The 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: A Missed Opportunity for Détente?

Was the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) of 1963 a watershed in the Cold War? The historian Marc Trachtenberg has argued that the treaty was the capstone of the "constructed peace" he believes had been in the making since the onset of the Cold War and subsequently ensured peace for the remainder of the Cold War and even beyond. Other authors have regarded the treaty as a Berlin settlement in disguise and therefore a decisive step toward the solution of the German question. John Van Oudenaren depicts the LTBT as having "dramatically" improved the prospects for the later signing of the Nonproliferation Treaty—the only other arms control treaty of the Cold War era that has retained importance afterward. Because the LTBT inaugurated nuclear arms control, the British negotiator Quintin Hogg (Lord Hailsham) hailed it as "the biggest step forward in international relations since the beginning of the Cold War." He acknowledged, however, that no lasting détente ensued.¹ The treaty may have helped "détente" to become a household word by the end of 1963, but the East-West conflict kept dragging on for another quarter of a century.

The nuclear standoff that was a hallmark of the Cold War befuddled the relationship between military power and politics. Common sense suggests that an arms race is a symptom rather than the cause of political rivalry, but the nuclear arms race had its own momentum that defied common sense. Arms control seemed to be conducive to détente, but in retrospect it appears to have been a poor substitute for the superpowers' failure to address the underlying political causes of their ongoing rivalry. Avis T. Bohlen, the former U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, admits that arms control did not substitute for political, diplomatic, or military action, even though it did help to shape superpower behavior in all these areas.²

The story of the LTBT is a case study of interaction between arms control and détente. Did the conclusion of the treaty foster political rapprochement or divert the superpowers' attention in a wrong direction? Was it one of those "missed opportunities" that historians bent on chastising politicians are so fond of discovering with the benefit of hindsight? If so, what exactly was the opportunity and why was it missed? What did the 1963 détente amount to and why did it not take hold? Did it at least pave the road toward the more lasting détente that followed a decade later? What, if any, is the enduring significance of the still valid treaty?

The negotiations that led to the LTBT are among the most extensively documented episodes of the Cold War. They even served to establish a model, whatever its worth, for studying Soviet "bargaining behavior." Yet the very abundance of sources, overwhelmingly of Western origin, has tended to hide the forest behind the trees, making it difficult to relate details to the larger picture. This article attempts to clarify that picture by supplementing U.S. and British sources with new evidence from the Soviet side.³

The article shows that the more important political obstacles were on the Soviet rather than the American side. On the American side, the obstacles were mostly of a technical nature. The article illustrates how the weakness of Nikita Khrushchev in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis served as an impediment rather than incentive to negotiating. The article highlights the reasons for his indecision in assigning the treaty the priority it deserved as well as the reasons for his eventual embrace of the concept of a limited treaty in order to attain a success he badly needed. New sources from Eastern Europe reveal the Soviet Union's inability as well as unwillingness to use the treaty as the starting point toward a deeper détente.

In the Shadow of Cuba

By 1962, support for an end to nuclear testing was increasingly widespread. Not only had tests fouled the atmosphere, but they had also been unexpectedly disruptive. In late 1961 the Soviet Union had exploded a...