A Complete Nuclear Test Ban — Why Has it Taken so Long?

1 A fuller account of President Eisenhower's Science Advisory Committee and its work on nuclear testing is given in Herbert F. York, Making Weapons, Talking Peace (New York: Basic Books, 1987) pp. 116-121. This also contains an account of the 1977-80 CTB negotiations by a leading participant.

2 W. Averell Harriman, `63 Test Ban Treaty: It Can Be Done Again', New York Times, 24 July 1983, an article commemorating the 20th anniversary of the signing of the PTBT.

3 York, Making Weapons, pp. 285-289 describes the arguments of the US laboratories. For a British viewpoint, see John Edmonds in Armed Peace, O'Connor Howe, ed., (London: Macmillan, 1984) pp. 78-79. David Owen, British Foreign Secretary at the time, was even more outspoken than York or I - he wrote: `The way in which some US and British Defence Ministry officials conspired to thwart the agreement defied belief' (Armed Peace, p. 4).

4 James Callaghan, Time and Chance (London: Collins, 1987) p. 494.

5 For the full text of the 10 August 1982 `critical' statement by six former US chief negotiators, including Paul Warnke and Herbert York, see Edmonds, Armed Peace, pp. 82-83.

6 House of Commons Official Report (Hansard), 27 June 1988, written answers, col. 66.

7 Speech to 4th NPT Review Conference, Geneva, 22 August 1990.

8 British opposition to the new US legislation was widely reported in the press. Under pressure from Labour and Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, it was acknowledged by Defence Ministers such as Mr Archie Hamilton: `We think that a limited testing programme is important, and we shall be unhappy if the US does not decide to continue with one'. (House of Commons Official Report, 24 November 1992, col. 732).

9 President Clinton, radio address, 3 July 1993.

10 Barry Blechman, quoted in Edmonds, Armed Peace, p. 78.

11 See note 9 above.

12 See York, Making Weapons, pp. 312-313.

13 These `twin warnings' by President Eisenhower are the subject of the prologue to Herbert F. York's Race to Oblivion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971).

14 Solly Zuckerman, Nuclear Illusion and Reality (London: Collins, 1982) pp. 133-134.