The Atom: Six Ambiguous Words

Was it a mountain? Or a molehill? Did it represent a significant change (or, as some thought, retreat) from longstanding U.S. policy toward an atomic test-ban treaty with Russia? Or was it just a new way of speaking that would lead to more interminable talk? Whatever it was, President Kennedy at his press conference last week clung to six ambiguous words to describe the new U.S. position on a minimum detection system for a test ban: "Internationally monitored, supervised national control posts."

If the words could be broken down one by one, national control...

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