The Limited Test Ban Treaty
The Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963) prohibits all but underground nuclear weapons tests.It has been joined by most countries of the world.
Support for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons tests ballooned in 1954 during the Cold War, when radioactive fallout from U.S. nuclear tests above the South Pacific fell on a Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, after it entered a zone that ships had been asked to avoid during testing. The fallout was thought to have caused the death of one fisherman and sickness for several others. India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke for many when he called for a ban on all further testing.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev authorized talks that came close to producing a treaty banning tests and did produce a temporary suspension of testing from 1958 to 1961. But the United States insisted...
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