The Cold War seemed on the verge of becoming red
hot in 1963. Tensions between the United
States and the Soviet Union were
at the breaking point after more
than a decade of sharply rising hostile rhetoric on all
sides and repeated clashes over flashpoint points like Berlin.
Less than a year earlier both sides had “come eyeball to eyeball” during the Cuban Missile Crisis and had narrowly avoided nuclear war. Both sides were
engaged in a very public race to produce more and bigger
thermonuclear weapons and them missiles to deliver those bombs on the other’s
cities. Huge nuclear weapons were routinely being detonated in tests meant to terrify enemies.
In
the U.S. and presumably the USSR were
being regularly drilled at hiding under their desks in case of a nuclear attack. A generation
of children doubted that they would live
to adulthood. And anxiety was not confined to kids. Popular
culture first sublimated
nuclear fears in 1950’s science fiction and
monster movies but more recently had
begun to face them directly in Peter George’s 1958 Red
Alert which would soon become the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned
to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb;
Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and
the 1959 film made from it; and Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler’s novel Fail Safe which happened to be
serialized in the Saturday Evening Post the week of the Cuban Crisis.
The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was a grim reminder of the terror the world lived in with the ups and downs of the Cold War in the nuclear era. |
Meanwhile
the pesky editors of the Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists had been maintaining a Doomsday Clock since 1947 meant to highlight the danger of eminent
nuclear war. The clock was set at 7 minutes to Midnight at the beginning
of 1963. While actually an improvement over the early days of the arms
race the frightening notice was
getting wider public notice than
ever before.
In
addition to fear of an end-of-the-world
war, the constant nuclear tests themselves were fraying public nerves. Radioactive fallout from American tests in the South Pacific and Nevada and Soviet explosions
in remote central Asia had been tracked around the Northern
Hemisphere. The radioactive isotope strontium 90 released by the blasts had shown
up in American milk. In magazine
article after article physicians
fretted over the public health
effects of exposure to fallout,
especially possible genetic damage.
As
a result the public was beginning to
stir. In Britain, which had joined
the so-called nuclear club and
conducted its own tests in addition to
hosting American strategic bomber bases, a Ban the Bomb movement was quickly growing in numbers and militancy.
Now that was threatening to spread
to the US where most forms of public dissent had been firmly squelched since the post World War II Red Scare and McCarthy Era. But now rumblings
were spreading from beatnik coffee houses to college campuses. Where a corporal’s guard of lonely
protestors held anti-nuke and pro-peace placards just a few years
early scores and then hundreds were suddenly turning out,
including many middle class women. Even in the Soviet Union where a tight lid was kept on everything, intellectuals were secretly circulating laboriously typed samizdat hand to hand. Authorities East and West had reason to act before that sort of thing got out of hand.
Calls
for some sort of control on atmospheric
testing went back to the wake of the U.S. Castle Bravo test in the Pacific when a 15 megaton explosion unleashed the worst fallout episode in history with several inhabited islands and a Japanese
fishing vessel under a “rain of
death” of radioactive ash. The same year Japan, particularly sensitive to nuclear fear as the only nation ever targeted by
Atomic weapons, was contaminated by
fallout from a Soviet Test. In response Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India made the first call for a “standstill
agreement” on nuclear testing in
the hopes it be a bridge to eventual nuclear disarmament. The British
Labor Party officially endorsed a similar moratorium monitored and guaranteed
by the United Nations.
The
United States, which felt that overwhelming
nuclear superiority, was necessary to offset the Soviet Union’s huge conventional arms edge and massive Army. The Soviets seemed more receptive. In
1955 Nikita Khrushchev first proposed talks on a test ban
treaty. The U.S. rejected the overtures.
A frame from a film of a U.S. atmospheric nuculear test in the South Pacific. |
The
Eisenhower administration remained internally divided over Test Ban talks
through most of the rest of the decade with hawkish Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Edward Teller, anointed Father of the Atomic Bomb after dovish J. Robert Oppenheimer was publicly disgraced and stripped of his security clearance, carrying the day in demanding that a Test Ban
could only be negotiated as part of
a wider disarmament agreement including
conventional forces that the Soviet Union would never agree to.
Britain’s
entrenched Conservative government was
also adamantly opposed to Test Ban talks despite a majority of the public
backing it. The Tories wanted to hold out until
the U.K. could finish testing on nuclear
devises and allowing it join the two superpowers.
The first British test was in
the Australian outback as early as
1952 but more were required to develop effective and credible weapons. They
view possession of nuclear weapons as the only
way the country, whose Empire was
disintegrating, could maintain a
position as a world power.
The
obstreperous French who were known
to be racing to develop and deploy
their own nuclear weapons as an independent
force which would make them the dominant
power of Western Europe. None of those who already had the weapons
wanted the French—or any other possible power like China—to succeed. But Charles de Gaulle, who had become Prime Minister in June ’58 and would
become President with vastly expanded powers in January 1959,
would not engage in any discussions that would limit French opportunities.
Soviet
leader Khrushchev had just narrowly avoided ouster by a Stalinist Old Guard and had consolidated
his power by ousting powerful
figures including Defense Minister
Marshal Gregory Zhukov who opposed any arms cooperation with the West. Khrushchev was known to believe that any
nuclear war was unwinnable and a mutual disaster. He wanted to change attitudes in
Politburo that such a war was inevitable. He once again signaled willingness to engage
in discussions on cutting or eliminating testing.
Nikita Khruschev's survival of an old Stalinist plot to oust him as Soviet Party Leader made possible his overtures to the west on nuclear disarmament and testing. |
On
March 31, 1958, the Supreme Soviet
approved Khrushchev’s decision to halt
nuclear testing, conditional on
other nuclear powers doing the same.
Eisenhower and Macmillan
rejected the offer as a propaganda
gimmick. Both had new testing they
wanted to complete. The U.S. launched
the first Operation Hardtack I round
of tests in the South Pacific on April 28.
35 more blasts went off with dizzying speed through August 18 of the
same year—more than all other
atmospheric tests in previous years combined. The British also concluded a critical test of
their weapon in Australia.
Only
as the bombs were going off to growing
international public consternation did Eisenhower and Macmillan agree to international meeting of experts to determine proper control and verification
measures. This was in direct
response to fears that the Soviet moratorium proposal would be ineffective
because underground testing might
not be verifiable.
Eisenhower
was responding to recommendations by the President’s
Science Advisory Committee (PSAC)
which had concluded that a
successful system for detecting
underground tests could be created and by Secretary of State Dulles who had
just been won over to that view. Somewhat
reluctantly Eisenhower proposed technical
negotiations with the Soviet Union on a test ban, a reversal of the long
standing U.S. demand that such talks take place only in conjunction with
negotiations over a general halt to
nuclear weapons production. It was
clear that rising public pressure was key to this change. Ike privately
told associates that continued
resistance to a test ban would leave
the U.S. in a state of “moral
isolation.”
On
July 1, 1958 as the U.S. continued to set off its tests, the three recognized nuclear states convened
the Conference of Experts in Geneva, Switzerland to study means of detecting nuclear tests. In addition to representatives of the powers,
scientists and experts from Canada,
Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, and
Romania participated. The official position
of the United States was that these discussions were purely technical and preliminary,
but both the British and Soviet delegations were instructed to try and achieve a political agreement if the technical problems were surmounted.
Despite
background political intrigue the
technical talks actually went quite well. The main
issue was the ability of sensors
to tell the difference between an
underground test and an earthquake.
Four methods were considered—measurement of acoustic waves, seismic signals, radio waves, and inspection
of radioactive debris. The Soviet felt each method could be effective. The Americans believed that none or even any combination of monitoring would be sufficient without on site observation to which the Soviets
vigorously objected. None the less by
the end of August “extremely
professional” consultation by the experts produced the Geneva System, an extensive
control program, involving 160–170
land-based monitoring posts, 10 sea-based
monitors, and occasional
over-flights following a suspicious
event.
The
Soviet delegation drafted the language to the plan which the British and
American experts endorsed. But no final
political agreement had been reached.
Still to be determined was exactly who would be in charge of the monitoring
and if and to what extent American demanded on-site inspection would be
allowed. Back in Washington hard liners led by Teller and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
Chairman Lewis Strauss conducted a rear-guard
action within the administration against
the Geneva Plan. Dulles and his brother CIA Director Allan Dulles prevailed with the President.
Eisenhower
announced that the U.S. would initiate a
voluntary one year ban on testing if Britain and the USSR agreed coupled
with the initiation of negotiations on a stand-alone test ban treaty. The British agreed followed by the Soviets on
August 30. The moratorium was to go into effect on October 31 when all parties had concluded already scheduled tests.
Shortly after the Conference on
the Discontinuance of Nuclear Tests convened in Geneva on August 31 all
parties agreed to extend the
moratorium to three years during talks.
The
Soviets kicked off negotiations by immediately offering a draft treaty in which the nuclear powers—“the original signers”—would agree to a comprehensive ban—including underground tests—based on
monitoring employing the Geneva Plan and would also cooperate to try and prevent more nations—read France—from testing and obtaining weapons. The Americans and Brits rejected the
draft because it lacked on-site
inspection and expressed doubts
that the Geneva Plan was vigorous
enough.
After
raising expectations the rapid slide of the Geneva talks into stalemate stirred public disappointment. Britain’s already well established Ban the
Bomb movement was able to turn out ever larger crowds for marches and demonstrations. In the U.S. Linus Pauling and other were trying to mobilize a similar movement
with early signs of success. Recognizing
that Soviet objections to on-site inspections were the main stumbling block influential Democratic Senator Albert Gore
Sr. of Tennessee circulated a letter which was widely reprinted in
the press suggesting that the U.S. seek a partial
test ban on air detonations only.
In
1959 both sides inched toward compromise.
The Soviets had already agreed to allow some specific control measures to be included in a new try at a draft
treaty. By march several draft articles
had been agreed on, but the two sides remained divided on the make-up of monitoring teams. Eisenhower and Macmillan dropped all
demands that a test ban agreement be considered only bridge to a comprehensive disarmament treaty. That was a symbolic, but important concession and a reversal of long held
policy.
In
April they went further, essentially echoing Gore’s suggestion, and proposed graduated
agreement where atmospheric tests would be banned first, with negotiations on
underground and outer-space tests continuing.
In May the Soviets agreed to consider a proposal by Macmillan in which each
of the original parties would be
subject to a set number of on-site
inspections each year. They hoped
that talks would peg that at a low number.
Through
1959 and into 1960 talks centered on new research that cast some doubt on the
effectiveness of the Geneva Plan, reinforcing American concert for detection of
underground tests, but also making excluding subterranean test from an agreement. Macmillan proposed setting the number of
on-site inspections at just three, a low number to which the Soviets readily
agreed, but caused the Americans to balk.
Soviet-American relations seemed to be at
their best since the onset of the Cold
War. Khrushchev had visited the U.S. in September 1959 and while the
on-going test ban talks had not been a main point of discussion, the so-called Spirit of Camp David boded well for the
mutual trust needed to make an
agreement. Hopes ran high that and
treaty might even be wound up and
ready for approval at a planned Big Four
summit in Paris with Eisenhower, Macmillan, Khrushchev, and De Gaulle. France had finally tested its bomb in March
and was now hinting for the first time that it might join an agreement.
So close, yet so far. A rapid series of events sent prospects for
an early treaty into a tail-spin.
Eisenhower agreed to Macmillan’s set number of inspections, but suddenly
demanded 20 with an option for more if research showed that
certain low yield underground tests could not be detected under the Geneva System. That monkey wrench was quickly followed by the
Soviets shooting down of an American U-2 spy plane which scuttled the summit talks. USSR also withdrew from the seismic research group in Geneva which subsequently dissolved. Ironically the high altitude reconnaissance capacity of the U-2 would have
rendered the high number of on-site tests demanded by the U.S. unnecessary.
Through
the rest of the year repeated crises roiled
U.S.-Soviet relations including the Congo
Crisis in July and angry confrontations at the United Nations in September at which Khrushchev
famously pounded his shoe on the table. The Cold War was once again in danger of
going very hot. The Geneva talks dissolved fruitlessly in December at
the American election in put a Democrat and thus an entirely new administration into the
White House.
When
Harold Macmillan first met John F.
Kennedy he ruefully confided that
despite all of the external distractions, the real reason the Test Ban talks
had collapsed was “the American ‘big
hole’ obsession and the
consequent insistence on a wantonly
large number of on-site inspections.”
For
his part Kennedy was eager to resume negotiations and ready to review the yo-yo
policy reversals that had characterized the talks under Eisenhower. But he was also interested in tying a test-ban treaty to nuclear proliferation—also
a major concern of the Soviets. “For once China, or France, or Sweden, or
half a dozen other nations successfully test an atomic bomb, the security of
both Russians and Americans is dangerously weakened.”
With
a new team of American negotiators in place the Geneva talks resumed in march
1961. But the new American proposal,
while offering concessions in some areas still stuck by Eisenhower’s demand of
20 on-site inspections while both the Soviets and British favored just
three. The Soviets also objected to the
proposed make-up of inspection teams and proposed a troika of equal representation between East and West and observers
drawn from declared unaligned nations
with a unanimous finding required. That would have given the Soviets effective veto which was manifestly unsatisfactory to the U.S.
Complicating negotiations
and U.S.-Soviet relations in general was Kennedy’s big hikes in defense spending, particularly for long and intermediate range missiles capable of striking the USSR and an expansion of the nuclear warhead arsenal. This fulfilled
campaign promises to close a non-existent Missile Gap. The Soviets, of course, reciprocated and a renewed arms race was on.
In
May the president used his brother
and confidant, Attorney General Robert
Kennedy, to make back channel
contacts through a Soviet intelligence
officer to reduce the US demanded inspection to 15 a year. Khrushchev rejected the overture out of hand.
The
Kennedy-Khrushchev summit in Vienna floundered
over these same issued in June with the Soviet leader very angry with the young
American, “hold out a finger to them—they chop off your whole hand,” he told
his son. It was now Khrushchev, in a polar reversal of positions, who demanded
that a test ban be considered only
in the context of “general and complete
disarmament,” The Summit broke
up acrimoniously and hard on the heels of that came the Berlin Crisis of 1961.
The
Soviets announced that they would resume
atmospheric testing that August. In retaliation
the US resumed underground and laboratory testing on September 15. Kennedy announced
funding for renewed atmospheric testing program in November.
Four
years after a promising start a test
ban seemed utterly impossible.
Macmillan
met Kennedy in Bermuda in December to almost desperately plead for a permanent
stop of the tests. It was a testament to Brita’s reduced status as mere subordinate ally rather than full major power partner that
the Prime Minister was instead forced to agree to allow the U.S. to use its Christmas Island as a new test site since the Americans had blown up or contaminated all of their
available South Pacific atolls.
Despite
these shows of belligerence, the
Kennedy Administration was as rife with division on testing as was Eisenhower’s. Against Teller and the usual hawkish Defense
establishment United Nations Ambassador
Adlai Stevenson, a highly respected
elder statesman;, the State Department; the United States Information Agency; and PSAC Chairman Jerome Wiesner opposed
resuming atmospheric tests. Kennedy himself expressed serious moral qualms about the out of control arms race. He
worried along with Senator Hubert Humphrey that “might
very well turn the political tides in the world in behalf of the Soviets.” Indeed there was ample evidence that was
already happening especially in the emerging Third World.
In
the end, however, Kennedy could not
resist the claims that resuming tests, whether they were actually needed or not, was necessary
to “show resolve” to the Soviets. On April 25, 1962 the American suspension of
atmospheric tests was officially lifted.
With
Geneva talks deader than a door nail new
discussions began in March of 1962 with an 18-party
UN Disarmament Conference and promptly slipped into a quagmire. On August 27 the U.S. and Brittan finally
offered two new draft proposals. The
first included a comprehensive ban verified
by control posts under national command, but international supervision, and on-site inspections. As fully expected the Soviets immediately
rejected it. The second proposal called
for a partial test ban with underground tests would be excluded and. verified
by national detection mechanisms,
without supervision by a supra national body.
This was a substantial Western accommodation of Soviet concerns and worries
within the Kennedy administration about being able to verify underground tests.
Just
as it looked like the new proposal could jump
start negotiations, the Cuban
Missile Crisis of October 1962 blew
up—the most dangerous nuclear
confrontation in history. It both
complicated negotiations and scared the
hell out of both sides enough to push
them forward. In November the
Soviets signaled agreement to a draft by technicians allowing for automated test detection stations a/k/a
black boxes and a limited number of on-site inspections. Of course both sides disagreed on the numbers
of each. Over the next week Kennedy
three times reduced the American demand from an original 20 to seven. The Soviets returned to their old offer of
just three then April of 1963 yanked even that offer due to Khrushchev perceiving some slight.
Back
home the Administration got mixed
signals from Congress. One group of
Congressmen demanded a total rejection of current Soviet proposals and a return
to the long abandoned Geneva System. On
the other hand 34 mostly Democratic
Senators led by Humphrey and Thomas
Dodd of Connecticut introduced a
resolution calling for Kennedy to propose
another partial ban to the Soviet Union with national monitoring and no
on-site inspections. In case of no Soviet agreement, the resolution called for
Kennedy to continue to “pursue it with vigor, seeking the widest possible
international support” while suspending all atmospheric and underwater tests. The resolution bolstered the administrations
attempts, but Kennedy was worried it would undercut the possibility of an
ultimately more comprehensive ban.
Kennedy
publicly committed to renewed
efforts in a March press conference as
a means of preventing rapid nuclear
proliferation, which he called “the greatest possible danger and hazard.” He also explicitly
rejected the known advise of his most hawkish
advisors like Walt Rostow who wanted
to tie a test ban pact to the withdrawal
of Soviet troops in Cuba and keeping commitments
to a neutral Laos. The President
committed to negotiations
without preconditions.
President John F. Kennedy's commencement address at American University laid out his argument for the Test Ban to both the public and the Soviets. |
In
June in a commencement address at American University in Washington,
Kennedy made an eloquent case for negotiations as a first step toward
disarmament
where a fresh
start is badly needed—is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of
such a treaty—so near and yet so far—would check the spiraling arms race in one
of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to
deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963,
the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security—it would
decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important to
require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the
whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and
responsible safeguards.
To back up his rhetoric, Kennedy announced
an agreement with Khrushchev and Macmillan to promptly resume comprehensive test ban negotiations in Moscow and a US unilateral halt to atmospheric tests. Former Ambassador
to the Soviet Union and Democratic
Party powerhouse W. Averell Harriman was tapped to lead the American
delegation, a signal that it was a top administration objective and not
just a sham show. Quintin
Hogg, who the Americans held in low regard, was tapped by Macmillan as his
representative. The Soviets were
represented at the top echelon by Foreign Minister Andre Gromyko.
Negotiations got
underway on July 15 with opening remarks by Khrushchev himself who reiterated a
Soviet offer dismissing the American
inspection plan and offering instead a partial ban on atmospheric testing with
no underground testing moratorium coupled with a non-aggression pact between NATO
and the Warsaw Pact. That position killed the possibility of
pursuing the comprehensive ban Kennedy hoped for. But Harriman in response said that the West
would entertain a non-aggression pact, but that the way forward on that was long
and difficult. But he said a partial
test ban was could be quickly concluded.
He asked for additional non-proliferation
language but the Soviets argued that it, too, would require additional discussion. They also held that the test ban was itself a
non-proliferation step as other nations joined the original signers.
This set the
framework for a surprisingly quick conclusion of the talks. A number of thorny issues were dealt
with and sometimes danced around
with fancy, but evasive language.
That included the right of
signatories to withdraw from the
treaty and under what conditions; how to include states like China and East Germany that were not universally recognized, and the
Soviets demand that recalcitrant be required to sign before the treaty
could go into effect.
With final wordsmithing initialed by negotiators
on July 25, just 10 days after talks began.
The next day Kennedy addressed the nation in a 26 minute live
broadcast. He said, “all mankind has
been struggling to escape from the darkening prospect of mass destruction on
earth ... Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness,” and concluded with
a favorite Chinese proverb, “A
journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. And if that journey is a thousand miles, or
even more, let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the
first step.”
All was not
perfect. Both the French and Chinese
announced that they would not sign the treaty and continue to pursue their
nuclear arms development. Not unexpected, but a dash of cold water on worldwide hopes.
After final consultations by each government
the on August 5, 1963, significantly
the eve of the anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb British Foreign Secretary
Alec Douglas-Home, Soviet
Foreign Minister Gromyko, and US Secretary of State Dean Rusk signed
the final agreement.
After a short,
bitter fight by treaty opponent the Senate ratified
the agreement on September 24 by a comfortable
margin of 80 to 14. There was predictable unanimity on the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet the
next day.
While far from
perfect the Partial Test Ban Treaty let the world breathe a little easier for a
while.
As a 14 year old
kid in Cheyenne, Wyoming I so ardently supported the
treaty that I wrote ultra-conservative
Senator Millward Simpson who as Governor
had my father W.M. Murfin in his
Cabinet as Travel Commission Secretary to ask him to vote for the treaty. Not only did he discount our personal connection—I had met him several times—he wrote
back informing me that he had turned my
letter over to the FBI as possible
proof of Communist sympathies.
Participation in the Partial Test Ban Treaty--light green signed and ratified, dark green Acceded or succeeded, yellow only signed, red non signatory. |
Ultimately 126
nations signed the treaty but 10 never ratified it and significant hold outs
include France and China, each of which became nuclear powers, plus North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. Signatories India and Pakistan openly developed nuclear weapons.
Israel is widely acknowledged to have the bomb
but has never admitted it. Several other nations are believed to possess
the technology to quickly build a weapon including Japan, South Africa, and
Brazil. There are probably others as well as the
possibility that terrorist organizations
might be able to build so-call
suitcase bombs.
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