Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 187 instead a means to strengthen the alliance's "European pillar." Daniel Broderick and David Larrimore help balance the picture by examining two of West Germany's most persistent economic problems: unemployment and an economic environment hostile to innovation. Each author also makes suggestions on how to alleviate these problems. The last three articles in the volume are concerned with domestic legal reforms. Barbara Reeves maintains that the legal framework in both West Germany and the U.S. is inadequate to protect battered women, and offers strategies for further improvement. Bradley Shingleton then describes two regulations proposed in West Germany to govern the access of foreign litigants, particularly Americans, to documentary evidence. Finally, Dennis McLaughlin notes that the American legal phenomenon known as "plea bargaining" has made its way across the Atlantic and into the West German legal system. His article includes recommendations on how the still-uncodified practice can by incorporated into German law. Germany Through American Eyes will not satisfy the reader who seeks a thorough summary of German foreign and domestic policy from an American perspective. But this collection of essays and speeches does contain a large number of interesting and relevant observations of the German political and economic scenes. Students of Germany will welcome this contribution to the body of scholarship on this increasingly important nation. Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in theJohnson Years. By Glenn T. Seaborg, with Benjamin S. Loeb. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1987. 517 pp. $24.95/cloth. Reviewed by DavidJ. Karl, Ph.D. Candidate, University ofSouthern California. From 1961 to 1971, Glenn Seaborg served three presidents as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), responsible for overseeing the development and production of American nuclear weapons. A distinguished scientist and Nobel Laureate in chemistry, Seaborg came to the AEC well acquainted with nuclear weaponry, having worked as a section leader in the Manhattan Project . As a member of the AECs General Advisory Committee in the late 1940s, he participated in the controversial debate within the Truman administration over building the hydrogen bomb. As head of the AEC during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Seaborg played a key role in formulating U.S. nuclear policy when possibilities for Soviet-American arms control cooperation appeared increasingly large. This book contains Seaborg's memoirs of arms control diplomacy under both Kennedy andJohnson, in large part drawn from Seaborg's personal diaries. The narrative concentrates on American efforts to negotiate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), a multilateral accord aimed at curbing the global spread of nuclear weapons. 188 SAIS REVIEW Seaborg underscores three recurrent themes in the history in nuclear arms control. Foremost is the importance of active and sustained involvement of a nation's leadership. Without this engagement, cleavages between various bureaucratic interests typically generated by arms control issues virtually ensure stagnation of the policy process. Seaborg attributes the slow pace of NPT negotiations in their early stages to the indifference ofJohnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. The impasse was broken only in 1966, whenJohnson, quite possibly to bolster his plummeting popularity during the Vietnam War, changed his NPT position and catalyzed both the interagency deliberative process and bilateral consultations with the Soviet Union. A second theme is the reluctance to accept treaty obligations that constrain a nation's options. For example, Seaborg writes that an additional hitch in reaching agreement of the NPT was the desire of the AEC and several Third World states not to foreclose the possibility of using nuclear explosives for peaceful purposes. Only twenty years ago, serious attention was given to the possible use of nuclear devices to build harbors and canals, and to stimulate oil and gas recovery. A final theme is the difficulty faced by the U.S. in reconciling national arms control interests with those of its most important allies, and the complex linkage of arms control to broader foreign policy objectives. These problems bedeviled the Atlantic Alliance throughout the 1960s while reworking NATO nuclear arrangements. The American desire to preserve nuclear defence options , to respond to growing European demands for a more equitable division of military responsibilities, and simultaneously to meet Soviet concerns over German nuclear weapons capability all impinged...