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 posts seemed to say that the U.S. was abandoning its insistence that the staff of detection stations on Russian soil include non-Russians. Just how much protection "internationally monitored, supervised" would give against Soviet cheating was still to be seen, but the new U.S. methods for detecting underground explosions seemed to have convinced the Administration that fewer on-site control stations are needed now.

On one point the President was explicit: the U.S. still demands the right of foreign inspection teams to travel into Russia to investigate any suspicious activities reported by the "national control posts" (those that would be Russian-manned would hardly be suspicious by nature). The White House said that any ambiguity would be left to U.S. Negotiator Arthur Dean to clear up whenever he saw an appropriate opportunity at Geneva. As for the Russians, this week they resumed nuclear testing with a big atmospheric explosion. The State Department promptly announced continued U.S. efforts for a test ban "despite" the Soviet's move.

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