The Fund for Peaceful Atomic Development originated as a result of President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" message delivered to the United Nations in 1953. The Fund was incorporated in 1954 as a nonprofit organization for the purpose of promoting worldwide cooperation on atomic energy matters, including nuclear science, engineering, industrial applications, nuclear economics, and law and public relations. Specifically, the Fund sought to identify areas within these fields not otherwise addressed by national or international governments, especially in matters of education and training.
The Board of Directors included Walker L. Cisler, President of the Detroit Edison Company, William C. Foster, Executive Vice President of Olin Mathieson Company, Oscar M. Ruebhausen of the New York Bar, Joseph M. Dodge of the Detroit Bank and Trust Company and E. Blythe Stason, Dean of the University of Michigan Law School. The Fund was initially supported financially by the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Johnson Foundation, and the Thomas F. Peterson Foundation.
The Fund's programs involved a variety of activities including sponsorship of grants and fellowships for students from Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia and Japan to study in the United States and abroad. The Fund also sponsored a group of visiting Japanese educators in the United States each year from 1964 to 1971. Projects included the Egyptian Radioisotope Center, the Carnegie International Exhibit in 1955, the University of Mexico-University of Michigan Fellowship Program, and missions to India, Pakistan, Turkey, Western Europe and South America. International conferences were held in Geneva in 1955, 1958, and 1964; in Brussels in 1956 and in Tokyo in 1957. The Fund was also involved in the development of similar funds in Austria, Belgium, Japan and Switzerland.
The Fund for Peaceful Atomic Development was dissolved in 1972.
From the guide to the Fund for Peaceful Atomic Development records, 1954-1972, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)
