ABSTRACT
The beginnings of the East-West arms control process may be traced to the administration of President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s. Arms control and disarmament negotiations were an integral part of detente in Europe and of a relaxation of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the United States, the new administration—which had scant knowledge of conditions in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)—deplored the unwarranted faith Germans had in arms control and their preoccupation with detente. As for German and US perceptions of arms control, the record of experiences since the late 1960s appears to indicate a divergence rather than a convergence of views. The arms control interests and involvements of both countries are not limited to the negotiations to which reference has been made here, and the evolution of attitudes toward arms control as an instrument of foreign and security policy requires a much more detailed analysis.
