Spectator's Notebook
SUPPOSE that the British Government's
decision to explode a nuclear device under- ground in the Nevada desert might be called bad Public relations. It will certainly bring the nuclear disarmers out in droves. But I have some doubts whether it will in fact make much difference to the Russian attitude to a test-ban treaty. Mr. Khrushchev's agreement to any such thing must depend largely on military considera- tions, and here it will be the comparison with the US that he has in mind. Russian newspapers
aY affect to regard Western testing as one and indivisible, but Russian statesmen are not suffi- ciently naive to believe this. If Moscow is about to put forward new proposals, it is because of considerations which have little to do with abstract justice and a great deal to do with the facts of power as they at present stand. Its decisions will hardly be altered by Britain's insignificant contribution to the nuclear race. Anyone who thinks otherwise is talking pugwash.
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