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The transition from into the Cold War was almost immediate after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. The need for a bigger and better bomb was soon brought up. While Oppenheimer and many high up military officials stressed that such bombs were not needed at all, the work towards creating them continued. It was brought up that the world should be a united world of all humans living together in harmony and thus should have no use for atomic or nuclear weapons. Obviously, this idea was highly sought after, but the risk of trying it was far too great when other countries weren’t going to abandon their hopes of having powerful weapons.

Many years after the dropping of the atomic bombs, Eisenhower gave his farewell speech with days remaining in his presidency. In this speech he mentioned the idea that the world should be a peaceful place with everyone working together. He said, “Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.” This ultimate goal mentioned countless times throughout the ages has sometimes felt hopeless. He warns of what could happen if this goal does fade away by saying, “this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”

Eisenhower’s speech had many similarities to the speech that Oppenheimer gave to a group of scientists in 1945. In his speech, he mentioned things along the same lines that Eisenhower did years later that the world should be united as one rather than split into fighting nations. He mentions that the world should do things to better the world, not to only better a particular country. He states, “We must understand that whatever our commitments to our own views and ideas, and however confident we are that in the course of time they will tend to prevail, our absolute -- our completely absolute -- commitment to them, in denial of the views and ideas of other people, cannot be the basis of any kind of agreement.” While he was a part of the Manhattan project he realized after seeing it’s destruction that even if it was necessary, it was still terrible thing. He then set off on advocating towards a peaceful world rather than a world full of war.

Eisenhower and Oppenheimer both had the right ideas when it came towards world peace. Neither of them were ignorant of the fact that such a world is almost impossible in the near future, but they both knew that one more person pushing towards such a world would eventually lead to a better planet. Nuclear weapons capable of destroying almost an entire country serve no use in winning a war besides completely wiping out those fighting against you. Yet again though, countries would be putting themselves at a risk without these weapons while others had them. The whole premise of the cold war is a tug-of-war of power and one that still continues today. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to whether or not more nuclear bombs should be built, and unfortunately, Eisenhower and Oppenheimer’s speech didn’t completely answer that.