In this episode of Everyday Ambassador, we dive into the near-impossible work of the International Atomic Energy Agency, often called the world’s nuclear watchdog. My conversation with IAEA historian Elisabeth Roehrlich explores how an idea proposed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953—Atoms for Peace— became a cornerstone of the global nuclear order. And how the International Atomic Energy Agency navigates the tensions between the technical and political, between idealism and geopolitics.
Roehrlich, an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Vienna, is an expert in twentieth-century diplomatic history, the nuclear age and the Cold War. Roehrlich’s book, Inspectors for Peace: The Story of the IAEA (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022), is the first comprehensive historical study of the agency.
President Eisenhower delivered the famed “Atoms for Peace” speech to the UN in December of 1953. Roehrlich explains how the speech reframed nuclear technology as a force for human progress. Eisenhower described the destructive power of nuclear weapons but quickly pivoted toward an optimistic vision of nuclear technologies in medicine, agriculture, and development. In an era when many newly independent nations saw nuclear science as a pathway to modernity, this message resonated powerfully.
Eisenhower also called for a new global agency—the International Atomic Energy Agency — dedicated to managing “atoms for peace”. Just four years later—against a backdrop of the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian uprising, and the launch of Sputnik—the IAEA was born in Vienna.
Vienna in the late 1950s hardly resembled today’s city of diplomacy, culture, and international organizations. Still bearing scars of World War II and known for espionage (immortalized in The Third Man), it was an unlikely headquarters.
But Roehrlich explains that Austria’s new status as a neutral state made it appealing. While some proposed locating the IAEA in the United States, including cities like Chicago, the Soviet Union resisted. A neutral host became the compromise solution.
Thus Vienna emerged as the home of an institution intended to balance two sides of the nuclear age: hope and fear, promise and danger.
Although “nuclear watchdog” has become shorthand for the IAEA, Roehrlich reminds us that inspections were not part of Eisenhower’s original proposal. The technical concept of “safeguards” evolved gradually.
But in the early decades, states resisted inspections. Developing nations feared new hierarchies in international relations; industrialized nations feared industrial espionage. Safeguards applied unevenly, often only to facilities receiving IAEA assistance.
The watershed came in 1970, with the entry into force of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty required non-nuclear-weapon states to accept comprehensive IAEA safeguards, formalizing the inspection system we recognize today.
The IAEA has always been political, because nuclear technology is political. Roehrlich says that the IAEA’s relationship with the public is dynamic, sometimes tense, and shaped by events such as Chernobyl, Fukushima, and the Iraq War.
Today’s nuclear challenges extend far beyond weapons programs. Civilian nuclear plant safety is central to the IAEA’s mission, especially in conflict zones. Roehrlich discusses the agency’s role in assessing plants like Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine, where active fighting has created unprecedented risk.
The idea that nuclear power plants could be weaponized is not entirely new, but the war in Ukraine has made it starkly visible. The IAEA’s involvement is a reminder that nuclear dangers are not confined to secret enrichment facilities; they exist wherever reactors operate under unstable conditions.
The NPT faces growing pressure from technological change, geopolitical competition, and frustration among non-nuclear states who see unfulfilled promises of disarmament.
But Roehrlich she resists the notion that the IAEA’s authority is collapsing. Instead, she frames the institution as adaptive, shaped by both its constraints and continuity. The agency remains essential—even as the world around it changes.
Timestamps:
00:00 — What international organizations can do about nuclear threats
00:53 — Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech and the origins of the IAEA
03:55 — Why Vienna became the IAEA’s headquarters
06:20 — What IAEA inspectors actually do: safeguards and verification
08:40 — The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the evolution of inspections
11:55 — Power dynamics, superpowers, and perceptions of unfairness
15:40 — Stopping nuclear programs: the IAEA amid broader diplomatic efforts
17:50 — Scientists, diplomacy, and the myth of a purely technical agency
20:55 — Civil society, disarmament movements, and the IAEA’s public image
23:45 — Nuclear plant safety, war zones, Zaporizhzhia, and the future of the agency
