The Baruch Plan was a proposal put forward by the United States government on 14 June 1946 to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) during its first meeting. Bernard Baruch wrote the bulk of the proposal, based on the March 1946 Acheson–Lilienthal Report and it was presented by UN Secretary General Trygve Lie.(The United States, Great Britain and Canada had called for an international organization to regulate the use of atomic energy, and President Truman responded by asking Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson and David E. Lilienthal to draw up a plan.) The Soviet Union, fearing the plan would preserve the American nuclear monopoly, declined in December 1946 in the United Nations Security Council to endorse Baruch's version of the proposal,

and the Cold War phase of the nuclear arms race followed.

Description

In the Plan, the US agreed to decommission all of its atomic weapons and transfer nuclear technology on the condition that all other countries pledged not to produce atomic weapons and agreed to an adequate system of inspection, including monitoring, policing, and sanctions. The Plan also proposed to internationalize fission energy via an International Atomic Development Authority, which would exercise a monopoly of mining uranium and thorium, refining the ores, owning materials, and constructing and operating nuclear plants. This Authority would fall under the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. In short, the plan proposed to:

  1. extend between all countries the exchange of basic scientific information for peaceful conclusions;
  2. implement control of nuclear power to the extent necessary to ensure its use only for peaceful purposes;
  3. eliminate from national armaments atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction; and
  4. establish effective safeguards by way of inspection and other means to protect complying States against the hazards of violations and evasions.

In presenting his plan to the United Nations, Baruch stated:<blockquote>We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead. That is our business. Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope which, seized upon with faith, can work our salvation. If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of fear. Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or (elect) world destruction.</blockquote>

Reaction

The Soviets rejected the Baruch Plan and suggested a counter-proposal on the grounds that the United Nations was dominated by the United States and its allies in Western Europe, and could therefore not be trusted to exercise authority over atomic weaponry in an evenhanded manner. (Nationalist China, a UN Security Council member with veto privileges, was anti-communist and aligned with the US at this time.) The USSR counter-proposal insisted that America eliminate its own nuclear weapons first before considering any proposals for a system of controls and inspections. In his 1961 book Has Man a Future?, Russell described the Baruch plan as follows:

Historical significance

Scholars such as David S. Painter, Melvyn Leffler, and James Carroll have questioned whether or not the Baruch Plan was a legitimate effort to achieve global cooperation on nuclear control. The Baruch Plan is often cited as a pivotal moment in history in works promoting internationalizing nuclear power or revisiting nuclear arms control. In philosopher Nick Bostrom's 2014 work Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, he cited the Baruch Plan as part of an argument that a future power possessing superintelligence that obtained a sufficient strategic advantage would employ it to establish a benign 'singleton' or form of global unity.<sup>:89</sup>

See also

  • Acheson–Lilienthal Report
  • Atoms for Peace
  • Cold War
  • International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
  • Nuclear arms race
  • Russell–Einstein Manifesto
  • Science diplomacy
  • United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC)

References

Further reading

  • Chace, James. "Sharing the Atom Bomb." Foreign Affairs (1996) 75#1 pp 129–144. short summary
  • Hewlett, Richard G. and Oscar E. Anderson. A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission: The New World, 1939-1946, Volume I. (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962).
  • Mayers, David. "Destruction Repaired and Destruction Anticipated: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the Atomic Bomb, and US Policy 1944–6." International History Review 38#5 (2016) pp 961–83.
  • Atomic Archive: The Baruch Plan
  • David J Holloway. 2020. "The Soviet Union and the Baruch Plan."