Nuclear weapons and nuclear power have greatly influenced history from 1945 to the present. This digital library provides an annotated bibliography of over 2,700 books, articles, films, CDs, and websites about a broad range of nuclear issues.

This course covers the history of American foreign policy since 1914, current policy questions, and the future of U.S. Policy. We focus on policy evaluation. What consequences did these policies produce for the U.S. and for other countries? Were/are these consequences good or bad?

The world has never come closer to the brink of nuclear war than it did during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, one of the most dramatic episodes in U.S. diplomatic history. Discover the tense sequence of events that took place during the Cuban Missie Crisis.

HPOL is a collection of invaluable audio materials some available for the first time on this website capturing significant political and historical events and personalities of the twentieth century. The materials range from formal addresses delivered in public settings to private telephone conversations conducted from the innermost recesses of the White House. Our aim is to provide an accessible source of audio information to enliven instruction and scholarship in history and politics and to enable easy access for all persons to the rich audio archives of American history and politics.

Dean Rusk-the sole cabinet member addressed by President John F. Kennedy as 'Mr. Secretary'-was the second-longest-serving secretary of state: his service spanned the Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations, from 1961 to 1969. This video segment illustrates Rusk and Kennedy's close relationship during the Cuban missile crisis and conveys the president's emotions and approach to decision-making as events unfolded. His interview conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'At the Brink' reveals Rusk to have been a very trusted adviser whose counsel was reserved for the president. While Rusk was part of the Executive Committee inner circle during the missile crisis, he was also a separate entity: he reserved his recommendation 'until the president and I heard from all of these working groups.' Throughout the two-week crisis, Rusk avidly pursued a diplomatic resolution, helped build consensus, and facilitated out-of-channel communications. Beyond the missile crisis, Rusk talks about European fears that the United States' commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would be weakened by the 'flexible response' strategy.

Andrei Gromyko served as Soviet foreign minister from 1957 to 1985. Beginning in 1943, when Soviet premier Joseph Stalin appointed the 34-year-old ambassador to Washington, Gromyko was an indispensable formulator of Kremlin policy toward the United States. Ultimately, he dealt with nine U.S. presidents. In this video segment, Gromyko chronicles the arms race, beginning in the 1950s under General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. At the time, each superpower had the ability to inflict "unacceptable damage" on the other. Still, neither side acted to stop the arms race until General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev opened the new era in the mid eighties. Under the leadership of Gorbachev, Gromyko concludes, Soviets have embraced the "principle of rational sufficiency" and initiated unilateral steps to stop the arms race. The interview Gromyko conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age is a wide-ranging reflection on nuclear strategy, foreign policy, and superpower diplomacy during the four-and-a-half decades since the dawn of the nuclear age. Gromyko begins the interview with a look at the Potsdam Conference, at which U.S. president Harry S. Truman informed Soviet premier Joseph Stalin that an atomic bomb had successfully detonated. Truman was perplexed by the non-reaction of the Soviet leader, who then submitted a private order to accelerate the Russian bomb project. Gromyko remembers how, following the war, it felt, at age 37, to challenge the experienced architects of the Cold War and the policies they conceived: the Baruch Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan. He recalls that Soviet proposals to ban all nuclear weapons and to place strict controls on facilities pursuing nuclear energy were "categorically rejected." Western powers, Gromyko asserts, missed the opportunity to stop the arms race before it began. He points to "a drastic hardening" of foreign policy, citing former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill's 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech as an "open declaration of the Cold War." Gromyko reserves his strongest criticism for the "doctrine of intimidation," the United States' classified National Security Memorandum 68, which marked a dramatic shift in U.S.-Soviet relations. His description of the 1962 Caribbean crisis stands in stark contrast to U.S. officials' accounts of the same episode, known as the Cuban missile crisis. He provides detailed recollections of his conversation with President John F. Kennedy during this period, concluding that it was "probably the most difficult meeting I experienced in all my 48 years of meeting presidents of the United States." Gromyko moves ahead to the period of detente. His retelling of last-minute changes prior to the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) I differs from that of national security adviser Henry Kissinger. Gromyko discusses the key Soviet objection to U.S. proposals during SALT II negotiations: the United States, which targeted the Soviet Union with forward bases around the world, demanded drastic reductions in the Soviet Union's principal deterrent-the heavy intercontinental ballistic missile. At Vladivostok in 1974, the two sides agreed on a basic framework for the SALT II Treaty, which was signed five years later. Reflecting on the trends he has observed during his long career as Soviet foreign minister, Gromyko sees more continuity than difference: each administration has tried to achieve military superiority, and the Soviet Union, always one step behind, has pressed to maintain "virtual parity" to safeguard its national interests. Much was achieved during detente, he recalls. While that term is no longer used, Gromyko sees parallels with-and holds out hope for-the current process of "deepening mutual understand and trust."

For nearly half a century, Paul Nitze was one of the chief architects of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Nitze assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs. In this video segment, Nitze describes key issues confronting the incoming Kennedy administration. This transition period focused on the goals of the country's nuclear-strategic policy; how to approach crises in every region, from the Middle East to Vietnam; and whether to unify the armed services. Included are Nitze's recommendations regarding a conventional military buildup and a 'no-cities' policy, which would target military forces instead of civilian populations. Nitze's interview conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'At the Brink' moves the viewer through his work with the World War II Strategic Bombing Survey, which placed him in Hiroshima and Nagasaki soon after the atomic bombs were dropped. From 1950 to 1953, Nitze served as director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff, and from 1961 to 1963 he was assistant defense secretary. As his interview reveals, Nitze held key positions during the period after World War II when the United States emerged as a superpower and Cold War strategic policies were being debated and defined. His classified 1950 report, National Security Memorandum 68, remains a seminal document: it was initially designed to persuade President Harry S. Truman that an increasingly menacing world required major increases in spending on defense and foreign military assistance. Nitze was also a major contributor to the Gaither Report, which stressed the need for a survivable nuclear deterrent by citing the vulnerability of the U.S. bomber force. Nitze opposed the doctrine of massive retaliation from the moment John Foster Dulles announced it at a dinner party in 1954. He was involved in crisis contingency planning, including the Berlin blockade and airlift in 1948, construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. During the missile crisis, Nitze recalls, he worked out the scenarios of increasing military escalation to pressure the Soviets to withdraw the missiles. Finally, he describes his disappointment that, although Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara initially embraced his no-cities strategy, following the Cuban missile crisis McNamara entirely abandoned the notion of winnable nuclear war.