-1582-2 (National Park Service) 7. Edgar Dixon and Eugene Yates at power project site June 1955 Eisenhower Library-70-519-2 8. Official military observers and U.S. congressmen observe the mushroom cloud formation following the firing of the first atomic artillery shell at the Nevada Test Site May 1953 AEC 64-7458 Photo by U.S. Army viii 9. Lewis L. Strauss with Ernest Lawrence, Mark Mills, and Edward Teller June 18, 1957 Eisenhower Library-72-2308 (National Park Service) 10. President Eisenhower sets the cornerstone of new AEC Building in Germantown, Maryland. Left to right: John A. Derry, AEC director of Construction and Supply; Rep. Carl T. Durham, chairman of the JCAE; and AEC Chairman Lewis L. Strauss November 8, 1957 DOE Archives 11. SNAP-3 demonstration device Is shown to President Eisenhower by AEC Chairman John A. McCone and members of the Division of Re- actor Development. Left to right: President Eisenhower, Major- General Donald J. Keirn, Chairman McCone, Colonel Jack L. Arm- strong, and Lt. Colonel Guveren M. Anderson. January 16, 1959 DOE Archives FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES 1. Exclusion Area for March 1, 1954, detonation 172 2. Castle fallout pattern superimposed on eastern United States 181 TABLES 1. Major AEC Contractors 10 2. United States Nuclear Reactor Program, June 1957 411 3. Reactors included in the Commission's Long-Range Plan 511 FOREWORD This volume, the third in the official history of the Atomic Energy Commis- sion, makes sizable contributions in several areas, including the Eisen- hower presidency. During the years in which work on the book has moved forward, that presidency has been one of historiographical frontiers, an area of exciting explorations and new developments. A "revisionism" has emerged to challenge a conception that had taken shape earlier and was quite negative in its appraisal of Eisenhower. Some findings of the revision- ists now seem quite firmly established, but the new interpretation has not swept the field. Challenges to it have also appeared. A volume focusing on nuclear energy cannot make contributions to all aspects of the controversy over President Eisenhower, but this book can and does have much to say about some main features of the debate. In the process, the book illustrates, as did the earlier volumes in the series, how very good "official history" can be. Early on; American historians were not enthusiastic about Eisen- hower as president.' Journalists and other writers outside the historical profession, including Samuel J. Lubell, Robert J. Donovan, Arthur Krock, Merlo J. Pusey, Arthur Larson, and Clinton Rossiter, had developed posi- tive appraisals in the mid-1950s, but by the 1960s most historians en- dorsed the more negative views first presented by Norman Graebner, Hans J. Morgenthau, Richard Rovere, Marquis Childs, William V. Shannon, Walt W. Rostow, Richard Neustadt, James MacGregor Burns, and Emmett John Hughes from 1956 to 1963. A poll by Arthur M. Schlesinger in 1962 and a much larger one conducted by Gary M. Maranell in 1968 revealed that historians ranked Eisenhower in a low position among American pres- idents, far below the great and near great. Several themes characterized this interpretation of the president FOREWORD from Abiline. His critics in and out of the historical profession portrayed him as a man who neither dominated nor controlled his own administration and its policies. Instead, people such as John Foster Dulles ran things, often badly. Moreover, the president had little understanding or liking for his job, was weak and passive rather than energetic, muddled rather than intelligent. Dulles, a pious dogmatist, damaged U.S. relations with other nations and nearly precipitated World War III; the administration's fiscal and military policies weakened the United States. Although Eisenhower, in spite of his close ties with corporate executives and conservative Republi- cans, did preserve the New Deal and Containment, the domestic and inter- national programs of Democratic administrations, he failed to take advan- tage of his popularity, supply needed innovations, and define and act on problems. Instead, he left them for solution by his more intelligent and energetic successor. xii Before the end of the 1960s, however, a new view began to take shape and gain support. It emerged first outside the historical profession in essays by Murray Kempton, Gary Wills, and Richard Rhodes from 1967 to 1970. It moved into historical scholarship in 1972, chiefly in a large work by Herbert S. Parmet, and advanced in that world over the next several years in essays and books by Barton J. Bernstein, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Gary W. Reichard, and Charles C. Alexander. By the early 1980s, Richard H. Immerman, Douglas Kinnard, Allen Yarnell, Elmo Richardson, and R. Alton Lee had made various contributions to what was by then called "Eisenhower Revisionism." It reached a high point in works by Robert Divine, Fred I. Greenstein, and Stephen Ambrose, published from 1981 to 1984. Since then, this revisionist movement has continued to roll forward in writings of Mary S. McAuliffe, Anna K. Nelson, Walter A. McDougall, and David Allan Mayers, among others. And such writings have had an impact on the profession as a whole, for polls in this decade indicate that Eisenhower has moved toward greatness in the eyes of many historians. Why has the change taken place? The publication of a new round of memoirs, including ones by Arthur Larson, Arthur Krock, and Milton S. Eisenhower, made some contributions; the opening of new sources, espe- cially the file developed by Eisenhower's personal secretary, Ann Whit- man, contributed even more, doing so by revealing features of his presi- dency that had been hidden or unclear before. The times, however, deserve most of the credit. Vietnam, Watergate, riots, high inflation, the economic slowdown, soaring government spending, short-term presidencies, un- precedented deficits in the federal budget, and other ills of American life since 1965 provided new perspectives. Looking at Ike from those angles, many observers found much to admire. The revisionism produced by these forces had several major fea- tures.