Dear Mr. Cousins:² Up to this moment I have had only the time to read your editorial most sketchily. Because of its meaningful character I shall, later, ponder it seriously.³

But, even so, I see that you have expressed in powerful and persuasive terms some of the great dangers facing the individual--which means civilization--and the need for that same individual to do something about it. I started thinking along these lines when I learned that the first atomic bomb had been successfully tested in 1945 and that the United States planned to use it against a Japanese city. Never has the matter ceased troubling me. As early as 1947 I put into a book I wrote a germ or two of the ideas you express so eloquently.⁴

There is one human habit or trait that you have not brought to the fore. It seems to be an historical fact that when a people become strong, prosperous, and on the whole contented with their lot, it becomes very difficult to reach them with an idea that requires them to think of unpleasant possibilities or to undertake the work and effort required to eliminate such possibilities.

There is, moreover, one other disturbing fact that you do not mention, even though you are possibly aware of it. This fact is that there is no presently known method by which could be uncovered, and counted, even sizeable numbers of hydrogen and other bombs already manufactured and deliberately concealed. It is possible, with the consent of the manufacturing country for rigid inspection, to keep rather close track of new fissionable material produced, as well as its use. Here you find the reason why certain of my disarmament proposals have talked about uses of fissionable material produced in the future rather than about that already manufactured into bombs. I am sure you would agree that a disarmament agreement with the Soviets, with which we would strictly comply and which they could easily evade, would be worse than none at all. This would be true of either a bilateral or a collective treaty.⁵

To me it is especially encouraging to see that intelligent people are studying this problem so seriously. Thank you very much for bringing your article to my attention. I am going to circulate it among some of my close associates here.⁶

With warm personal regard, Sincerely

¹ This was the eleventh anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

² Cousins was editor of The Saturday Review; for background see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 97.

³ Cousins had sent Eisenhower a forthcoming editorial which, he said, reflected "the general affirmative philosophy underlying your own thought and work" (July 26, 1956, AWF/N). Cousins's editorial, entitled "Think of a Man," which appeared in The Saturday Review on August 4, 1956, discussed the effects of the hydrogen bomb and called for disarmament.

⁴ See Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 456.

⁵ For background on Eisenhower's disarmament proposals, see nos. 1523 and 1937.

⁶ Cousins would reply that he was "profoundly impressed" by Eisenhower's observations concerning the difficulty of controlling nuclear weapons. He warned that "the verdict of history" might not be in America's favor for dropping the bomb and noted that recently released papers from the Yalta conference seemed to indicate that the primary reason for dropping it was political rather than military. In any case, he feared that "the sensitivities of the Asians being what they are, especially on matters involving color or status, it is not unnatural perhaps that they should have mistakenly viewed our decision to drop the atomic bomb in the context of the old East-West relationship rather than in terms of military necessity" (Aug. 22, 1956, AWF/N).