CTBT, the US and India
Abstract
CTBT, the US and India Chintamani Mahapatra The CTBT has been the subject of a great debate both in the US and India. Signifi- cantly, the White House, the State Department, members of the US House of Rep- resentatives and the Senate, among others, were involved in the debate. Incidentally, it was not President Bill Clinton but President Dwight Eisenhower, who was the first to back a treaty on comprehensive banning of nuclear tests. He announced on 1 I February 1960 that his govemment was in favour of complete abolition of weapons testing and advocated adequate methods of inspection and control.' However, Eisenhower was quick to realize the difficulties of attaining such a goal in the midst of the Cold War. But he believed that the failure in achiev- ing a nuclear test ban was "the greatest disappointment of any administration-of any decade-of any time and of any party".2 President J.F. Kennedy who was Eisenhower's successor was also in favour of an international legal instrument that would ban nuclear tests. He stated: Every man, woman and child lives under a sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident