# What Is Atomic Energy?: the 1956 Atoms for Peace primer told in jeepney trips Page 4 of the U.S. Information Agency's 1956 Atoms for Peace set for the Philippines. It explains atoms and fission, then says one small cube of uranium-235 holds the energy of 1,135,000 liters of gas, enough for almost seven thousand jeepney trips from Aparri to Legaspi (NAID 6948913). - Home - Archive - What Is Atomic Energy?: the 1956 Atoms for Peace primer told in jeepney trips Atoms for Peace poster, Philippines p. 4: What Is Atomic Energy? (English photo sheet distributed in the Philippines) What Is Atomic Energy?: the 1956 Atoms for Peace primer told in jeepney trips 1956 USIA Atoms for Peace sheet What Is Atomic Energy?: fission explained, and one cube of uranium-235 measured in jeepney trips and Filipino homes. NAID ## Techniques named on the archive record Plain folksGlittering generalities DateApril 10, 1956Made byU.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East seriesMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeEisenhower AdministrationNARANAID 6948913; Record Group 306SourceUnidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosureSourceU.S. National Archives (NARA), RG 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306) U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, April 10, 1956. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 6948913, 306-PPB-81d). Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org Page 4 of the U.S. Information Agency's 1956 Atoms for Peace set for the Philippines. It explains atoms and fission, then says one small cube of uranium-235 holds the energy of 1,135,000 liters of gas, enough for almost seven thousand jeepney trips from Aparri to Legaspi (NAID 6948913). ## What the sheet prints A text panel at the top explains the atom. A drawing sets one small cube of uranium against three heaps of ordinary fuel. Below, three photographs turn the comparison into scenes a Filipino reader would know: a jeepney on the road, a lit house at night, and an inter-island ship. WHAT IS ATOMIC ENERGY? […] Scientists have learned that by splitting or fissioning certain atoms, a nuclear chain reaction can be started in which tremendous amounts of useful heat and energy are released. This is atomic energy! […] One cube of Uranium-235 this size contains energy equal to that produced by: 1,135,000 LITERS OF GAS / 908,000 LITERS OF FUEL OIL / 1,180,000 KILOGRAMS OF COAL THIS EQUIVALENT ENERGY IS SUFFICIENT TO.... ...run a fully-loaded jeepney on almost seven thousand trips from Aparri, Cagayan, in northernmost Luzon, to Legaspi, Albay, in Bicolandia...OR... ...provide complete night-time electrical illumination for all of the rooms in a typical Filipino home for more than one thousand years...OR... ...propel the M.S. Elcano on 16 round trips between Manila and Davao […] FRAME transcription, line-end hyphens joined. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 6948913, local id 306-PPB-81d. A caption calls the reactor the "furnace of the nuclear age" and says it helps make "wonder-working radioisotopes, radioactive elements which benefit mankind in medicine, industry and agriculture." ## Who issued it The sheet is page 4 of the Atoms for Peace set that the National Archives files with the U.S. Information Agency's posters for Asia, Latin America and the Middle East (Record Group 306), catalog date 10 April 1956. The set opens with Eisenhower's 1953 pledge, and page 2 reports the 1955 treaty with the Philippines. No American agency is named on this page. FRAME classes the source as blurred. ## How to read it FRAME tags it plain folks and glittering generalities. The plain-folks device is the clever part. A fuel figure in liters means little to most readers; seven thousand jeepney runs the length of Luzon means a great deal. The sheet does what a good teacher does and converts a large number into a familiar distance. The science on the page is a fair popular summary for its day, and the poster is open about what it is selling, "useful heat and energy." The generality is in what is missing. The page explains the chain reaction without saying that the same reaction was the bomb, and it lists only benefits. It also does not say what a cube of uranium cost, who would own the reactor, or what happened to the waste. The sheet informs, accurately as far as it goes, and it was free to read and free to ignore. A citizen of a country being invited into a nuclear program was owed the costs as plainly as the jeepney trips. The rest of the set, and the exhibitions the same agency advertised from Beirut to Tehran, are on the civil defense and atomic age hub. ## Sources - FRAME object record, Atoms for Peace poster, Philippines p. 4: What Is Atomic Energy? (English photo sheet distributed in the Philippines). Catalog date April 10, 1956. - U.S. National Archives, Record Group 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, item NAID 6948913, 306-PPB-81d, catalog.archives.gov, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/atoms-for-peace-poster-philippines-p4-what-is-atomic-energy-english-1956/