ABSTRACT
The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 is a most remarkable agreement. At the height of the Cold War, the Treaty bound the US and USSR to demilitarization of the entire continent, to ban nuclear testing in the region, and to allow on-site inspection of their respective facilities. At the same time, it bound Argentina, Britain and Chile to ignoring, to freezing their overlapping territorial claims. American involvement in the Antarctic dates from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when US citizens and ships played a prominent role in whaling in Antarctic waters. Indeed, one of the candidates for the title of discoverer of the Antarctic mainland was an American whaling captain, Palmer of the Hero. Charles Wilkes, with Congressional funding, explored the coast of Antarctica from 1838-1842. Had the Antarctic remained the exclusive preserve of gentlemen adventurers, there would be very little to say about Antarctica of a nonscientific nature.
