John F. Kennedy and the Escalation of Nuclear Proliferation - Literature review Example

John F. Kennedy and the Escalation of Nuclear Proliferation John Fitzgerald Kennedy took office as the 35th US President from 20 January 1961 at the age of 43 (Reeves 3). This was a time when the US was embroiled in an ideological confrontation with the Soviet Union especially about the fate of Germany which had been divided into Communist East Berlin and democratic West Berlin. At the heart of this confrontation was also the issue of nuclear proliferation that both the US and the Soviet Union were engaging in as a precautionary measure to any future nuclear attack by any of the enemy nation. When Kennedy assumed the presidency in 1961, the two states already had a joint moratorium on nuclear testing but it was not enough to stop a possible threat of nuclear was in future. Kennedy had already made his views about nuclear armaments public during the years he was a Senator. Even as far back as 1956, the then Senator Kennedy strongly opposed the testing of nuclear weapons as it posed a risk to civilian population due to the release of radioactive materials on the atmosphere. Giglio and Stephen note President Kennedy believed that a total ban on nuclear testing was capable of preventing other nations from nuclear armament (88-91). Convinced that nuclear test ban was an effective measure to end nuclear proliferation, Kennedy maintained his stance throughout his years as a Senator up to the years following his swearing in as the US president. When he took office as the president of the US in 1961, Kennedy made use of the advantage he had gained through his office to continue pushing for the banning of nuclear testing both in the US and for states like the Soviet Union that had the capability at the time. When Kennedy took office in 1961, there was already a memorandum between the US, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union banning the testing of nuclear weapon. The Kennedy administration introduced various policy frameworks that were to help find a way forward on the question of testing nuclear arm. Such initiatives introduced by Kennedy include the Geneva discussions such as the Geneva Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapons Tests which was followed by another round-table meetings called the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC) with states such as United kingdom and the soviet union participating. However, the Soviet Union broke this treaty when the state announced on August 30, 1961 that it will not adhere to the previously signed treaty (Walker 200). Following the decision by the Soviet Union not to adhere to the treaty on nuclear testing, President Kennedy faced immense pressure from people within his country who thought the US was now at a disadvantage since the Soviet Union would make a big progress that the US will not be able to cover. Following immense pressure from security chiefs, President Kennedy announced the US will not test its nuclear within the atmosphere. Further, the US undertook to strive through diplomatic means to ensure the signing of Test Ban Treaty with other nations would be achieved in a feasible future (Burns and Joseph 56-57). However, since the Soviet Premier Khrushchev was not interested with any diplomatic efforts to stop the threat posed by nuclear proliferation, the diplomatic efforts were not fruitful. The Soviet Union progressed with its nuclear plans without observing any testing regulations which further increased pressure on President Kennedy from those who wanted the US to also commence testing on the atmosphere. According to Gupta, Kennedy was under pressure from military and political advisors to resume nuclear testing since there was widespread fear that Soviet Union was continuing with testing and they were gaining advancements in nuclear technology (34-35). From the beginning of Kennedy’s presidency, resumption of nuclear weapons tests was a dominant discussion especially as a means of overall global arms control. The US had followed all the regulatory provisions of the joint moratorium on nuclear testing signed together with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom from 1958. The conferences in Geneva had failed to produce any permanent test ban by the time Kennedy became President in 1961. Consequently, the resumption of nuclear testing by the Soviet Union intensified calls from those who wanted the US to also continue with its own testing. It was argued that further delay in resumption of nuclear testing would make it impossible to reach the level nuclear development achieved by the Soviet Union and therefore, put the security of United States at risk. The decision made by Soviet Premier Khrushchev to continue with unrestricted nuclear testing deteriorated the relationship between the US and Soviet Union. When Castro came to power and embraced communism, Khrushchev took the opportunity to have a US neighbor as an ally. When considering the role played by President Kennedy in the deterioration of relationship with the Soviet Union, the incidence surrounding the Bay of Pigs on 17 April 1961 is one of the deciding factors of the subsequent relationship between the two states. The US under President Kennedy was guilty of sponsoring the attempted coup on the government of Cuba’s Castro that was carried out by CIA trained refugees. However, Kennedy relied on a report that had been prepared sometime before he took office ad was pushed by the chief security officers in the government. Therefore, President Kennedy played a hand in further deterioration of relationship between the US and Soviet Union. It was after this attempt that the Soviet Union further enhanced its security by performing more nuclear tests as well as constructing the wall of Berlin (Duiker 574-575). After the failing of the coup in Cuba, Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev had a meeting in Vienna in June 1961 where Khrushchev used the meeting to pass his warning to the US president about his intention to continue with nuclear armament and was not willing to engage in any discussion about a possible limit to the nuclear test. The Soviet Union premier made it apparent that he was going to cut off entrance to Berlin by Western states and will wage war against the US if it intervenes. Even as the Soviet premier made this warning, the US president’s political and military advisors feared that Khrushchev had been undertaking a secret underground testing of their missiles and made gains in nuclear technology. The public was also in favor of resumed testing with a Gallup poll that was conducted in July 1961, indicating that a majority of Americans favored nuclear testing by the US (Tal 202). Even as pressure continued to mount on the US president to resume testing, the Soviet Union continued with atmospheric testing where within next three months, it had performed over thirty one nuclear tests. To further aggravate the matter, the Soviet Union detonated what is thought to be the largest nuclear bomb in history when it exploded a 58 megatons missile that is 4,000 times more powerful than that detonated bomb on Hiroshima. It is such pressure from security chiefs as well as the public that forced President Kennedy to declare the resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing on 25th April, 1962. As a consequence of these developments from the Soviet Union that threatened the security of the US, President Kennedy reacted by ordering significant increase in US intercontinental ballistic missile forces. President Kennedy further introduced five new army divisions and boosted the United States’ air supremacy and military reserves (Adams 153). It is in a bid to bolster their security against any future threat from the US that Cuba and the Soviet Union undertook further nuclear armament that tested the US president Kennedy’s resolve and threatened the use of nuclear weapon only for the second time after the being used in the Second World War. Khrushchev undertook a secretive mission in October 1962 that was aimed at deploying long-range nuclear missiles to Cuba in order to gain advantage over the US in case of any military confrontation. Even as the Soviet Union stockpiled the nuclear weapon in Cuba, the American intelligence was not aware of the extent of the build up for months. When intelligence on the extent of armament in Cuba finally reached the US, many expected President Kennedy to declare war on both the Soviet Union and Cuba. Since the president did not want to rush into war immediately, Kennedy engaged with his top advisers in meetings conducted in secrecy over a period of several days. President Kennedy chose to engage his advisors in secrecy in order to prevent any backlash that would have resulted from public debate as well as to maximize the range of responses available. Instead of declaring war after extensive discussions, Kennedy ultimately preferred a blockade of Cuba with the backing of threat of imminent military action. It is therefore true to note that President Kennedy did not act to further encourage deterioration of relationship between the US and Soviet Union but gave a chance for negotiation on how to progress with the removal of the weapons within Cuba (Senker 33). As the world waited for a nuclear war to erupt between the US and Soviet Union, President Kennedy and Khrushchev initiated talks on that resulted in a peaceful deal. The deal involved the Soviet Union with drawing the offensive missiles placed in Cuban soil while President Kennedy promise the US was not going to invade Cuba. To further reduce the tension raised by nuclear proliferation, Kennedy promised the withdrawal of American ballistic nuclear missiles placed strategically in Turkey to target the Soviet Union. This peaceful engagement with Soviet Union proved president Kennedy was still advocating for the end of nuclear proliferation even when pressure within the US was high (Senker 35). After the tension between the US and soviet union that had threatened a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, Kennedy announced the commencement of further negotiations that he had started with Russia on banning nuclear tests (Giglio 78). The president hoped the renewed engagement would reduce the tension between the two states due to escalation of nuclear proliferation and therefore improve their relations which had deteriorated to an all time low during the blockade of Cuba. However, it was the issue of inspection of compliance with nuclear test treaty that made an agreement between the US and Soviet Union to seem almost impossible. The Soviet Union did not want to have officials make regular inspections of the states nuclear plants and operations. To avoid having officials monitoring the state’s nuclear development, the Soviet premier Khrushchev favoured the use of automatic seismic recording stations to monitor any violations of nuclear test ban. To expedite the negotiations, President Kennedy appointed Averell Harriman as his special envoy on test ban negotiations with the Soviet Union with a view to finding the most viable solution to the escalation of nuclear proliferation. Negotiations between the US and Soviet Union continued and by December 1962, the issue of the number of allowed on-site inspections being the central point of negotiations. There was a misunderstanding over the number of inspections with the Soviets coming from the meetings held with a notion that the US was willing to agree to a two to four inspections per year. However, this was not the case since the US favoured having an agreement that allowed eight to ten inspections (Walker 247-248). Seeing that the talks had reached homestretch and there was no need for hard-line stance president Kennedy instructed Harriman to bargain for the most comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty possible with the Soviets as a means to achieving a speedy solution to a non proliferation treaty. However, having realized that it was going to be difficult for the Soviet Union to agree on a comprehensive treaty president Kennedy directed Harriman to push for an agreement banning nuclear testing in the underwater, atmosphere and space. Other important aspects of the negation that President Kennedy wanted tackled in meetings with the Soviets was the emphasis on the relationship between a nuclear test ban and the aspiration by the US to control nuclear weapons proliferation. Further, President Kennedy wanted the Soviet Union to make their intent on issues such as the possibility of having nuclear free zones in addition to possible agreement over ending the practice of placing nuclear weapons in the orbit (Larson 150). During the final round of talks that commenced on July 15, 1963, it become apparent that the Soviet Union was not willing to allow inspections of their sites when Khrushchev refused to discuss even the two to three inspections they had previously been willing to accept(Larson 151). Therefore, what was left for discussion was the ban on atmospheric, outer space and underwater testing as drafted by the US and the United Kingdom which the Soviet Union accepted. The draft treaty provided conditions under which peaceful detonation of nuclear weapons in the three environments take place among which was that treaty signatories should first agree to the explosions. Procedure for withdrawal from the treaty was included in the draft which allowed for withdrawal from the treaty in situations where a signatory state carry out a nuclear weapons test that other states believed threatens their security (Williamson, 198). Following these extensive agreements between the US and Soviet Union, the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed on 25th July, 1963 effectively banning testing of nuclear weapons in the space, within the atmosphere and underwater (Tal 23-24). The Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 25th July, 1963 however did not cover testing of nuclear weapons in the underground which provided signatories to the treaty a chance to continue with nuclear testing. Even with this provision for underground testing, the treaty was a big step that contributed in President Kennedy’s efforts to reduce world tension and limit the nuclear arms race that had brought the world closer to a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis while also contributing to improving relations the US and the Soviet Union that deteriorated to an all time low (Williamson, 198). The foregoing analysis of the stand that both the Soviet Union and the United States of America held during a time when their relations had deteriorated provides key insights in the analysis of President Kennedy’s contribution to the escalation of nuclear proliferation. It is argued that President Kennedy did not escalate the nuclear proliferation during his rule but acted to neutralize tension whenever it was possible. Even before he became the president, Kennedy had already voiced his opposition to nuclear test since it was encouraging other state to stockpile their own nuclear missiles. However, during his years as the president of the US from January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963, Kennedy had to allow the resumption of nuclear tests in the US due to intensive pressure from his advisers and the public. This group of US citizens thought lack of testing by the country was putting the US at a security risk since it was allowing the Soviet Union to progress with unrestricted testing. It was therefore for the purpose of protecting the US interests that president Kennedy resumed testing of nuclear weapon. However, president Kennedy did not abandon his belief on banning of nuclear test as is evident in his continued diplomatic engagement with the Soviet Union leading to the signing of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treatyon 25th July, 1963. The treaty provided the necessary ground for future agreements on nuclear testing as well as proliferation. Therefore, it is correct to state that Kennedy did not escalate the nuclear proliferation (Roper 47). Work Cited Adams, Chris S. 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Kennedy to Bill Clinton. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2000. Print. Senker, Cath. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.Chicago:Heinemann-Raintree Library, 2013. Print. Tal, David. The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, 1945-1963. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008. Print. Walker, John R. British Nuclear Weapons and the Test Ban 1954-73: Britain, the United States, Weapons Policies and Nuclear Testing: Tensions and Contradictions.Farnham:Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2010. Print. Read More