Our Friend The Atom was produced by Disney in cooperation with the U.S. Navy and General Dynamics, builders of the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus. Photo courtesy of Mark Langer.

Atoms for Peace!
The Disneyland amusement park and the "Disneyland" television program were enormously successful, catapulting Disney out of financial difficulty and turning the company into a media giant. This success was noticed by the government in a critical time for American public relations, both internally and internationally. After WWII, the use of atomic energy for defense figured large in the United States government's plans. However, these plans faced growing opposition both from the scientific community and the public in the wake of the American experience in the Korean war and a series of mishaps related to atomic testing.

In order to counter opposition to the military use of atomic weaponry, the Eisenhower administration began a public relations effort called "Atoms for Peace," in which positive propaganda would be developed to promote the use of atomic energy. In a letter to President Eisenhower on December 20, 1955, Acting Director of the United States Information Agency Abbott Washburn reported on his bureau's efforts. Wrote Washburn, "We have also had favorable preliminary conferences with Walt Disney (whose overseas audience surpasses all others) on an `Atoms for Peace' cartoon." (Disney would go on to animate television commercials for Eisenhower's 1957 re-election campaign.)

Our Friend The Atom
Disney was the ideal venue for the government's propaganda effort. Not only did Disney have a long-standing track record of creating government propaganda, but, as Time magazine reported in 1954, almost one billion people worldwide had seen at least one Disney film. After all, Disney was a leader not only in the film industry, but in publishing, television and the amusement park business.

Our Friend The Atom (January 23, 1957), the "Atoms for Peace" cartoon to which Washburn referred, was produced by Disney in cooperation with the U.S. Navy and General Dynamics, builders of the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus. As a "Tomorrowland" segment of the Disneyland television show, Our Friend The Atom relates the history of atomic energy, beginning with a clip from the earlier film 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, which erroneously maintains that author Jules Verne predicted the use of atomic energy. The film then progresses to an animated fairy tale of a fisherman who finds a bronze bottle in his net. Opening the flask, the fisherman is confronted by a genie, who explains that after centuries of confinement, he has resolved to kill whomever opens the bottle. The fisherman feigns surprise that so large a being could fit into the bottle. The genie returns to the vessel to prove that it can be done, and the wily fisherman corks the bottle up. Finally, the genie relents and promises to grant the fisherman his wishes if the bottle is uncorked. Says the narrator, "The story of the atom is like this fable, come true through science. For centuries we have been casting our nets into the sea of the great unknown in search of knowledge. Finally, we found a vessel and, like the one in the fable, it contains the genie."

In a combination of live-action and animation, Our Friend The Atom moves from this fairy tale premise to an international history of atomic energy that culminates in American control of the technology. To soothe public apprehension, atomic energy is explained in terms of common household items. An atomic reactor, the viewer is told, is just like a big furnace. An atomic chain reaction is likened to what happens when a stray ping-pong ball is thrown at a mass of mousetraps with ping-pong balls set on each one. The narrator relates that an atomic explosion might be like the angry genie, but with the nuclear reactor and the magic power to transmute ordinary materials into radioactive tools in science and medicine, "Here lies our chance to make the atomic genie our friend." The film ends with the prediction that "clean" nuclear reactors will replace grimy coal and oil power plants. Radiation will be used to produce better crops and livestock. People will zoom from place to place in atomic cars, trains, boats and planes. "Then, the atom will become truly our friend."