Treaty signed 40 years ago limited nuclear growth
By BARRY SCHWEID
Associated Press
July 2, 2008
Page 2 of 2
In an interview, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the private Arms Control Association, called the treaty "imperfect."
"But it has been extremely successful and continues to be invaluable," he said.
The challenge, he said, is to strengthen the treaty's implementation and to plug loopholes in it.
Back in June 1968, with the headline "After NPT, What?," Rosecrance, who was a member of the State Department's policy planning board, prepared a memorandum for Rusk that said countries are entitled under the treaty "to proceed a considerable distance" toward a potential military nuclear program.
This is true, he said, partly because prestige is a major motivation for nuclear status.
Documents, published by the National Security Archive of George Washington University, detail among other hurdles, India's resistance to the treaty with "China at her back and Pakistan lurking on the sidelines" and Italy's unhappiness at the "second-class status" of non-nuclear states.
Still, there was considerable optimism in 1968 that a historic point had been reached. "The signing of this treaty keeps alive and keeps active the impulse toward a safer world," President Lyndon B. Johnson said as Rusk signed the accord for the United States.
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