Looking Back: Atomic Power For Peace

From January 1955

An International Turning Point

The General Assembly of the United Nations gave unanimous approval in December to the plan for an International Atomic Energy Agency for the development of atomic power for peaceful purposes and its sharing among all peoples. The plan is based on President Eisenhower’s earlier proposal.

Once the agency is established it will begin work next summer by calling an international conference of nuclear physicists to find a means of diverting as much as possible of present atomic resources to the relief of human suffering and the improvement of the lot of the most needy of the world’s peoples.

We may say, “What’s the use, while the atomic bomb is being developed for mutual destruction?”

But that is short-sighted reasoning. There could be no better guarantee that the atomic bomb will never again be used than by letting the struggling, hungry masses see the same power being developed to supply their basic needs. To direct that power to work for human welfare even in a small way is to set before men the plainest choice, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life.”

It was a momentous decision which was taken that day in New York; a turning point in history, one delegate said, though it was given only brief reference in our newspapers. We are so accustomed to evil power being let loose; this may well be a power for good which some may wish later they could curb and control and find they cannot.

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