Before Nikita Khrushchev made the U-2 the summit's principal topic, there were three official agenda items: 1) disarmament, 2) East-West tensions, 3) Berlin and the fate of Germany. Of these, disarmament was the only one remotely expected to produce concrete achievement.
By the eve of the Paris meeting, representatives of the three-power (Russia, U.S. and Great Britain) nuclear-controls conference in Geneva had come close to an agreement banning nuclear tests. Despite the obvious pitfalls for the West, an agreement would be the first break in Russia's long refusal to accept international inspection, and one...