The Nonproliferation Treaty

Abstract

The successful negotiation of the multilateral Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was the crowning achievement of the Johnson administration in arms control. The negotiation was a very arduous and complex process, made so largely by the fact that while the superpowers were the treaty’s principal architects, its main objects were the nonnuclear weapon countries of the world. The chief purpose of the treaty, from the superpowers’ point of view, was to make sure that the nonnuclears stayed that way. Added to the familiar task of reconciling their own different approaches, therefore, the United States and the Soviet Union in this case had the problem of overcoming the reservations, anxieties, and suspicions of a large number of other countries. To accomplish this, the superpowers had to accept some compromise treaty provisions that were not entirely to their liking.²

This treaty … is a triumph of sanity and of man’s will to survive.

—President Lyndon B. Johnson¹