Day Before Doomsday: An Anatomy of the Nuclear Arms Race

ISBN: 9780807004913

定价: 39.00

内容简介

Foreword
The thirty-ninth President of the United States??? Jimmy Carter??? in-
herits a nuclear arms race that started during the administration of
the tl~-third President??? Harry S. Truman.
Addressing himself to that problem at a press conference two
months before his inauguration??? Carter expressed the hope that the
United States and the Soviet Union would be able \"to freeze pres-
ent developments and then to lower??? step by step??? the quantity??? at
least the quantity??? of atomic weapons on which we presently de-
pend??? with an ultimate goal of reducing dependence on atomic
weapons to zero.\"
Encouraging as this may sound to those who seek a termination
of the nuclear race??? the fact is that every President since World
War II has made similar statements??? and usually more forcefully.
The Bamch Plan??? presented to the United Nations in 1946
under the sponsorship of President Truman??? provided that:
\"1. Manufacture of atomic bombs shall stop.
\"2. Existing bombs shall be disposed of...\"
President Eisenhower??? in his address to the United Nations
(December 8??? 1953) on \"atomic power for peace???\" called on the
superpowers to \"begin to diminish the potential destructive power
of the world s atomic stockpiles.\"
President Kennedy??? in the course of proposing a \"Program for
General and Complete Disarmament\" to the United Nations in the
fall of 1961??? pictured the horror of \"a nuclear disaster??? spread by
wind and water and fear???\" and asserted that \"mankind must put
an end to war-or war will put an end to mankind.\" \"The risks in-
herent in disarmament???\" he continued??? \"pale in comparison to the
risks inherent in an un/imited arms race.\"
President Johnson??? during his first year in office??? proposed the