This book is essentially a series of case histories of US-Soviet nuclear arms control negotations, as seen from the American side. It describes the processes of governmental decisionmaking for arms control in Washington, DC, and the techniques for joint US-Soviet decisionmaking at the negotiating table. As general counsel of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and member of US delegations to disarmement conferences for eight years, the author was in a unique position to assess the difficulties of fashioning an arms control treaty that could pass muster within the executive branch of the US government, be approved by US allies, be successfully negotiated with the Soviets, and then win the approval of the US Senate. This process will be even more complex now that the United States will face at least four nuclear powers from the former USSR. The book has three purposes. The first is added to the recorded history of the following negotiations: the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, the ABM Treaty of 1972 and its companion SALT Interim Agreements, and the 1987 INF Treaty. The author asks in each case, What did the president and his assistants do (or fail to do) to negotiate a successful agreement? The second purpose is to use the case book approach, common in law schools and business schools, as a teaching device for those who wish to learn how the American government made decisions about arms control negotiations, how US-Soviet negotiations reached decisions, and what the results of the decision have been. The book’s third purpose is to generalize about what works and what does not work in the complex world of arms control negotiations, including committees and comparisons of the process for negotiating arms control treaties with that for achieving arms limits through action and reaction, without written agreement. The concluding chapter looks to the future: What changes will occur in the arms control process given the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union?<
