The Atom: Why the U.S. Keeps Talking

Despite his generally buoyant mood, President Kennedy last week expressed considerable concern about the negotiations to get a treaty with the Soviet Union to ban the testing of nuclear weapons.

At his news conference Kennedy was asked whether he still has hopes for such a treaty. "Well," he said, "my hopes are somewhat dimmed, but nevertheless I still hope." There has, he continued, been some progress, since the Soviet Union now seems to agree to the principle of on-site inspections to enforce a ban. But the U.S.S.R. wants to limit such inspections to three annually, while the U.S. insists on at least seven.

Whatever the difficulties, Kennedy indicated that the U.S. will keep talking, and he explained why: "I am haunted by the feeling that by 1970, unless we are successful, there may be ten nuclear powers instead of four, and by 1975, 15 or 20. I regard that as the greatest possible danger and hazard. We test and test and test, and you finally get weapons which are increasingly sophisticated. But the fact of the matter is that somebody may test ten or 15 times and get a weapon which is not nearly as good as these megaton weapons, but nevertheless, they are two or three times what the weapon was which destroyed Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and that was dreadful enough. So I think we have a good deal to gain if we get a test agreement and so we are going to keep at it."