Disarmament Documentation

John F. Kennedy Library releases 1963 Presidential Recording on Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Debate, August 3, 2007

Newly Declassified 1963 Presidential Recording Presents Executive Exchange on Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Debate, John F. Kennedy, Presidential Library and Museum, Press Release, August 3, 2007.

Boston, MA -- In the week that marks the 44th anniversary of the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum announced that it has declassified a tape recording of a White House meeting at which President Kennedy discusses the opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the treaty and the upcoming debate in Congress. The pact was signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963 by the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR. The recording will be made available to researchers for the first time on Monday, August 6, 2007.

On July 9, 1963, the President met privately in the Oval Office with Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell Taylor. This meeting took place immediately after a larger National Security Council meeting on the test ban negotiations, specifically Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Averell Harriman's upcoming mission to Moscow. General Taylor expressed to the President the opinion of several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who were privately critiquing the idea of a test ban and about the possibility that they may state these opinions publicly to Congress. The President, although open to debate on the subject, is concerned about the timing of any formal, public evaluation by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the test ban issue:

I don't care who comes up and testifies - it ought to be wide open. That's the time you gotta say it and we haven't presented our case -- then I can say this is why I am for it and that's the way - then the Chiefs can speak about the military disadvantages and advantages. Proliferation is certainly a danger to us... I am afraid that if the Chiefs ever met that there are (risks) having position against even an atmospheric test ban, at a very time, which would will leak out, at a very time when Harriman (is in Moscow) ...So even though they've all taken a separate position, which seems to me somewhat better off than we are that 'the Joint Chiefs of Staff have met and said this is a threat' - God we would be in a terrible shape.

July 26, 1963, President Kennedy gave a radio and television address to the American people on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In this speech, the President proclaimed:

"But now, for the first time in many years, the path of peace may be open. No one can be certain what the future will bring. No one can say whether the time has come for an easing of the struggle. But history and our own conscience will judge us harsher if we do not now make every effort to test our hopes by action, and this is the place to begin. According to the ancient Chinese proverb, 'A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step'. My fellow Americans, let us take that first step. Let us, if we can, step back from the shadows of war and seek out the way of peace. And if that journey is a thousand miles, or even more, let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step."

The treaty pact was signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963 by US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, British Foreign Secretary Lord Home and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. In a joint communiquÃ© released after the treaty pact was signed, the three signatory nations stated, "that this treaty is an important initial step toward the lessening of international tension and the strengthening of peace."

The Test Ban Treaty was debated and ratified in the Senate and the U.S. instrument of ratification was then signed by President Kennedy in the Treaty Room of the White House on October 7, 1963. The treaty entered into force on October 10, 1963.

Source: Federation of American Scientists, www.fas.org.