The United States of America ushered in the age of nuclear weapons when it carried out its first nuclear test on 16 July 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico. One month later, it dropped two atomic bombs on Japan – on Hiroshima on 6 August and on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945, bringing an end to World War II. However, nuclear testing did not end. Instead, five decades (until the CTBT in 1996) of efforts to “put the nuclear genie back in the bottle” began.

Signed on 26 June 1945, the United Nations Charter, accorded responsibility for disarmament and the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments with the United Nations (Articles 11(1) and 26). In January 1946, the first session of the United Nations General Assembly approved the creation of an Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) to address problems associated with atomic energy and its uses.

The US Acheson-Lilienthal Report of March 1946 proposed the creation of an international agency tasked with the control of nuclear weapons and materials. The report, authored by a committee tasked with setting forth US nuclear policy, suggested having the complete nuclear fuel cycle under international ownership. The process would be controlled by an agency to be called the Atomic Development Authority. This agency would regulate all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle and distribute fissile material to countries for the peaceful development of atomic energy.

Based on this report, the US Baruch Plan proposed nuclear disarmament with international control over all aspects of nuclear activities. The plan was named after Bernard Mannes Baruch, who achieved success as an American financier and stock market speculator in his earlier years. Baruch advised US Presidents on matters of war, finance and international affairs from World War I through the mid-1960s.