Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
The detonation of Peking's first atomic devices in recent months has X provoked renewed widespread discussion of the dangers of the further spread of nuclear weaponry. Speculation has flourished about who would be next—Sweden? Japan? Israel? Or perhaps India, which has become the first nonnuclear country to build a chemical separation plant? Cost estimates put nuclear weapons within reach of the poorest nations within a few years. Governments have issued solemn pronouncements about the need to design further international agreements to prevent nuclear proliferation. The President of the United States made use of a high-level committee to advise him how to deal with the problem.
1 See Secretary of Defense McNamara's news conference of October 22, 1964.
2 For data in this section we are indebted to Professor William T. R. Fox and his associates at the Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University, as well as to Col. David Evans and Col. Wesley Posvar, USAF, in their individual capacities.
3 For data on which this section is based we are indebted to Professor A. J. Meyer, Lt. William Kirby, USA, and Dr. A. C. C. Hill.
4 For data on which this section is based we are indebted to Professor Hubert Gibbs and Professor William Newman of Boston University.
5 We should like to express our appreciation to Mr. H. Roberts Coward, now with the Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University, for background material relevant to this section.