IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB667920702

“The Door to the Promised Land of Atomic Peace and Plenty: ”Mexican Students and the Phoenix Memorial Project (2021)

Mateos, Gisela (Author)
Suárez-Díaz, Edna (Author)

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Volume: 51
Issue: 2
Pages: 209-231

URI: https://online.ucpress.edu/hsns/article/51/2/209/116756/The-Door-to-the-Promised-Land-of-Atomic-Peace-and

DOI: 10.1525/hsns.2021.51.2.209

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Engineering, nuclear International relations Atoms for Peace Foreign policy Students Nuclear power; atomic energy 20th century, late Mexico

Most countries met the promotion of the peaceful uses of atomic energy as a tool for social and economic development with skepticism. In countries where it took hold, its acceptance was driven by a few elite actors. In Mexico the most salient included the Rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Nabor Carrillo, and William Draper Jr., President of the Canadian-based Mexican Light and Power Company. Nuclear technologies for so-called less-developed countries became a key niche for non-governmental actors such as the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix Project, the Atomic Industrial Forum, and the Fund for Peaceful Atomic Development, Inc., which played a relevant role in the implementation of the new foreign atomic policy after 1954 in close consonance with US governmental offices like the Foreign Operations Administration, which was superseded by the International Cooperation Administration in 1955. Without signing a manifest government-to-government agreement, Mexican officials were able to overcome domestic obstacles and historical distrust with her northern neighbor to get nuclear expertise and commodities. Apparently restricted to universities and private industries, this negotiation justified and backed the education and training of the first generation of Mexican nuclear engineers as part of the Phoenix Project at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. At the same time, the Mexican Program provided a learning experience in nuclear and technical assistance diplomacy for industrialists and private interests in the implementation of the Atoms for Peace initiative abroad. This paper is part of a special issue entitled “Revealing the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix Project.”

...More

Included in

Article Joseph D. Martin; Gisela Mateos; David P. D. Munns; Edna Suárez-Díaz (2021) Special Issue Introduction: Historical Peculiarity and the Order of the Phoenix. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (pp. 169-178). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB667920702/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article David P.D. Munns; (2021)
Teaching in a Swimming Pool: The Ford Nuclear Reactor and the Training of the Atomic Age (/isis/citation/CBB766957111/)

Article David P. D. Munns; (2021)
Teaching in a Swimming Pool: The Ford Nuclear Reactor and the Training of the Atomic Age (/isis/citation/CBB956031290/)

Article Maria Rentetzi; (2021)
With strings attached: Gift-giving to the International Atomic Energy Agency and US foreign policy (/isis/citation/CBB321286517/)

Article Diego Barría Traverso; Eduardo Carreño Lara; (2023)
Welcome to Santiago: Commercial aviation relations between Chile and the socialist countries, 1970–1973 (/isis/citation/CBB466652359/)

Chapter David P.D. Munns; (2020)
The Atom Goes To College”: The Teaching Reactors that Trained the Atomic Age (/isis/citation/CBB336171764/)

Article McCray, W. Patrick; (2010)
“Globalization with Hardware”: ITER's Fusion of Technology, Policy, and Politics (/isis/citation/CBB001033657/)

Article Jacob Darwin Hamblin; (2020)
Aligning missions: nuclear technical assistance, the IAEA, and national ambitions in Pakistan (/isis/citation/CBB311889554/)

Book Nicolas Guilhot; (2017)
After the enlightenment: Political realism and international relations in the mid-twentieth century (/isis/citation/CBB962952461/)

Book Stacey Barker; Jill Campbell-Miller; Greg Donaghy; (2021)
Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds: Canadian Women and the Search for Global Order (/isis/citation/CBB572738514/)

Article Johnston, Sean F.; (2009)
Creating a Canadian Profession: The Nuclear Engineer, c. 1940--68 (/isis/citation/CBB001030871/)

Article Hiroshi Ichikawa; (2016)
Obninsk, 1955: The World's First Nuclear Power Plant and "The Atomic Diplomacy" by Soviet Scientists (/isis/citation/CBB472834065/)

Book Jacob Darwin Hamblin; (2021)
The Wretched Atom: America's Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology (/isis/citation/CBB105394498/)

Article Pedro Seabra; (2021)
‘Despite the special bonds that tie us’: Portugal, Brazil, and the South Atlantic in the late Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB764134031/)

Article Hecht, Gabrielle; (2007)
A Cosmogram for Nuclear Things (/isis/citation/CBB000741719/)

Chapter Barnhart, Megan; (2009)
Selling the International Control of Atomic Energy: The Scientists' Movement, the Advertising Council, and the Problem of the Public (/isis/citation/CBB000952565/)

Thesis Mallard, Gregoire; (2008)
The Atomic Confederacy: Europe's Quest for Nuclear Weapons and the Making of the New World Order (/isis/citation/CBB001561194/)

Article Kristin L. Ahlberg; (2021)
“Food for Peace is a Moral Program”: The Intersection of Agricultural and Human Rights Policy during the Carter Administration (/isis/citation/CBB196426003/)

Book Robert K. Brigham; (2018)
Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam (/isis/citation/CBB488916133/)

Article Yannick Pincé; (2024)
French Nuclear Strategy: The Making of a ‘Consensus’ (1972–1988) (/isis/citation/CBB470621975/)

Book Mario Daniels; John Krige; (2022)
Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America (/isis/citation/CBB238236707/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}