ABSTRACT
In 1985, a small group of peace activists, politicians and diplomats began a new campaign to achieve an objective long sought by many nations. They wanted to force the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union—and eventually France and China—to end the testing of nuclear weapons, and to prevent all other nations from embarking on their own series of tests. The Eisenhower-Macmillan response to the Soviet counter-offer set the stage for the signing of an agreement halting all nuclear tests by the three nuclear powers; France had refused to participate in the talks, but the treaty would have put enormous pressure on France to cancel its test program. Under General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev's proposal, the agreement would not become effective without adherence by France and China. By the late 1980s, the United States and France were often the only nations opposing the resolutions.
