The Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibited atmospheric, underwater, and high-altitude nuclear testing. The treaty was signed by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union in August 1963 and entered into effect later that year following ratification.
During the 1950s, the major powers engaged in an arms race that became increasingly lethal as a result of radioactive fallout in the atmosphere. After the Soviet Union implemented a unilateral testing moratorium in 1958, the United States did the same, and that voluntary initiative lasted for several years. Even so, talks about a more permanent solution failed when the Soviets shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane. Angered by Dwight D. Eisenhower’s initial claims that the U-2 was merely a weather plane gone awry, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev walked out of a superpower summit in Paris, and ended the test ban negotiations.
Test ban talks resumed in March 1961, but they were initially unsuccessful. President John F. Kennedy made several modifications to the American position, offering a ban on high-altitude tests. On-site inspections proved to be the key sticking point. In time, the Soviets demanded only two or three; the United States wanted eight or 10. Even though that latter number was scaled down from what Kennedy and his military advisers had initially sought, there was still tremendous difference between the two positions.
Outside events affected the arms control negotiations. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the meeting in Vienna between Khrushchev and Kennedy in June 1961, superpower relations deteriorated, and so did the test ban negotiations. In the fall of 1961, the Soviets broke the voluntary ban on nuclear testing that had been in place since 1958 and detonated a 50-megaton device, equivalent to more than 3,000 bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Kennedy responded in kind by resuming both underground and atmospheric nuclear testing. By late autumn, the talks in Geneva had ended.
After the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, both Kennedy and Khrushchev realized just how quickly an international dispute could escalate to nuclear war. Both leaders wanted to take steps to prevent worldwide destruction. Khrushchev’s apparent defeat in the missile crisis worsened Sino-Soviet relations, and he now had to face two powerful enemies, the United States and China. He therefore softened his stance on several issues, including arms control. When Kennedy wrote to Khrushchev in April 1963 to suggest that high-level talks to discuss a test ban treaty resume, the Soviet premier accepted immediately and offered to host the talks in Moscow.
Kennedy delivered a speech at American University in June 1963 that called for peace and restraint, sending a signal to the Soviets that he was ready to negotiate on arms control. The speech was also part of a public relations effort to secure congressional support for a test ban treaty. Kennedy argued that the treaty would improve American security by curbing the arms race, reducing radioactive pollution, and allowing continued antiballistic missile research.
Intensive talks lasted for 10 days in Moscow in July 1963. It soon became clear that the Soviets would not accept on-site inspections, which the United States required for a comprehensive test ban. The priority then shifted to securing a limited test ban agreement. Representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain signed the treaty in August. American public opinion supported the treaty and it passed the Senate by a vote of 80 to 19 on September 24, 1963.
The Limited Test Ban Treaty never fulfilled the hopes of Kennedy or Khrushchev. While it reduced the amount of radioactive pollution in the atmosphere, it did not halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Efforts to include France and China as signatories to the treaty failed, and it did not stop all forms of testing. After the treaty was signed, underground testing actually accelerated. Still, it amounted to an important first step in arms control.
Further reading: George Bunn, Arms Control by Committee: Managing Negotiations with the Russians (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992).
—Jennifer Walton
World History
