In the months immediately following the end of World War II, there was a vigorous debate about what to do with the unleashed atom.

The United States still held a monopoly on atomic weapons, but under the umbrella of the United Nations, it was considering sharing its nuclear know-how for the sake of the greater good.

Financier and politician Bernard Baruch, who would later be credited with coming up with the term “Cold War,” was appointed by President Harry Truman in June 1946 to represent the U.S. before the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. Truman wanted Baruch to come up with a plan that would place nuclear weapons and nuclear power under an international regime but not give away America’s national security in the process.

This was a tricky task to pull off. Relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union had already started to drift. The Russians were keenly interested in America’s atomic secrets, and America was not pleased with how the U.S.S.R. was running roughshod over Eastern Europe.

Baruch’s plan called for the extension of basic scientific information for peaceful purposes between all countries, international control of nuclear power for peaceful purposes, the destruction of all existing atomic weapons, and creation of an inspection regime to which all nations would be responsible.

The Soviets refused to take part. They believed that the United Nations was a tool of the United States and its Western European allies and did not trust the plan. They would only agree to sign on if the United States first destroyed its atomic stockpile. No deal.

Had the Baruch Plan been implemented, the 50-year nuclear arms race might have been avoided. Trillions of dollars could have been saved, and the world would have had to find another way to approach the brink of destruction.