Acknowledgements - Abbreviations - Introduction - Conception and Stalemate: The Test-Ban Debate, March 1954-August 1961 - Progress to the Proving Grounds: August-December 1961 - The 'Two-Pronged Approach': December 1961-April 1962 - The Advance of the Neutrals: April-October 1962 - 'The Good Season': October 1962-March 1963 - 'The Second Prize': March-July 1963 - Conclusion - Appendix - Bibliography - Index

Drawing upon newly-released official and private papers, this book provides an intimate account of Anglo-American debates over one of the most grave and politically sensitive foreign-policy issues of the early 1960s. It examines the roles played by John F. Kennedy and Harold Macmillan in the test-ban negotiations between 1961 and 1963. It also describes the way in which contrasting domestic political imperatives and conceptions of how the Cold War could best be won, created tensions between the two allies. Nevertheless, they retained a broad unity of perspective and purpose, eventually producing the imaginative diplomacy that resulted in the signing of the Limited Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in August 1963.