CHAPTER EIGHT— THE TEST BAN TREATY: A STUDY IN 

 MILITARY AND POLITICAL COST-EFFECTIVENESS 



I. Introduction 



The President sent the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to the 

 Senate, requesting its consent to ratification, on August 8, 1963. 

 Lengthy hearings were held before two committees and after 3 weeks 

 of debate, the Senate consented, by a vote of 80 to 19, September 24. 

 This study examines the testimony of witnesses and the expressed 

 positions of participants, in the process of Senate deliberation on this 

 issue. 



Opponents of the treaty placed great emphasis on its assertedly 

 adverse consequences for the national security. A salient issue 

 was whether the treaty should be permitted to slow the rate of the arms 

 race, on the assumption by opponents that the United States could 

 otherwise continue to gain disparately in military potency vis-a-vis 

 the U.S.S.R. Treaty supporters held that although the United States 

 possessed — and needed — superior military strength, there was no neces- 

 sity for its indefinite further enlargement. They repeatedly pointed 

 out that national security was dwindling for both the United States 

 and U.S.S.R. even while the military strength of both countries con- 

 tinued to grow. 



Although the test ban treaty was recognized bj' a number of its 

 supporters as primarily political in its effects, the Senate gave little 

 consideration to its domestic or international political significance. 

 This was partly because of the great emphasis placed by opponents 

 on the military aspects of the treaty, and partly because the Ad- 

 ministration provided insufficient ammunition with which to delineate 

 and analyze the political factors involved. The underlying issue which 

 confronted the Senators in the treaty debate was whether to accept 

 detente with the Soviet Union. This issue, never made explicit, appears 

 to have been decided in the affirmative. The role of public opinion, 

 although strongly expressed, was addressed less to detente than to the 

 issue of radiation hazards from nuclear tests. However, this latter issue 

 does not appear to have been as salient in the Senate debate as it was 

 in the press or in public opinion ; many of the technical witnesses who 

 appeared to testify regarding the treaty offered assurances that radia- 

 tion hazard, despite a number of specific instances of actual damage or 

 local concentration, had been overemphasized. 



Issues and consequences of the treaty 



_ While the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 was under con- 

 sideration by the U.S. Senate, it was being represented by its supporters 

 as a symbol or precursor of many other agreements in the grand march 

 toward a world in which unruly force was replaced by law, and con- 

 flict by cooperation. It was, they said, and had always been a fore- 



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