THE AMERICAN EMPIRE AND THE COMING CLASS WAR ----- Episode 31

        IKE SUPPORTED USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS 
        BECAUSE THEY ARE LESS EXPENSIVE 

   Eisenhower felt constrained by the fact that neither the U.S. public nor his British allies were as sanguine as he and Dulles about the use of nuclear weapons. He set about to ease the line between conventional and nuclear weapons. According to the minutes of a late March 1953 NSC discussion of using nuclear weapons in Korea, "the President and Secretary Dulles were in complete agreement that somehow or the other the tabu which surrounds the use of atomic weapons would have to be destroyed."

Dulles called for breaking "down this false distinction" between conventional and nuclear weapons, which he attributed to a Soviet propaganda campaign. Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Arthur Radford explained to listeners at the Naval War College in May 1954 that "atomic forces are now our primary forces . . . actions by forces, on land, sea or air are relegated to a secondary role. . . nuclear weapons, fission and fusion, will be used in the next major war." 

In meetings in Bermuda with Britain's Churchill and French Premier Joseph Laniel in December 1953, Eisenhower sought his allies' support for using atomic bombs if fighting started in Korea again. Churchill sent his private secretary Jock Colville to Eisenhower to express his concerns. Colville was taken aback by Eisenhower's response : "whereas Winston looked on the atomic bomb as something new and terrible, he looked upon it as just the latest improvement in military weapons. He implied that there was no distinction between 'conventional' weapons and atomic weapons : all weapons in due course become conventional." Colville later wrote, "I could hardly believe my ears." Eisenhower similarly told Anthony Eden, "The development of smaller atomic weapons and the use of atomic artillery makes the distinction [ between atomic and conventional weapons ] impossible to sustain." 

In 1955, Eisenhower responded to a reporter's question about using tactical atomic weapons : "yes of course they would be used. In any combat where these things can be used in strictly military targets and for strictly military purposes, I see no reason why they shouldn't be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else." 

The very next day, Nixon reinforced the point : "tactical atomic explosives are now conventional and will be used against the targets of any aggressive force." A few weeks later, Ike told Congress that "a wide variety" of tactical atomic weapons "have today achieved conventional status in the arsenals of our armed forces." 

Eisenhower prepared for their use by transferring control of the atomic stockpile from the AEC to the military. Truman had transferred nine weapons to Guam in 1951 but had otherwise insisted on retaining civilian control. He said he did not want "to have some dashing lieutenant colonel decide when would be the proper time to drop one." Eisenhower had no such compunctions. In June 1953, he began transferring atomic bombs from the AEC to the Defense Department to enhance operational readiness and protect them from surprise Soviet attack. In December 1954, he ordered 42 percent of atomic bombs and 36 percent of hydrogen bombs deployed overseas, many menacingly close to the Soviet Union. By 1959, the military had custody of more than 80 percent of U.S. nuclear weapons. [ Just in time for the election of JFK. ] 

The United States' European allies were scared shitless that the United States would start a nuclear war, and they pressured Eisenhower to lower the tensions. He responded on December 8, 1953, mesmerizing the 3,500 delegates at the United Nations with his "Atoms for Peace" speech declaring that the United States would devote "its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous invention of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life" by spreading the benefits of peaceful atomic power at home and abroad.

The U.S.media rang out with praise. New York Times military correspondent Hanson Baldwin wrote that Eisenhower's "eloquent" and "moving argument for peace . . . represented an earnest attempt to halt the atomic arms race." However, Baldwin regretted that the prospects for success remained bleak because "the Soviet Union's whole concept is built upon world struggle and ultimate world domination." 

Eisenhower was so desperate to put a smiling face on the atom that he ignored numerous warnings about the danger of proliferation. The AEC's only nuclear physicist Henry Smyth, dismissed Atoms for Peace as a "thoroughly dishonest proposal" that ignored proliferation risks and exaggerated the prospects of nuclear power. Others echoed his dissent.