Disarmament movement

Cold War-era attempts by the superpowers to bring about the reduction or abolition of troops and weaponry

The expanding stockpiles of nuclear weapons during the 1950’s increased the urgency for disarmament negotiations to control an escalating and dangerous arms race.

With the devastation caused by both conventional and atomic weapons during World War II, hopes were high that the newly created United Nations (U.N.) would foster international peace and security by promoting disarmament. In a 1950 address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Harry S. Truman initiated a new American policy on arms control that coupled conventional and nuclear weaponry, but the outbreak of the Korean War brought negotiations to an impasse. Early in 1952, the United Nations set up a disarmament commission, and in April, the United States proposed that, before any arms reductions, an international inspection system be established. However, the Soviet Union insisted on a cut in conventional arms and an atomic weapons ban before the creation of an inspection system. In the climate of the Cold War, the Soviets interpreted inspections as a subterfuge for intelligence gathering.

When, during the early months of 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower became president and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died, expectations were raised that these events would lead to progress in disarmament. At the end of 1953, President Eisenhower, in his famous “Atoms for Peace” speech, noted that he hoped that his plan to use nuclear materials for peaceful rather than military purposes would be a step toward nuclear disarmament. His plan did result in the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. organization headquartered in Vienna, Austria, but it failed to realize the U.N. goal of total disarmament.

Multilateral Negotiations

From 1954 to 1957, the most important agency for disarmament discussions was a five-nation subcommittee consisting of the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and Canada. The Western powers emphasized onsite inspections, with the United States particularly concerned about surprise nuclear attacks. When President Eisenhower met the Soviet leaders at the Geneva Summit Conference in the summer of 1955, he introduced an “Open Skies” proposal that advocated mutual aerial inspections of the nuclear nations, but the Soviets were skeptical of Western intentions. The Western countries, concerned about possible clandestine nuclear weapons, withdrew their disarmament proposals until an effective scientific inspection system could be devised. Political events in 1956, such as the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian revolt , further complicated disarmament talks, from which the Soviet Union withdrew in 1957.

During the mid- to late 1950’s an increasingly successful movement of scientists, who were troubled by the harm done by fallout to humans and the environment, urged banning tests of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower appointed an advisory committee of scientists who concluded that a test ban was feasible, as did a conference of experts meeting in Geneva in the summer of 1958. Other negotiations, conducted apart from the U.N. disarmament agencies, involved several interested countries, all of which successfully concluded the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. This first postwar disarmament agreement, signed by twelve countries that participated in the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958), made Antarctica into a nuclear-weapons-free zone.

Toward the end of 1959, the U.N. General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution championing total disarmament, though recognizing that partial measures might be necessary to achieve this goal. The new committee to implement these recommendations was made up of five democratic and five communist countries. It began meeting in 1960, but when the Soviet Union shot down a United States U-2 spy plane over its territory, disarmament talks collapsed.

Impact

The addition of nuclear weapons to the world’s arsenal created a compelling need to control if not abolish them. Some initiatives developed during the 1950’s continued into the 1960’s, and these efforts resulted in the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, under water, and in outer space. The deep fears and suspicions of the Cold War prevented any agreement on general disarmament during the 1960’s, but during the 1970’s, arms limitation talks between the United States and the Soviet Union led to a series of accords that put limits on offensive nuclear weapons.

Bibliography

Divine, Robert A. Blowing on the Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954-1960. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Divine, a historian, tells the story of the dilemmas that nuclear weapons and their testing posed for politicians, scientists, and the public.

Hewlett, Richard G., and Jack M. Hall. Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. A well-researched account of the arms control policies of the Eisenhower administration.