For an area of the world bigger than the U.S. and Western Europe combined, the U.S., the Soviet Union and ten other nations agreed last week to disarmament and a wide-open, no-strings-attached inspection system as well. The vast (5,500,000 sq. mi.) continent of Antarctica was guaranteed for 34 years as a peaceful scientific preserve in a treaty signed with full diplomatic pomp in a State Department auditorium. Nuclear explosions are specifically forbidden; any signatory may send an observer anywhere in the Antarctica at any time to look at anything.
Underlying the good fellowship that produced agreement in seven weeks...