66 



active duty in all of the U.S. armed services combined, approximately 

 1.4 million were in the Army. 14 



Many U.S. Government officials, especially among the military 

 services, had opposed such rapid demobilization of the armed forces 

 because of their mistrust of the Russians. One historian cites the 

 power vacuum in Europe which resulted from rapid U.S. withdrawal 

 as at least one reason for the imposition of Soviet hegemony in East- 

 ern Europe during this period. 15 The dramatic cuts in the armed 

 forces also were to have an effect on the negotiations for the control 

 of atomic energy. One source interprets the situation as follows : 



As the nation's conventional military resources grew 

 w T eaker and weaker at a time when Soviet dynamism made 

 it imperative that the United States be strong, the place of 

 atomic weapons in the overall American military posture 

 would naturally become more critical and worthy of 

 protection. 16 



FORMULATION OF U.S. POLICY ON INTERNATIONAL CONTROL 



Early efforts: Even before the first atomic bomb was used during 

 the war-, some persons in the United States were aware of the potential 

 need for control of atomic energy and encouraged the Administration 

 to initiate action to formulate its policy on the subject. Largely at the 

 recommendation of Vannevar Bush, a scientific advisor to President 

 Truman and Chairman of the Office of Scientific Research and Devel- 

 opment, and another presidential advisor, Harvard University Presi- 

 dent James B. Conant, Truman called on Henry L. Stimson, Secretary 

 of War, to appoint a group to consider the future needs in the area of 

 control, on both the international and domestic levels. Stimson recog- 

 nized that to deal with the unique situation created by the development 

 of the atomic bomb required knowledge in both science and politics; 

 he gathered advisors from these areas, including Bush and Conant, 

 Ralph Bard, the Undersecretary of the Navy, William L. Clayton, 

 Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, and James F. 

 Byrnes, who would become Secretary of State two months later, to 

 serve as the President's personal representative on the Committee. 

 Other members were George Harrison, president of the New York 

 Life Insurance Company and a Special Assistant to Stimson, Karl 

 Compton, a physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology, and several scientists who had led in the development of 

 the bomb: Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Dr. Ernest O. Lawrence, Dr. 

 Arthur II. Compton, and Dr. Enrico Fermi. The unpublished report 

 of what is known as the Secretary of War's Interim Committee, which 

 nut during May L945, reached a number of conclusions affecting inter- 

 national control which were to remain at, issue in future attempts 

 toward such control. 



Within a month after the first atomic weapons were used, in August 

 194.">, a report w as issued which explained the basic scientific facts asso- 

 ciated with the development of atomic energy. Prepared in 1944 by a 

 physicist who had been involved in the bomb effort, Dr. Henry I). 



11 U.S. Department of Defense, Selected Manpower Statistics (Washington, D.C. : U.S. 

 Government Printing Office, l!»7i >. p. lit. 



16 Thomas A. Bailey, ' Dlplomatio History of the American People (New York : Appleton- 

 Century Crofts, 1964), p. 778. 



19 Lleberman, The Scorpion and the Tarantula, p. 234. 



