ABSTRACT
A close look at the origin and course of the Partial Test Ban Treaty Amendment Conference suggests that for activists and diplomats, no less than for attorneys, the real struggle takes place at the level of procedure. A successful comprehensive test ban (CTB) will have to be multilateral, so the Conference on Disarmament should have a role in drafting the agreement once the broad outlines of the pact have been defined by the superpowers. The procedural devices available to Conference supporters lent themselves to the agenda-setting task. Despite the diplomatic focus on procedure before, during and after the Conference, it is possible, from a different vantage point, to conclude that procedure is almost irrelevant to the real international politics of the CTB question. Consider, for example, the perspective of a policy planner in the United States Department of Defense or National Security Council.
