Eisenhower, Nuclear Weapons, and Arms Control

In January 1946, as army chief of staff, Dwight D. Eisenhower presented the army's view to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS): the United States should avoid 'excessive reliance' on atomic weapons, but it would be able to build the army around them. In 1951, as the Korean War dragged on and the Cold War entered some of its darkest days, Eisenhower was recalled from retirement to serve the fledgling North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as its first military chief. Eisenhower discovered that declaring nuclear weapons usable and actually using them were two very different propositions. Eisenhower had an opportunity to carry out his new policy right away, on the major foreign policy issue he inherited from Harry Truman: the stalemated war in Korea. Eisenhower's role in shaping the quality of the US arsenal has also received attention.