Moving with skill and dexterity, the President of the U.S. last week announced the all-but-inevitable decision to resume U.S. nuclear tests in the atmosphere. As he went on nationwide TV to disclose his plans, John Kennedy had already managed not only to neutralize opposition to the tests at home—such as it was—but to ease the impact of the tests abroad. In a speech that complimented the intelligence and maturity of the American people—a speech crammed with facts yet made convincing by its speaker's intensity—the President stated his case. Because of the progress that the Soviet Union had made in its 50 explosions last fall, the U.S. was in danger of losing the nuclear superiority that is the free world's broad shield. The U.S. would therefore resume atmospheric nuclear testing from British-controlled Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean in late April —unless the Russians agreed in the intervening weeks to test ban that included a workable inspection system.
Thus, President Kennedy again put Russia's Nikita Khrushchev on the defensive. Every nation acknowledges the right of all nations to take the necessary steps to defend themselves. If, in the nature of modern weapons, there is a special onus attached to preparing a nuclear defense, then the Russians—who cheated upon and broke the three-year moratorium—now had a new opportunity to decide whether the U.S. goes ahead with its tests. A maneuver "strongly resembling blackmail," cried the Russian news agency Tass. The Soviet Union declared that it had no intention of accepting Western proposals for a test ban at this month's 18-nation conference on disarmament in Geneva.
United Front. When Kennedy last fall tentatively made his decision to resume testing, many scientists and members of his own Administration opposed atmospheric testing on grounds that it not only was unnecessary but would stir up resentment abroad. One scientist who argued strongly for tests was Harold Brown, 34, a nuclear physicist and director of the Pentagon's research and engineering department. As Kennedy patiently waited out the argument, the doubters were turned into advocates as the chilling details of the Russian test series became apparent, largely through a detailed report submitted by a panel headed by Cornell's Dr. Hans Bethe, a theoretical physicist well known as an opponent of unnecessary nuclear testing.
By last week Kennedy had placed himself in the enviable position of being urged on all sides to make a move that he had quietly decided upon while others were still debating it. Said Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield: "If the President had not made this decision, even though he made it with a heavy heart, he would have been derelict in his duty to the country and the free world."