Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb Nuclear Diplomacy since 1945

by Gaddis, John Lewis; Gordon, Philip H.; May, Ernest R.; Rosenberg, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9780198294689
• ISBN10: 0198294689
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-05-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book is a path-breaking work that uses biographical techniques to test one of the most widely debated questions in international politics: Did the advent of the nuclear bomb prevent the Third World War? The book's authors argue almost unanimously that nuclear weapons did have a significant effect on the thinking of the leading statesmen of the nuclear age, but a dissenting epilogue from John Mueller challenges this thesis.

Author Biography

PROFESSOR JOHN GADDIS is Professor of History at Yale
DR PHILIP GORDON is Director for European Affairs, National Security Council, Washington
PROFESSOR ERNEST MAY is Professor of History at Harvard
PROFESSOR JONATHAN ROSENBERG is Assistant Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University

Table of Contents

Notes on the Contributors	viii
Introduction	1	(14)
Ernest R. May
PART I. SUPERPOWERS
Longing for International Control, Banking on American Superiority: Harry S. Truman's Approach to Nuclear Weapons	15	(24)
S. David Broscious
Stalin and the Nuclear Age	39	(23)
Vladislav M. Zubok
John Foster Dulles' Nuclear Schizophrenia	62	(25)
Neal Rosendorf
`War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever': Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Thermonuclear Revolution	87	(33)
Andrew P. N. Erdmann
Bear Any Burden? John F. Kennedy and Nuclear Weapons	120	(21)
Philip Nash
The Nuclear Education of Nikita Khrushchev	141	(30)
Vladislav M. Zubok
Hope M. Harrison
PART II. ALLIES
Before the Bomb and After: Winston Churchill and the Use of Force	171	(23)
Jonathan Rosenberg
Between `Paper' and `Real Tigers': Mao's View of Nuclear Weapons	194	(22)
Shu Guang Zhang
Charles de Gaulle and the Nuclear Revolution	216	(20)
Philip H. Gordon
Konrad Adenauer: Defence Diplomat on the Backstage	236	(24)
Annette Messemer
Conclusion	260	(24)
John Lewis Gaddis
Epilogue: Duelling Counterfactuals	272	(12)
John Mueller
Notes	284	(105)
Index	389