ABSTRACT
The usual form in which we know history is as it has been written—or at least recounted—rather than as it was made. The popular images of the past we commemorate may reflect something of the episodes to which they refer. But they tend to reveal more about the needs and circumstances of the myth makers who have shaped them in the interim. Atoms for Peace is no exception. As an ambitious proposal in the 1950s, it had a particular character, founded on particular assumptions. Since that time, its image has shaken off the restraints of those original premises, becoming instead a general symbol of international cooperation in the civil use of nuclear energy. We commemorate an event. But, in front of the event, we see the symbol.
