title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: In June 1959, a report of a panel headed by Lloyd Berkner, a physicist, was introduced into discussions by Wadsworth. The report specifically concerned whether the Geneva System could be improved without increasing the number of control posts. Berkner's proposed measures were seen as highly costly and the technical findings themselves were accompanied by a caveat about the panel's high degree of uncertainty given limited data. Around the same time, analysis conducted by the Livermore National Laboratory and RAND Corporation at Teller's instruction found that the seismic effect of an underground test could be artificially dampened (referred to as "decoupling") to the point that a 300-kiloton detonation would appear in seismic readings as a one-kiloton detonation. These findings were largely affirmed by pro-ban scientists, including Bethe. The third blow to the verification negotiations was provided by a panel chaired by Robert Bacher, which found that even on-site inspections would have serious difficulty determining whether an underground test had been conducted.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: In September 1959, Khrushchev visited the US While the test ban was not a focus on conversations, a positive meeting with Eisenhower at Camp David eventually led Tsarapkin to propose a technical working group in November 1959 that would consider the issues of on-site inspections and seismic decoupling in the "spirit of Camp David." Within the working group, Soviet delegates allowed for the timing of on-site inspections to be grounded in seismic data, but insisted on conditions that were seen as excessively strict. The Soviets also recognized the theory behind decoupling, but dismissed its practical applications. The working group closed in December with no progress and significant hostility. Eisenhower issued a statement blaming "the recent unwillingness of the politically guided Soviet experts to give serious scientific consideration to the effectiveness of seismic techniques for the detection of underground nuclear explosions." Eisenhower simultaneously declared that the US would not be held to its testing moratorium when it expired on 31 December 1959, though pledged to not test if Geneva talks progressed. The Soviet Union followed by reiterating its decision to not test as long as Western states did not test.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: In early 1960, Eisenhower indicated his support for a comprehensive test ban conditional on proper monitoring of underground tests. On 11 February 1960, Wadsworth announced a new US proposal by which only tests deemed verifiable by the Geneva System would be banned, including all atmospheric, underwater, and outer-space tests within detection range. Underground tests measuring more than 4.75 on the Richter scale would also be barred, subject to revision as research on detection continued. Adopting Macmillan's quota compromise, the US proposed each nuclear state be subject to roughly 20 on-site inspections per year (the precise figure based on the frequency of seismic events).


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Tsarapkin responded positively to the US proposal, though was wary of the prospect of allowing underground tests registering below magnitude 4.75. In its own proposal offered 19 March 1960 the Soviet Union accepted most US provisions, with certain amendments. First, the Soviet Union asked that underground tests under magnitude 4.75 be banned for a period of four-to-five years, subject to extension. Second, it sought to prohibit all outer-space tests, whether within detection range or not. Finally, the Soviet Union insisted that the inspection quota be determined on a political basis, not a scientific one. The Soviet offer faced a mixed reception. In the US, Senator Hubert Humphrey and the Federation of American Scientists (which was typically seen as supportive of a test ban) saw it as a clear step towards an agreement. Conversely, AEC chairman John A. McCone and Senator Clinton Presba Anderson, chair of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, argued that the Soviet system would be unable to prevent secret tests. That year, the AEC published a report arguing that the continuing testing moratorium risked "free world supremacy in nuclear weapons," and that renewed testing was critical for further weapons development. The joint committee also held hearings in April which cast doubt on the technical feasibility and cost of the proposed verification measures. Additionally, Teller continued to warn of the dangerous consequences of a test ban and the Department of Defense (including Neil H. McElroy and Donald A. Quarles, until recently its top two officials) pushed to continue testing and expand missile stockpiles.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Shortly after the Soviet proposal, Macmillan met with Eisenhower at Camp David to devise a response. The Anglo-American counterproposal agreed to ban small underground tests (those under magnitude 4.75) on a temporary basis (a duration of roughly 1 year, versus the Soviet proposal of 4–5 years), but this could only happen after verifiable tests had been banned and a seismic research group (the Seismic Research Program Advisory Group) convened. The Soviet Union responded positively to the counterproposal and the research group convened on 11 May 1960. The Soviet Union also offered to keep an underground ban out of the treaty under negotiation. In May 1960, there were high hopes that an agreement would be reached at an upcoming summit of Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmillan, and Charles de Gaulle of France in Paris.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: A test ban seemed particularly close in 1960, with Britain and France in accord with the US (though France conducted its first nuclear test in February) and the Soviet Union having largely accepted the Macmillan-Eisenhower proposal. But US-Soviet relations soured after an American U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace in May 1960. The Paris summit was abruptly cancelled and the Soviet Union withdrew from the seismic research group, which subsequently dissolved. Meetings of the Geneva Conference continued until December, but little progress was made as Western-Soviet relations continued to grow more antagonistic through the summer, punctuated by the Congo Crisis in July and angry exchanges at the UN in September. Macmillan would later claim to President John F. Kennedy that the failure to achieve a test ban in 1960 "was all the fault of the American 'big hole' obsession and the consequent insistence on a wantonly large number of on-site inspections."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Eisenhower would leave office with an agreement out of reach, as Eisenhower's technical advisors, upon whom he relied heavily, became mired in the complex technical questions of a test ban, driven in part by a strong interest among American experts to lower the error rate of seismic test detection technology. Some, including Kistiakowsky, would eventually raise concerns about the ability of inspections and monitors to successfully detect tests. The primary product of negotiations under Eisenhower was the testing moratorium without any enforcement mechanism. Ultimately, the goal of a comprehensive test ban would be abandoned in favor of a partial ban due to questions over seismic detection of underground tests.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Political scientist Robert Gilpin later argued that Eisenhower faced three camps in the push for a test ban. The first was the "control" camp, led by figures like Linus Pauling and astronomer Harlow Shapley, which believed that both testing and possession of nuclear weapons was dangerous. Second, there was the "finite containment" camp, populated by scientists like Hans Bethe, which was concerned by perceived Soviet aggression but still believed that a test ban would be workable with adequate verification measures. Third, the "infinite containment" camp, of which Strauss, Teller, and members of the defense establishment were members, believed that any test ban would grant the Soviet Union the ability to conduct secret tests and move ahead in the arms race.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The degree of Eisenhower's interest in a test ban is a matter of some historical dispute. Stephen E. Ambrose writes that by early 1960, a test ban had become "the major goal of his President, indeed of his entire career," and would be "his final and most lasting gift to his country." Conversely, John Lewis Gaddis characterizes negotiations of the 1950s as "an embarrassing series of American reversals," suggesting a lack of real US commitment to arms control efforts. The historian Robert Divine also attributed the failure to achieve a deal to Eisenhower's "lack of leadership," evidenced by his inability to overcome paralyzing differences among US diplomats, military leaders, national security experts, and scientists on the subject. Paul Nitze would similarly suggest that Eisenhower never formulated a cohesive test ban policy, noting his ability to "believe in two mutually contradictory and inconsistent propositions at the same time."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Upon assuming the presidency in January 1961, John F. Kennedy was committed to pursuing a comprehensive test ban and ordered a review of the American negotiating position in an effort to accelerate languishing talks, believing Eisenhower's approach to have been "insufficient." In making his case for a test ban, Kennedy drew a direct link between continued testing and nuclear proliferation, calling it the "'Nth-country' problem." While a candidate, Kennedy had argued, "For once China, or France, or Sweden, or half a dozen other nations successfully test an atomic bomb, the security of both Russians and Americans is dangerously weakened." He had also claimed that renewed testing would be "damaging to the American image" and might threaten the "existence of human life." On the campaign trail, Kennedy's test-ban proposal consisted of a continued US testing moratorium, expanded efforts to reach a comprehensive agreement, limit any future tests to those minimizing fallout, and expand research on fallout. Notably, early in his term, Kennedy also presided over a significant increase in defense spending, which was reciprocated by the Soviet Union shortly thereafter, thus placing the test-ban negotiations in the context of an accelerating arms race.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: On 21 March 1961, test-ban negotiations resumed in Geneva and Arthur Dean, a lead US envoy, offered a new proposal in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two sides. The early Kennedy proposal largely grew out of later Eisenhower efforts, with a ban on all tests but low-yield underground ones (below magnitude 4.75), which would be subject to a three-year moratorium. The US and UK proposed 20 on-site inspections per annum, while the Soviet Union proposed three. The verification procedures included in the Anglo-American plan were unacceptable to Tsarapkin, who responded with separate proposals rejected by the Western powers. Specifically, the Soviet Union proposed a "troika" mechanism: a monitoring board composed of representatives of the West, the Soviet Union, and nonaligned states that would require unanimity before acting (effectively giving the Soviet Union veto authority). In May 1961, Kennedy attempted via secret contact between Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and a Soviet intelligence officer to settle on 15 inspections per year. This was rejected by Khrushchev.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Ahead of the June 1961 Vienna summit between Kennedy and Khrushchev, Robert F. Kennedy spoke with the Soviet ambassador to the US, who suggested that progress on a test ban was possible in a direct meeting between the leaders. President Kennedy subsequently announced to the press that he had "strong hopes" for progress on a test ban. In Vienna, Khrushchev suggested that three inspections per year would have to be the limit, as anything more frequent would constitute espionage. Khrushchev privately believed allowing three inspections to be a significant concession to the West, as other Soviet officials preferred an even less intrusive system, and was angered by US resistance. Khrushchev later told his son, "hold out a finger to them—they chop off your whole hand."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Additionally, the Soviet Union had once been ready to support an control commission under the aegis of the UN, Khrushchev explained, but it could not longer do so given perceived bias in recent UN action in the Congo. Instead, Khrushchev reiterated the troika proposal. Furthermore, Khrushchev insisted that the test ban be considered in the context of "general and complete disarmament," arguing that a test ban on its own was unimportant; Kennedy said the US could only agree with a guarantee that a disarmament agreement would be reached quickly (the Vienna demands thus amounted to a reversal of both sides' earlier positions). Kennedy also disagreed that a test ban was itself insignificant; the world could expect many more countries in the coming years to cross the nuclear threshold without a test ban. Ultimately, the two leaders left Vienna without clear progress on the subject. The Soviet Union would drop the general-disarmament demand in November 1961.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Following the setback in Vienna and Berlin Crisis of 1961, as well as the Soviet decision to resume testing in August (attributed by Moscow to a changed international situation and French nuclear tests), Kennedy faced mounting pressure from the Department of Defense and nuclear laboratories to set aside the dream of a test ban. In June 1961, following stalled talks in Geneva, Kennedy had argued that Soviet negotiating behavior raised "a serious question about how long we can safely continue on a voluntary basis a refusal to undertake tests in this country without any assurance that the Russians are not testing." Whether or not the Soviet Union had actually conducted secret tests was a matter of debate within the Kennedy administration. A team led by physicist Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky reported that while the Soviet Union could have secretly tested weapons, there was no evidence indicating that it actually had. Panofsky's findings were dismissed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as "assertive, ambiguous, semiliterate and generally unimpressive."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Two weeks after the lifting of the Soviet moratorium in August 1961, and after another failed Anglo-American attempt to have the Soviet Union agree to an atmospheric-test ban, the US restarted testing on 15 September 1961. Kennedy specifically limited such testing to underground and laboratory tests, but under mounting pressure as Soviet tests continued — during the time period of the Soviet "Tsar Bomba" 50 Mt+ test detonation on 30 October over Novaya Zemlya — Kennedy announced and dedicated funds to a renewed atmospheric testing program in November 1961.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: A report on the 1961 Soviet tests, published by a group of American scientists led by Hans Bethe, determined "that [Soviet] laboratories had probably been working full speed during the whole moratorium on the assumption that tests would at some time be resumed," with preparations likely having begun prior to the resumption of talks in Geneva in March 1961. In January 1962, Bethe, who had once supported a test ban, publicly argued that a ban was "no longer a desirable goal" and the US should test weapons developed by its laboratories. In contrast to Soviet laboratories, US laboratories had been relatively inactive on nuclear weapons issues during the moratorium.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: In December 1961, Macmillan met with Kennedy in Bermuda, appealing for a final and permanent halt to tests. Kennedy, conversely, used the meeting to request permission to test on Christmas Island, with US testing grounds in the Pacific having largely been exhausted. Macmillan agreed to seek to give US permission "if the situation did not change." Christmas Island was ultimately opened to US use by February 1962.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: On this matter of resumed atmospheric tests, Kennedy lacked the full backing of his administration and allies. In particularly, Macmillan, Adlai Stevenson (then the UN ambassador), the State Department, the United States Information Agency, and Jerome Wiesner, the PSAC chairman, opposed resuming atmospheric tests. On the side advocating resumption were the AEC, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Joint Chiefs of Staff (which had called for renewed atmospheric tests in October 1961), and Department of Defense, though then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara privately acknowledged that such tests were "not really necessary." Teller continued to advocate for atmospheric tests, as well, arguing in early 1962 that nuclear fallout was nothing be concerned about. Teller also argued that testing was necessary to continued advancement of US nuclear capabilities, particularly in terms of the mobility of its weapons and, accordingly, its second-strike capability.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Despite Teller's reassurances, Kennedy himself "hated the idea of reopening the race" and was uneasy with continued production of fallout, a negative consequence of resumed testing that its opponents within the administration stressed. Opponents of the tests also argued that renewed atmospheric tests would come at a significant moral cost to the US, given broad public opposition to the plan, and claimed that further tests were largely unnecessary, with the US already having an adequate nuclear arsenal. Arthur Dean believed that public opposition to atmospheric testing was so great that the US would have to halt such tests within four years even without an agreement. John Kenneth Galbraith, then the ambassador to India, had advised Kennedy in June 1961 that resumed testing "would cause us the gravest difficulties in Asia, Africa and elsewhere." Similarly, Hubert Humphrey described the moratorium as "a ray of hope to millions of worried people." Its termination, Humphrey warned, "might very well turn the political tides in the world in behalf of the Soviets."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Ultimately, Kennedy sided with those arguing for resumed testing. In particular, an argument by William C. Foster, the head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, swayed Kennedy. Foster argued that if the US failed to respond to the Soviet test series, Moscow could order a second test series, which could give the Soviet Union a significant advantage. Furthermore, a second test series, without US reciprocation, could damage the push for a test ban and make Senate ratification of any agreement less likely. On 2 March 1962, building on the November 1961 announcement, Kennedy promised to resume atmospheric testing by the end of April 1962 if Moscow continued to resist the Anglo-American test-ban proposal. To an extent, the announcement was a compromise, as Kennedy restricted atmospheric tests to those tests which were "absolutely necessary," not feasible underground, and minimized fallout. The condition that testing would resume only if the Soviet Union continued to oppose the Anglo-American proposal also served as a concession to dissenting voices within his administration and to Macmillan.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Kennedy portrayed resumed testing as a necessary for the image of US resolve. If the US failed to respond to the Soviet test series, Kennedy explained, Moscow would "chalk it up, not to goodwill, but to a failure of will—not to our confidence in Western superiority, but to our fear of world opinion." Keeping the US in a position of strength, Kennedy argued, would be necessary for a test ban to ever come about.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: By March 1962, the trilateral talks in Geneva had shifted to 18-party talks at the UN Disarmament Conference. On 27 August 1962, within that conference, the US and UK offered two draft treaties to the Soviet Union. The primary proposal included a comprehensive ban verified by control posts under national command, but international supervision, and required on-site inspections. This was rejected by the Soviet Union due to the inspection requirement. The alternative proposal included a partial test ban—underground tests would be excluded—to be verified by national detection mechanisms, without supervision by a supranational body.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: In October 1962, the US and Soviet Union experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the two superpowers to the edge of nuclear war and prompted both Kennedy and Khrushchev to seek accelerated rapprochement. After years of dormant or lethargic negotiations, American and British negotiators subsequently forged a strong working relationship and with Soviet negotiators found common ground on test restrictions later in 1962. After years of pursuing a comprehensive ban, Khrushchev was convinced to accept a partial ban, partly due to the efforts of Soviet nuclear scientists, including Kurchatov, Sakharov, and Yulii Khariton, who argued that atmospheric testing had severe consequences for human health. Khrushchev had been concerned by a partial ban due to the greater US experience in underground tests; by 1962, the US had conducted 89 such tests and the Soviet Union just two (the Soviet focus had been on cheaper, larger-yield atmospheric tests). For this reason, many in the Soviet weapons industry argued that a partial ban would give the US the advantage in nuclear capabilities. Khrushchev would later recount that he saw test-ban negotiations as a prime venue for ameliorating tensions after the crisis in Cuba.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Shocked by how close the world had come to thermonuclear war, Khrushchev proposed easing of tensions with the US. In a letter to President Kennedy dated 30 October 1962, Kurshchev outlined a range of bold initiatives to forestall the possibility of nuclear war, including proposing a non-aggression treaty between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact or even the disbanding these military blocs, a treaty to cease all nuclear weapons testing and even the elimination of all nuclear weapons, resolution of the hot-button issue of Germany by both East and West formally accepting the existence of West Germany and East Germany, and US recognition of the government of mainland China. The letter invited counter-proposals and further exploration of these and other issues through peaceful negotiations. Khrushschev invited Norman Cousins, the editor of a major US periodical and an anti-nuclear weapons activist, to serve as liaison with President Kennedy, and Cousins met with Khrushchev for four hours in December 1962. Cousins' secret mission was aided by Pope John XXIII, who served as an intermediary; officially, Cousins was traveling to Rome on a personal basis, but from the Vatican he continued to the Soviet Union. Through Cousins' shuttle diplomacy in 1962 and 1963, the pontiff remained at the center of negotiations and helped ease misunderstandings between the two world leaders.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Kennedy's response to Khrushchev's proposals was lukewarm but Kennedy expressed to Cousins that he felt constrained in exploring these issues due to pressure from hardliners in the US national security apparatus. However Kennedy pursued negotiations for a partial nuclear test ban.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: On 13 November 1962, Tsarapkin indicated that the Soviet Union would accept a proposal drafted by US and Soviet experts involving automated test detection stations ("black boxes") and a limited number of on-site inspections. The two sides disagreed over the number of black boxes, however, as the US sought 12–20 such stations and the Soviet Union rejected any more than three. On 28 December 1962, Kennedy lowered the US demand to 8–10 stations. On 19 February 1963, the number was lowered further to seven, as Khrushchev continued to insist on no more than three. Kennedy was willing to reduce the number to six, though this was not clearly communicated to the Soviet Union. On 20 April 1963, Khrushchev withdrew support for three inspections entirely.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Progress was further complicated in early 1963, as a group in the US Congress called for the Soviet proposal to be discarded in favor of the Geneva System. On 27 May 1963, 34 US Senators, led by Humphrey and Thomas J. Dodd, introduced a resolution calling for Kennedy to propose another partial ban to the Soviet Union involving national monitoring and no on-site inspections. Absent Soviet agreement, the resolution called for Kennedy to continue to "pursue it with vigor, seeking the widest possible international support" while suspending all atmospheric and underwater tests. The effect of the resolution was to bolster the general push for a test ban, though Kennedy initially was concerned that it would damage attempts to secure a comprehensive ban, and had administration figures (including the Joint Chiefs of Staff) reiterate a call for a comprehensive ban. That same spring of 1963, however, Kennedy had sent antinuclear activist Norman Cousins to Moscow to meet with Khrushchev, where he explained that the political situation in the US made it very difficult for Kennedy agree to a comprehensive ban with Khrushchev's required terms. Cousins also assured Khrushchev that though Kennedy had rejected Khrushchev's offer of three yearly inspections, he still was set on achieving a test ban. In March 1963, Kennedy had also held a press conference in which he re-committed to negotiations with the Soviet Union as a means of preventing rapid nuclear proliferation, which he characterized as "the greatest possible danger and hazard."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: One of Kennedy's advisors, Walt Whitman Rostow, advised the President to make a test ban conditional on the Soviet Union withdrawing troops from Cuba and abiding by a 1962 agreement on Laos, but Kennedy opted instead for test-ban negotiations without preconditions. On 10 June 1963, in an effort to reinvigorate and recontextualize a test ban, President Kennedy dedicated his commencement address at American University to "the most important topic on earth: world peace" and proceeded to make his case for the treaty. Kennedy first called on Americans to dispel the idea that peace is unattainable. "Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace," Kennedy said, "based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions—on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned." Second, Kennedy appealed for a new attitude towards the Soviet Union, calling Americans to not "see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodations as impossible and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats." Finally, Kennedy argued for a reduction in Cold War tensions, with a test ban serving as a first step towards complete disarmament:


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Kennedy proceeded to announce an agreement with Khrushchev and Macmillan to promptly resume comprehensive test-ban negotiations in Moscow and a US decision to unilaterally halt atmospheric tests. The speech was well received by Khrushchev, who later called it "the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt," though was met with some skepticism within the US. The speech was endorsed by Humphrey and other Democrats, but labeled a "dreadful mistake" by Republican Senator Barry Goldwater and "another case of concession" by Everett Dirksen, the leader of the Senate Republicans. Dirksen and Charles A. Halleck, the second-ranking House Republican, warned that the renewed negotiations might end in "virtual surrender."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Due to prior experience in arms control and his personal relationship with Khrushchev, former Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy was first considered the likely choice for chief US negotiator in Moscow, but his name was withdrawn after he turned out to be unavailable over the summer. W. Averell Harriman, a former ambassador to the Soviet Union well respected in Moscow, was chosen instead. The US delegation would also include Adrian S. Fisher, Carl Kaysen, John McNaughton, and William R. Tyler. In Britain, Macmillan initially wanted David Ormsby-Gore, who had just completed a term as foreign minister, to lead his delegation, but there were concerns that Ormsby-Gore would appear to be a US "stooge" (Kennedy described him as "the brightest man he ever knew"). Instead, Macmillan chose Quintin Hogg. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a special advisor to Kennedy, believed that Hogg was "ill prepared on the technicalities of the problem and was consumed by a desire to get a treaty at almost any cost." Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, served as Moscow's emissary.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Heading into the negotiations, there was still no resolution within the Kennedy Administration of the question of whether to pursue a comprehensive or partial ban. In an effort to achieve the former, Britain proposed reducing the number of mandated inspections to allay Soviet concerns, but Harriman believed such a reduction would have to be paired with other concessions that Khrushchev would be able to show off within the Soviet Union and to China. Withdrawing PGM-19 Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey would have been an option, had they not already been removed in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In meetings prior to the negotiations, Kennedy informed Harriman that he would be willing to make concessions on the Berlin question.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: On 2 July 1963, Khrushchev proposed a partial ban on tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater, which would avoid the contentious issue of detecting underground tests. Notably, Khrushchev did not link this proposal to a moratorium on underground tests (as had been proposed earlier), but said it should be followed by a non-aggression pact between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. "A test ban agreement combined with the signing of a non-aggression pact between the two groups of state will create a fresh international climate more favorable for a solution of the major problems of our time, including disarmament," Khrushchev said.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: As the nuclear powers pursued a test ban agreement, they also sought to contend with a rising communist China, which at the time was pursuing its own nuclear program. In 1955, Mao Zedong expressed to the Soviet Union his belief that China could withstand a first nuclear strike and more than 100 million casualties. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union assisted the Chinese nuclear program, but stopped short of providing China with an actual nuclear bomb, which was followed by increasingly tense relations in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Khrushchev began the test-ban talks of 1958 with minimal prior discussion with China, and the two countries' agreement on military-technology cooperation was terminated in June 1959. Prior to the Moscow negotiations of the summer of 1963, Kennedy granted Harriman significant latitude in reaching a "Soviet-American understanding" vis-à-vis China. Secret Sino-Soviet talks in July 1963 revealed further discord between the two communist powers, as the Soviet Union released a statement that it did not "share the views of the Chinese leadership about creating 'a thousand times higher civilization' on the corpses of hundreds of millions of people." The Soviet Union also issued an ideological critique of China's nuclear policy, declaring that China's apparent openness to nuclear war was "in crying contradiction to the idea of Marxism–Leninism," as a nuclear war would "not distinguish between imperialists and working people."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The negotiations were inaugurated on 15 July 1963 at the Kremlin with Khrushchev in attendance. Khrushchev reiterated that the Anglo-American inspection plan would amount to espionage, effectively dismissing the possibility of a comprehensive ban. Following the script of his 3 July 1963 speech, Khrushchev did not demand a simultaneous moratorium on underground testing and instead proposed a non-aggression pact. Under instruction from Washington, Harriman replied that the US would explore the possibility of a non-aggression pact in good faith, but indicated that while a test ban could be quickly completed, a non-aggression pact would require lengthy discussions. Additionally, such a pact would complicate the issue of Western access to West Berlin. Harriman also took the opportunity to propose a non-proliferation agreement with would bar the transfer of nuclear weapons between countries. Khrushchev said that such an agreement should be considered in the future, but in the interim, a test ban would have the same effect on limiting proliferation.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Following initial discussions, Gromyko and Harriman began examining drafts of a test-ban agreement. First, language in the drafted preamble appeared to Harriman to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons in self-defense, which Harriman insisted be clarified. Harriman additionally demanded that an explicit clause concerning withdrawal from the agreement be added to the treaty; Khrushchev believed that each state had a sovereign right to withdraw, which should simply be assumed. Harriman informed Gromyko that without a clause governing withdrawal, which he believed the US Senate would demand, the US could not assent. Ultimately, the two sides settled upon compromise language:


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Gromyko and Harriman debated how states not universally recognized (e.g., East Germany and China) could join the agreement. The US proposed asserting that accession to the treaty would not indicate international recognition. This was rejected by the Soviet Union. Eventually, with Kennedy's approval, US envoys Fisher and McNaughton devised a system whereby multiple government would serve as depositaries for the treaty, allowing individual states to sign only the agreement held by the government of their choice in association with other like-minded states. This solution, which overcame one of the more challenging roadblocks in the negotiations, also served to allay mounting concerns from Macmillan, which were relayed to Washington, that an agreement would once again be derailed. Finally, in an original Soviet draft, the signature of France would have been required for the treaty to come into effect. At Harriman's insistence, this requirement was removed.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The agreement was initialed on 25 July 1963, just 10 days after negotiations commenced. The following day, Kennedy delivered a 26-minute televised address on the agreement, declaring that since the invention of nuclear weapons, "all mankind has been struggling to escape from the darkening prospect of mass destruction on earth ... Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness." Kennedy expressed hope that the test ban would be the first step towards broader rapprochement, limit nuclear fallout, restrict nuclear proliferation, and slow the arms race in such a way that fortifies US security. Kennedy concluded his address in reference to a Chinese proverb that he had used with Khrushchev in Vienna two years prior. "'A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step,'" Kennedy said. "And if that journey is a thousand miles, or even more, let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: In a speech in Moscow following the agreement, Khrushchev declared that the treaty would not end the arms race and by itself could not "avert the danger of war," and reiterated his proposal of a NATO-Warsaw Pact non-aggression accord. For Khrushchev, the test ban negotiations had long been a means of improving the Soviet Union's global image and reducing strain in relations with the West. There are also some indications that military experts within the Soviet Union saw a test ban as a way to restrict US development of tactical nuclear weapons, which could have increased US willingness to deploy small nuclear weapons on battlefields while circumventing the Soviet nuclear deterrent. Concern that a comprehensive ban would retard modernization of the Soviet arsenal may have pushed Khrushchev towards a partial ban. Counteracting the move towards a partial ban was Khrushchev's interest in reducing spending on testing, as underground testing was more expensive than the atmospheric tests the Soviet Union had been conducting; Khrushchev preferred a comprehensive ban as it would have eliminated the cost of testing entirely. Furthermore, there was internal concern about nuclear proliferation, particularly regarding the prospect of France and China crossing the threshold and the possibility of a multilateral NATO nuclear force, which was seen as a step towards West Germany acquiring nuclear weapons (the first Soviet test ban proposal in 1955 was made in the same month than West Germany joined NATO).


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: It was not until after the agreement was reached that the negotiators broached the question of France and China joining the treaty. Harriman proposed to Khrushchev that the US lobby France while the Soviet Union pursued a Chinese signature. "That's your problem," Khrushchev said in reply. Earlier, the Soviet ambassador to the US, Mikhail A. Menshikov, reportedly asked whether the US could "deliver the French." Both Kennedy and Macmillan personally called on de Gaulle to join, offering assistance to the French nuclear program in return. Nevertheless, on 29 July 1963, France announced it would not join the treaty. It was followed by China two days later.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: On 5 August 1963, British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home, Soviet foreign minister Gromyko, and US Secretary of State Dean Rusk signed the final agreement.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Between 8 and 27 August 1963, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held hearings on the treaty. The Kennedy administration largely presented a united front in favor of the deal. Leaders of the once-opposed Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and AEC acknowledged that the treaty would be of net benefit, though Teller, former members of the JCS and AEC, and the commander of the Strategic Air Command made clear their firm opposition. The opponents' argument centered on four themes. First, banning atmospheric tests would prevent the US from ensuring the hardness of its LGM-30 Minuteman missile silos and, second, from developing a capable missile defense system. Third, it was argued that the Soviet Union led the US in high-yield weapons (recall the Soviet Tsar Bomba test of 1961), which required atmospheric testing banned by the treaty, while the US led the Soviet Union in low-yield weapons, which were tested underground and would be permitted by the treaty. Fourth, the ban would prevent peaceful, civilian uses of nuclear detonations. Teller declared that the treaty would be a "step away from safety and possibly ... toward war."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Administration testimony sought to counteract these arguments. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced his "unequivocal support" for the treaty before the Foreign Relations Committee, arguing that US nuclear forces were secure and clearly superior to those of the Soviet Union, and that any major Soviet tests would be detected. Glenn T. Seaborg, the chairman of the AEC, also gave his support to the treaty in testimony, as did Harold Brown, the Department of Defense's lead scientist, and Norris Bradbury, the longtime director of the Los Alamos Laboratory. Maxwell D. Taylor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also testified in favor of the deal. Taylor and other members of the JCS, including Curtis LeMay, had made their support for the treaty conditional on four "safeguards": (1) a continued, aggressive underground testing program, (2) continued nuclear research programs, (3) continued readiness to resume atmospheric tests, and (4) improved verification equipment. Kennedy emphasized that the US would retain the ability to use nuclear weapons in war, would not be bound by the treaty if the Soviets violated it, and would continue an aggressive underground testing program. Kennedy also stressed that a ban would be a key step in preventing nuclear war.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The testimonies of the Joint Chiefs were seen as particularly effective in allaying concerns, as were the reassurances issued by Kennedy, who had acquired a reputation for resoluteness against the Soviet Union in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, a number of prominent Republicans came out in support of the deal, including Eisenhower, Eisenhower's vice president Richard Nixon, and Senator Everett Dirksen, who had initially been skeptical of the treaty. Eisenhower's science advisor and former PSAC head, George Kistiakowsky, endorsed the treaty. Former President Harry S. Truman also lent his support. Supporters of the deal mounted a significant pressure campaign, with active lobbying in favor by a range of civilian groups, including the United Automobile Workers/AFL–CIO, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, Women Strike for Peace, and Methodist, Unitarian Universalist, and Reform Jewish organizations. Jerome Wiesner, the chairman of PSAC, later said that this public advocacy was a primary motivation for Kennedy's push for a test ban. Civil opposition to the deal was less prominent, though the Veterans of Foreign Wars announced opposition to the deal along with the International Council of Christian Churches, which rejected a "covenant with a godless power." Polling in late August 1963 indicated that more than 60% of Americans supported the deal while less than 20% opposed it.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: On 3 September 1963, the Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty by a 16–1 vote. On 24 September 1963, the US Senate voted 80–14 to approve ratification of the treaty, exceeding the necessary two-thirds majority by 14 votes. The Soviet Union ratified the treaty the following day with a unanimous vote of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. On 10 October 1963, the treaty entered into effect.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The treaty declares as its "principal aim the speediest possible achievement of an agreement on general and complete disarmament under strict international control" and explicitly states the goal of achieving a comprehensive test ban (one that bans underground tests). The treaty permanently forbids the parties to the treaty from conducting, permitting, or encouraging any nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, outer space, or underwater as well as "any other nuclear explosion" that threatens to send nuclear debris into another state's territory. The wording "any other nuclear explosion" prohibited peaceful nuclear explosions because of the difficulty in differentiating those from military tests without expanded verification measures.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Per the compromise forged by US delegates Adrian S. Fisher and John McNaughton in Moscow, Article 3 of the treaty allows states to deposit instruments of ratification or accession with the government of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, or United States, thereby avoiding the issue of the treaty appearing to legitimize governments lacking universal recognition. Article 4 reflects the compromise struck by Gromyko and Harriman in Moscow on departure from the treaty. It recognizes the sovereign right of states to withdraw from treaties, as Khrushchev argued, but explicitly grants parties the right to withdraw if "extraordinary events... have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country," per the US demand.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: By 15 April 1964, six months after the PTBT went into effect, more than 100 states had joined the treaty as signatories and 39 had ratified or acceded to it. The most recent party to the PTBT is Montenegro, which succeeded to the treaty in 2006. , 126 states were party to the treaty, with 10 other states having signed but not deposited instruments of ratification. There are 60 states that have not signed the PTBT, including the nuclear states of China, France, and North Korea. Albania, an ideological ally of China during the PTBT's enactment, also has not signed.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The PTBT's ratification coincided with the beginning of a steep decline in the amount of radioactive particles in the atmosphere (following the "bomb spike" in the early 1960s), but it did not halt nuclear proliferation. One year after the PTBT's entry into force, the nonsignatory China conducted the 596 test and became the world's fifth nuclear power. Since China, four other states are known or believed to have acquired nuclear weapons. However, the PTBT has been credited with slowing proliferation because of the greater expense associated with underground tests. Kennedy had warned in 1963 that without a test ban, there could be 10 nuclear states by 1970 and 15 to 20 by 1975.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The decade following ratification of the PTBT (1963–1972) featured more US nuclear tests than the decade prior (1953–1962). In the following decade, the US conducted 385 nuclear tests and 23 peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs), as opposed to 268 tests and three PNEs in the prior decade. In contrast, the number of Soviet detonations fell from 218 in the preceding decade to 157 in the following decade, as the Soviet Union was never able to meet the pace of US underground explosions. China and France, both nonsignatories, conducted 53 tests between 1963 and 1973. In all, 436 tests were conducted between the signing of the PTBT and 1 July 1973, compared to 499 tests between 16 July 1945 and the signing of the PTBT. In the 1960s and the 1970s, China conducted 22 atmospheric tests and France conducted 50. The last atmospheric test was conducted by China in 1980, after French atmospheric testing stopped in 1974. Public opposition to nuclear testing continued after the treaty's enactment. Greenpeace was founded in 1971 in opposition to a planned underground test on the Alaskan island of Amchitka. In 1982, a Greenpeace ship docked at Leningrad without permission to demand the Soviet Union to stop testing.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The PTBT was a first of a series of nuclear arms control treaties in the second half of 20th century. The PTBT has been considered the stepping stone to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) of 1968, which explicitly referred to the progress provided by the PTBT. In addition to the NPT, the PTBT was followed within ten years by the Outer Space Treaty and Treaty of Tlatelolco in 1967, the Seabed Arms Control Treaty in 1971, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972. In 1974, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty prohibited underground tests with yields above 150 kilotons.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: In October 1977, the original parties to the PTBT renewed discussion of a comprehensive test ban in Geneva. Through the end of the 1970s, the US, the UK, and Soviet Union reached agreement on draft provisions prohibiting all testing, temporarily banning PNEs, and establishing a verification system including on-site inspections. However, the sides remained at odds over the precise details of verification, and the talks would permanently disband with the departure of President Jimmy Carter in 1981.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Momentum towards a comprehensive ban re-emerged under Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan, with Gorbachev initiating a testing moratorium in 1985. In December 1986, the US indicated support for the "long-term objective" of a comprehensive ban, followed by the commencement of testing negotiations between the US and Soviet Union in November 1987. In December 1987, the US and the Soviet Union agreed to a joint program of experiments on detecting underground tests. In August 1988, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia petitioned to transform the PTBT into a comprehensive ban by extending the treaty to underground tests. At a conference on the plan in January 1991, the US indicated that it would not permit efforts to achieve a comprehensive ban by consensus with amendments to the PTBT.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Throughout the 1990s, progress accelerated towards a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT). Following a series of international meetings on the subject, the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 50/64, which appealed for states to follow the PTBT and called for conclusion of the CTBT talks. In September 1996, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was signed and superseded the PTBT, but the PTBT is still in effect for states not party to the CTBT. The CTBT has yet to enter into force, as 8 required states have not ratified the treaty, including the US and China. France, Russia, and the UK have ratified the CTBT. The technology for detecting underground tests has significantly improved since the 1950s and 1960s, with monitors detecting tests down to 1 kiloton with a high degree of confidence.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Early compliance with the PTBT was believed to be good, but there have been a number of accidental releases of nuclear debris into the atmosphere by parties to the treaty. Additionally, "venting" of underground tests by the US and the Soviet Union also continued to release radioactive debris into the atmosphere. Fully contained underground tests were not wholly "clean" either. Underground testing reduced the risk caused by radionuclides with short half-lives, such as iodine-131, and is generally safer than other forms of testing. However, underground testing may also cause long-lived radionuclides, including caesium-135, iodine-129, and plutonium, to seep into the ground.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: A notable atmospheric release of radioactive gas followed the Soviet Chagan test of 15 January 1965 in present-day Kazakhstan. Roughly 20% of the radioactive debris produced by the 140-kiloton detonation was released into the atmosphere, with some fallout occurring over Japan. The US complained to Moscow, but no subsequent action was taken. On 25 April 1966, the "Pin Stripe" underground test in Nevada (part of Operation Flintlock) experienced a venting malfunction and produced a radioactive plume headed towards the Midwestern United States; the AEC determined that the test did not threaten human health.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Another accidental release occurred following the "Baneberry" shot at the Nevada Test Site on 18 December 1970 (part of Operation Emery). The 10-kiloton underground detonation produced a fissure in the ground, which allowed radioactive gas to escape into the atmosphere. Radioactive material released by the fissure reached an altitude of and exposed 86 workers to radiation but none at excessive levels. The incident has since been described as one of the "world's worst nuclear disasters."


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: Declassified US documents indicate that the US may have violated the PTBT's ban on atmospheric testing in 1972 by, at the instruction of Henry Kissinger, monitoring and collecting data on French atmospheric tests over the Pacific Ocean, which may have amounted to co-operation with the French program. Declassified documents also indicate that the US and the UK circumvented the prescribed verification system in 1964–65 by establishing a series of additional control posts in Australia, Fiji, Mauritius, Pakistan, and South Africa.


title: Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

text: The 1979 Vela Incident in the southern Atlantic may have been an atmospheric nuclear test in contravention of the PTBT by Israel and South Africa, both of which were parties to the treaty.


title: Rolling Rock

text: Rolling Rock is a 4.4% abv American lager launched in 1939 by the Latrobe Brewing Company. Although founded as a local beer in Western Pennsylvania, it was marketed aggressively and eventually became a national product. The brand was sold to Anheuser-Busch of St. Louis, Missouri, in mid-2006, which transferred brewing operations to New Jersey while continuing to label the new beer prominently with the name of Latrobe.


title: Rolling Rock

text: From 1939 until July 26, 2006, Rolling Rock was brewed at the Latrobe Brewing Company in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, a small city 34 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As stated on the bottle, it was brewed with a distinctive soft local water in large glass-lined tanks, which were considered state-of-the-art at the time of its introduction (in part due to sanitation concerns).


title: Rolling Rock

text: On May 19, 2006, Anheuser-Busch purchased the Rolling Rock and Rolling Rock Green Light brands from InBev for $82 million and began brewing Rolling Rock at its Newark facility in mid July, 2006. The final batch of Rolling Rock was shipped from Latrobe on July 31, 2006. Union leaders in Westmoreland County organized a nationwide boycott of Anheuser-Busch and InBev brands because of the move. Anheuser-Busch has said that Rolling Rock's original pledge on the label will be preceded by these words: "To honor the tradition of this great brand, we quote from the original pledge of quality." In July 2008, InBev reached a deal to acquire Anheuser-Busch, thereby returning ownership of Rolling Rock to InBev, now known as Anheuser–Busch InBev and based in Belgium.


title: Rolling Rock

text: In 2009, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced that it was exploring the sale of the Rolling Rock brand. In 2015, Anheuser-Busch stopped brewing bottled Rolling Rock in glass-lined tanks. Only the canned beer was now being brewed using the traditional process.


title: Rolling Rock

text: Rolling Rock's pony bottle had been very popular until its discontinuation, so much so that this had given rise to the folk etymology that "pony" is from the Rolling Rock horse logo. This is incorrect: the term "pony" in "pony of beer" has been used in the United States of America since the 19th century, predating Rolling Rock by over 50 years, and is due to the diminutive size; similar words include pony glass and pony keg. Indeed, advertising for Rolling Rock since the 1950s uses the term "pony bottle" generically, stating "... Rolling Rock is the Largest Selling 7 oz. Pony Bottle of Premium Beer in Pennsylvania".


title: Rolling Rock

text: Though it did not originate the term, the popularity of Rolling Rock doubtless reinforced it: one could refer to a regular (12 oz.) or small (7 oz.) of the beer as a "horse" or "pony" respectively. It also likely led to the standardization on a 7 oz. size: major national brands introduced 7 oz. pony bottles in the early 1970s, of which the most prominent is Miller High Life (pony introduced 1972).


title: Rolling Rock

text: The number 33 is printed prominently on all bottles of Rolling Rock. Many have speculated on the significance of the number 33: that the "33" refers to 1933, the founding year of the Pittsburgh Steelers (who hold their annual training camp at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA); that 33 degrees Fahrenheit is the proper temperature to keep beer; the 33 degrees of Scottish Rite Freemasonry; that Latrobe test-brewed 33 batches of beer before coming up with the final formula for Rolling Rock. Other theories concerning the number 33 are that there were exactly 33 stairsteps from the brewmaster's office to the brewing floor in the original Latrobe brewery. Also that the Pennsylvania fish and game commission at the turn of the century numbered the streams within the commonwealth and the water that was used to brew this beer was taken from the stream numbered 33.


title: Rolling Rock

text: James L. Tito, former CEO of Latrobe Brewing, opined that the "33" signifies the 33 words in the beer's original pledge of quality, which is still printed on every bottle:


title: Rolling Rock

text: While the original wording on the label was somewhat different, it also contained the 33 following words:


title: Rolling Rock

text: This was followed by the "33". The current pledge is on the 12 oz. bottles, while the "little nip" pledge is from the 7 oz. bottle version. The 7 oz. bottles were referred in some parts of Pennsylvania as “nippers”, and a popular mode of packaging was in cases of 24, with a perforation so the case could be split in two, or a dozen each.


title: Rolling Rock

text: A founding executive is said to have written "33" at the end of the slogan to indicate the number of words it comprised as a guide for the bottle printers. They assumed it was part of the text and incorporated it into the label graphics. Hence, the first batch of bottles carried the number "33" and they remained that way since they were continually collected and reused.


title: Rolling Rock

text: Tito admitted, however, that there is no hard proof for this theory, and that at this point no one really knows what the true origin of the "33" may have been. Nonetheless, the tradition of the printing explanation has been sustained by the company as the wording on the labels has changed over the years, and the verbiage is carefully structured to retain a length of 33 words. The Rolling Rock nomenclature on the bottles was painted on, not paper or plastic.


title: Rolling Rock

text: Anheuser-Busch introduced a red lager version of Rolling Rock called Rolling Rock Red. While the number 33 has been a traditional part of Rolling Rock iconography, Rolling Rock Red's label has a "3", presumably signifying the name of the beverage ("Rolling Rock Red") or the words in the tagline "Finely Crafted Lager", which appears only on the Rolling Rock Red bottles.


title: Rolling Rock

text: Rolling Rock is a significant symbol in internet celebrity James Rolfe's series "Angry Video Game Nerd", where his character, the Nerd, takes a sip from a bottle of the drink to calm himself down when getting angry at bad games. Rolling Rock also appeared occasionally on episodes of "The Sopranos", which was based in New Jersey.


title: Rolling Rock

text: In the 1978 film "The Deer Hunter", Robert De Niro’s character (Michael) offers Meryl Streep's character (Linda) a Rolling Rock.


title: Rolling Rock

text: Rolling Rock is prominently featured in the 1986 film "At Close Range", which takes place in rural Pennsylvania.


title: Rolling Rock

text: Rolling Rock is also featured in the movie "That’s My Boy", which has the father of the main character double fisting bottles of the ‘rock


title: Shah Jahan II

text: Shah Jahan II (; June 1696 – 19 September 1719), born Rafi-ud-Daulah, was the twelfth Mughal emperor for a brief period in 1719. After being chosen by the Sayyid Brothers of Barha, he succeeded his short-lived brother Rafi-ud-Darajat in that year. Like his brother, he died of tuberculosis and was buried in the "dargah" of Qutb-ud-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki.


title: Shah Jahan II

text: Shah Jahan II was born as Rafi ud-Daulah. He was the second son of Rafi-ush-Shan and a grandson of Bahadur Shah I. Shah Jahan II's exact date of birth is not known. He was eighteen months older than his brother Rafi ud-Darajat. Whether he married or not, whether he had any child or not is also unknown.


title: Shah Jahan II

text: Shah Jahan II ascended the throne on 6 June 1719 after the death of his younger brother Rafi ud-Darajat due to tuberculosis. His coronation took place at Diwan-i-Khas of the Red Fort. He took the title Shah Jahan II ().


title: Shah Jahan II

text: Just like his younger brother, Shah Jahan II was chosen by the kingmaker Sayyid brothers and wielded no power in practicality. His name was read in the khutbah for the first time on 13 June. His first appearance at the Diwan-i-Aam was on 11 June. Without the presence of one of the Sayyid brothers, he was not allowed to meet any noble or to attend the "jummah.


title: Shah Jahan II

text: Shah Jahan II suffered from tuberculosis just like his younger brother. He was physically and mentally unfit to perform the duties of a ruler. He died on 17 September 1719 at Bidyapur. He was buried beside Rafi ud-Darajat at the "dargah" of Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki.


title: Battle of Camden

text: The Battle of Camden (August 16, 1780), also known as the Battle of Camden Court House, was a major victory for the British in the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War. On August 16, 1780, British forces under Lieutenant General Charles, Lord Cornwallis routed the numerically superior U.S. forces led by Major General Horatio Gates about four miles north of Camden, South Carolina, thus strengthening the British hold on the Carolinas following the capture of Charleston.


title: Battle of Camden

text: The rout was a personally humiliating defeat for Gates, the U.S. general best known for commanding the American forces at the British defeat at Saratoga three years previously. His army had possessed a great numerical superiority over the British force, having twice the personnel, but his command of them was seen as disorganized and chaotic. Following the battle, he was regarded with disdain by his colleagues and he never held a field command again. His political connections, however, helped him avoid any military inquiries or courts martial into the debacle.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Following the British defeat at Saratoga in 1777, and the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, the French entered the American Revolutionary War in June 1778, followed by the Spanish in June 1779. With the war at a stalemate in the north, the British decided to renew their "southern strategy" to win back their rebellious North American colonies. The strategy relied on the Loyalists joining forces with British regulars to roll northward through North Carolina and Virginia, besieging the rebels in the north on all sides. This campaign repeated the successful December 1778 Capture of Savannah, with Sir Henry Clinton's successful Siege of Charleston in May 1780. British forces then campaigned in the Back Country, capturing the key towns of Georgetown, Cheraw, Camden, Ninety Six, and Augusta. Clinton returned to New York on 5 June, after the southern remnants of the Continental Army were defeated in May at the Battle of Waxhaws, tasking Lord Cornwallis with the pacification of the remaining portions of the state.


title: Battle of Camden

text: The Patriot resistance remaining in South Carolina consisted of militia under commanders such as Thomas Sumter, William Davie, and Francis Marion. Washington sent Continental Army regiments south, consisting of the Maryland Line and Delaware Line, under the temporary command of Major General Jean, Baron de Kalb. Departing New Jersey on 16 April, they arrived at the Buffalo Ford on the Deep River, 30 miles south of Greensboro, in July. Horatio Gates, the "Hero of Saratoga" arrived in camp on 25 July, to take command. Two days later, Gates ordered his army to take the direct road to Camden, against the advice of his officers, including Otho Holland Williams. Williams noted the country they were marching through "was by nature barren, abounding with sandy plains, intersected by swamps, and very thinly inhabited," and what few inhabitants they might come across were most likely hostile. All of the troops had been short of food since arrival at the Deep River.


title: Battle of Camden

text: On 7 August, Gates was joined by 2,100 North Carolina militiamen under the command of General Richard Caswell. At Rugeley's Mill, 15 miles north of Camden, 700 Virginia Militia under the command of General Edward Stevens joined Gates' "Grand Army". In addition, Gates had Armand's Legion. However, at this stage, Gates no longer had the help of Marion's or Sumter's men, and in fact had sent 400 of his Continentals to help Sumter with a planned attack on a British supply convoy. Gates also refused the help of Col. William Washington's cavalry. Apparently Gates planned on building defensive works 5.5 miles north of Camden in an effort to force British abandonment of that important town. Gates told his aide Thomas Pinckney he had no intention of attacking the British with an army consisting mostly of militia.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Camden was garrisoned by about 1,000 men under Lord Rawdon. General Cornwallis, alerted to Gates' movement on August 9, marched from Charleston with reinforcements, arriving at Camden on August 13, increasing the effective British troop strength to 2,239 men.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Gates ordered a night march to commence at 10:00 p.m. on 15th Aug., despite his army of 3,052, of which two-thirds were militia, having never maneuvered together. Unfortunately, their evening meal acted as a purgative while they marched, with Armand's horse in the lead. On a collision course was Cornwallis' army, also on a 10:00 p.m. night march, with Tarleton's dragoons in the lead. A short period of confusion ensued when the two forces collided around 2:00 a.m., but both sides soon separated, not wanting a night battle.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Gates formed up before first light. On his right flank he placed Mordecai Gist's 2nd Maryland Brigade (three regiments) and the Delaware Regiment, with Baron de Kalb in overall command of the right wing. On his left flank, he placed Caswell's 1,800 North Carolina militia; to the left of them were Stevens' 700 Virginians, and behind the Virginians were 120 men of Armand's Legion. Gates and staff stayed behind the reserve force, Smallwood's 1st Maryland Regiment, about 200 yards behind the battle line. Thus, the total number of Continentals on the field numbered 900. Gates placed seven guns along the line, manned by about 100 men. Also present, but whose disposition was unknown, were 70 mounted volunteer South Carolinians. Gates' formation, though a typical British practice of the time, placed his weakest troops against the most experienced British regiments, while his best troops would face only the weaker elements of the British forces.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Cornwallis had roughly 2,239 men, including Loyalist militia and Volunteers of Ireland. Cornwallis also had the infamous and highly experienced Tarleton's Legion, who were formidable in a pursuit situation. Cornwallis formed his army into two brigades. On the right was Lt. Col James Webster, facing the inexperienced militia with the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers and the 33rd Regiment of Foot. Lord Rawdon was in command of the left, facing the Continental Infantry with the Irish Volunteers, Banastre Tarleton's infantry and the Loyalist troops. In reserve, Cornwallis had two battalions of the 71st Regiment of Foot and Tarleton's cavalry force. He also placed four guns in the British center. As Gates had done, Cornwallis placed his more experienced units on the right flank, and his less experienced units on the left flank.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Gates ordered Stevens and de Kalb to attack, while Cornwallis issued the same order to Webster. The 800 strong 33rd Fusiliers advanced with bayonets towards the 2,500 soldiers in the Virginia and North Carolina militia. The militia, however, had never used bayonets before. The American left wing collapsed as the Virginians and then the North Carolinians fled. The Virginians fled so fast that they suffered only three wounded. The North Carolinians fled all the way back to Hillsborough, North Carolina.


title: Battle of Camden

text: According to Williams, referring to the British charge, "the impetuosity with which they advanced, firing and huzzaing, threw the whole body of militia into such a panic that they generally threw down their loaded arms and fled in the utmost consternation. The unworthy example of the Virginians was almost instantly followed by the North Carolinians."


title: Battle of Camden

text: Furthermore, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, "picture it as bad as you possibly can and it will not be as bad as it really is."


title: Battle of Camden

text: A member of the North Carolina militia, Garret Watts, later confessed, "It was instantaneous. There was no effort to rally, no encouragement to fight. Officers and men joined in the flight. I threw away my gun..."


title: Battle of Camden

text: Rawdon's troops advanced in two charges, but heavy fire repulsed his regiments. The Continental troops then launched a counterattack which came close to breaking Rawdon's line, which began to falter. Cornwallis rode to his left flank and steadied Rawdon's men. Instead of pursuing the fleeing militia, Webster wheeled to the left, into the Continentals. One of the North Carolina militia brigades that had been stationed next to the Delaware Line held its ground, the only militia unit to do so.


title: Battle of Camden

text: De Kalb called up the reserve 1st Maryland Brigade to support the 2nd, but they could get no closer than several hundred feet. However, as Lt. Col. Benjamin Ford of the 6th Maryland Regiment stated to Williams' entreaties, "We are outnumbered and outflanked. See the enemy charge with bayonets." With the British closing in on three sides, Cornwallis ordered Tarleton's cavalry to charge into the rear of the Continental line. The cavalry charge broke up the formation of the Continental troops, who finally broke and fled. However, Gist was able to move 100 Continentals in good order through a swamp, where the cavalry could not follow. Additionally, about 50 to 60 Maryland Line Continentals, under the leadership of Maj. Archibald Anderson, Lt. Col. John Eager Howard, and Capt. Robert Kirkwood, were able to retreat in good order.


title: Battle of Camden

text: De Kalb, attempting to rally his men, was unhorsed, and would die of his numerous wounds (11 in total; 8 by bayonet and 3 by musket balls) two days later as a British prisoner. After just one hour of combat, the American troops had been utterly defeated, suffering over 2,000 casualties. Tarleton's cavalry pursued and harried the retreating Continental troops for some before drawing rein. By that evening, Gates, mounted on a swift horse, had taken refuge away in Charlotte, North Carolina.


title: Battle of Camden

text: According to Charles Stedman, one of Cornwallis' officers, "The road for some miles was strewn with the wounded and killed who had been overtaken by the legion in their pursuit. The numbers of dead horses, broken wagons, and baggage scattered on the road formed a perfect scene of horror and confusion: Arms, knapsacks, and accoutrements found were innumerable; such was the terror and dismay of the Americans."


title: Battle of Camden

text: Hugh Rankin says, "of the known dead, 162 were Continentals, 12 were South Carolina militiamen, 3 were Virginia militiamen and 63 were North Carolina militiamen". David Ramsay says, "290 American wounded prisoners were carried into Camden after this action. Of this number, 206 were Continentals, 82 were North Carolina militia and 2 were Virginia militia. The resistance made by each corps may in some degree be estimated from the number of wounded. The Americans lost the whole of their artillery - 8 field pieces, upwards of 200 wagons and the greatest part of their baggage." A letter from Cornwallis to Lord George Germain, dated 21 August 1780, says that his army took "about one thousand Prisoners, many of whom wounded" on August 18.


title: Battle of Camden

text: The website Documentary History of the Battle of Camden, 16 August 1780 details on its Officer Casualties at Camden page the fates of 48 Continental officers at Camden: 5 were killed, 4 died of wounds, 4 were wounded without being captured, 11 were wounded and captured and 24 were captured without being wounded. These ratios would suggest that many of the Americans wounded in the battle escaped capture.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Gates, as a former British officer, was accustomed to the traditional British deployment of the most experienced regiments on the place of honor: the "right" flank of the battle line. Gates had therefore placed the Continental regiments on his right flank, and the mass of militia which had joined him—of whom nearly all of the Virginians had never been in a battle—on the left flank, facing the most experienced British regiments. Gates was also too far behind his troops to observe the battle or see what the British were doing. Tarleton claims Gates made four errors, including not taking a stronger position on Saunders' Creek before Cornwallis arrived, moving his army at night, the placement of his militia, and the adjustment of his disposition just before battle.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Aside from tactics on the battlefield, Gates had made several strategic errors before joining the battle:


title: Battle of Camden

text: Gates proceeded onwards to Hillsborough, a distance of 180 miles, where he arrived on the 19th and then composed his report to Congress on 20 Aug. The report to the President of the Continental Congress, Samuel Huntington, began, "In deepest Distress and Anxiety of Mind, I am obliged to acquaint your Excellency with the Total Defeat of the Troops under my Command." In a 30 Aug. letter to George Washington, Gates wrote, But if being unfortunate is solely a Reason sufficient for removing me from Command I shall most cheerfully submit to the Orders of Congress; and resign an office few Generals would be anxious to possess..."


title: Battle of Camden

text: Gates lost control of the southern army. However, Daniel Morgan and Nathanael Greene defended Gates' actions, but not his decision to fight. Major General Greene, George Washington's original preference, was subsequently given command of the southern army.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Gates, who had strong political connections in the Continental Congress, successfully avoided inquiries into the debacle.


title: Battle of Camden

text: The Camden Battlefield is located about north of Camden. Approximately 479 acres of the core of the battlefield is owned by the Palmetto Conservation Foundation, and is undergoing preservation in private-public partnership. The original five acres were owned by the Hobkirk Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution who gave their portion over to the current owners. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.


title: Battle of Camden

text: Aspects of the battle were included in the 2000 movie "The Patriot", in which Ben and Gabriel Martin are seen watching a similar battle. Ben comments at the stupidity of Gates fighting "muzzle to muzzle with Redcoats". The film is not historically accurate, depicting too many Continental troops relative to the number of militia, and showing the Continentals and militia retreating at the same time.


title: Marko Stunt

text: Noah Nelms (born July 30, 1996), better known under the ring name Marko Stunt, is an American professional wrestler and singer best known for his time in All Elite Wrestling (AEW). He is also known for his appearances for Game Changer Wrestling and IWA Mid-South.


title: Marko Stunt

text: Nelms was born on July 30, 1996, to Lori Nelms and former pastor and missionary Dwyndl Nelms. Growing up Nelms found interest in professional wrestling through his father. In a video interview by Chris Van Vliet, Nelms revealed that due to his father's role as a pastor, Nelms and his family lived in several different states in the lower mid-south as well as Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Nelms graduated from Lewisburg High School in Olive Branch, Mississippi. During his later teen years, Nelms won his school's talent show and also found small success doing guitar covers on YouTube uploaded by his parents.


title: Marko Stunt

text: Stunt started training when he was 18. Stunt wrestled mostly locally around Mississippi and for Cape Championship Wrestling in Missouri. In January 2018, Stunt made his debut for IWA Mid-South's 800th show losing a four-way match.


title: Marko Stunt

text: At Game Changer Wrestling's Joey Janela's Lost In New York, Stunt lost to KTB; however, this exposure and his performance was popular with online wrestling fans. This performance caught the attention of Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks who announced Stunt for All In. At All In, Stunt participated in the pre-show Over the Budget battle royal. In September 2018, Stunt competed for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's Battle of Los Angeles where he was eliminated in the first round by Trevor Lee.


title: Marko Stunt

text: Marko Stunt made his All Elite Wrestling debut at the inaugural AEW Double or Nothing as part of the Casino Battle Royal entering after drawing spades. He was eliminated from the ring by Ace Romero. Later it was confirmed that Stunt had signed with AEW. Stunt found allies with Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus on "Being The Elite" after segments of Stunt showing him being harassed by other members of the locker room. The trio formed the Jurassic Express. Jurassic Express were announced for the Inaugural tournament for the AEW World Tag Team Championships to take on the Lucha Brothers in the first round. Marko Stunt replaced Luchasaurus for the team due to Luchasaurus suffering a hamstring injury. However, Jungle Boy and Marko Stunt lost to the Lucha Brothers, eliminating them from the rest of the tournament.


title: Marko Stunt

text: Nelms has a younger brother who is also a professional wrestler under the name Logan Stunt. Nelms helps run a family owned podcast called the "Stunt Family Podcast". Big Show was Nelms's favorite wrestler during his childhood, and his influences include Rey Mysterio, Kane, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero and The Undertaker.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: The 2006 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006, in the middle of Republican President George W. Bush's second term. Democrats won control of both houses of Congress, which was the first and only time either party did so since the 1994 elections. These elections were widely categorized as a Democratic wave.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: In the Senate, Democrats won a net gain of six seats to take a narrow majority in that chamber. Democrats picked up 31 seats in the House of Representatives, and after the election Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House. In the gubernatorial elections, Democrats won a net gain of six seats. Nationwide, Republicans failed to win any congressional or gubernatorial seat that was held by a Democrat going into the election. This was also the first time since 1994 where a party did not lose a single incumbent in a gubernatorial or congressional election.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Reasons for the Democratic Party victory included the decline of the public image of George W. Bush, the dissatisfaction of his administration's handling of both Hurricane Katrina and the War in Iraq, the beginning of the collapse of the United States housing bubble, Bush's legislative defeat regarding Social Security Privatization and immigration reform, the Republican-controlled Congress's unprecedented and unpopular involvement in the Terri Schiavo case and a series of scandals in 2006 involving Republican politicians.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: In March 2003, President George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, a state which the Bush administration claimed was linked to the September 11 attacks in 2001, and claimed was producing weapons of mass destruction. That May, just two months after the initial invasion, Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. In the following months, insurgents began resisting the American occupation. Additionally, religious tensions between majority Shiite and minority Sunni Muslims, tensions which had been suppressed under the grip of Saddam's regime, began to result in violence. By the end of 2003, despite the war being initially popular, the post-war occupation was losing support from the American public. A November 2003 Gallup poll showed that Bush's job approval rating had fallen to 50% from a high of 71% at the outset of the war.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: The next year, Bush won reelection over Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry with less than 51% of the popular vote and 286 electoral votes (only 16 votes ahead of the 270 votes needed), the smallest winning margin for an incumbent president since Woodrow Wilson in the 1916 election. It was, however, the first time since 1988 that a winner garnered a popular majority. Terrorism and the war in Iraq dominated the election, with domestic issues taking a secondary role. Bush began his second term with a continuation of the occupation and a push to overhaul Social Security with his privatization plan. Both policies proved unpopular, and violence in Iraq continued to increase. Compounding the unpopularity of the war was that no weapons of mass destruction were found. August 2005 was the last time any major public opinion poll recorded majority approval of Bush's job. Negative perceptions of Bush following the slow governmental response to Hurricane Katrina further weighed on his popularity.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Simultaneously, the Republican-controlled 109th Congress's popularity was declining as well. A series of notable congressional scandals also took place in Washington, D.C., including the ongoing Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal as well as the Mark Foley scandal and the Cunningham scandal, both in October 2006. Throughout 2006, sectarian violence was ongoing in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq; many claimed that the conflict was evolving into a civil war. President Bush's job approval rarely rose above 40%. Perceptions of Congress and Republicans in general remained highly negative. Additionally, the Congress had a smaller than average list of major accomplishments (considering that the Party in charge of both the House and Senate also had control of the White House) and was not in session for a larger than average number of days, allowing Democrats and others to characterize it as a "Do-Nothing" congress and blame the Republican leadership for the lack of progress.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: The Democratic Party won a majority of the state governorships and the U.S. House and Senate seats each for the first time since 1994, an election-year commonly known as the "Republican Revolution." For the first time since the creation of the Republican Party in 1854, no Republican captured any House, Senate, or gubernatorial seat previously held by a Democrat.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Democrats took a 233–202 advantage in the House of Representatives, and achieved a 49–49 tie in the United States Senate. The Senate figure is sometimes quoted in the media as 51–49, which includes two members who ran as independent candidates Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, who promised to caucus with the Democrats. The final Senate result was decided when Democrat Jim Webb was declared the winner in Virginia against incumbent George Allen, as reported by the Associated Press. On November 9, 2006, Allen and fellow Republican incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana both conceded defeat, ceding effective control of the Senate to the Democrats.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: The election made Nancy Pelosi (D-California) the first-ever female, first-ever Italian-American, and first-ever Californian Speaker of the House and Harry Reid (D-Nevada) the first Mormon Senate Majority Leader. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) became the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Congress and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) became the first Buddhists in a United States governing body. Although seven states banned recognition of same-sex marriage, Arizona became the first state to reject such a ballot initiative. South Dakota rejected a ban on abortion under almost any circumstances, which was intended to overturn federal constitutional abortion-rights nationwide by setting up a strong test case that proponents hoped would lead to the overruling of Roe v. Wade. This result would eventually happen in 2022, with a Mississippi state law that imposed a 15 week ban on abortion leading to the case Dobbs v. Jackson, which then led to Roe’s overturning.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Some of the Republican House and Senate seats lost by the Republicans belonged to members of the Republican Revolution of 1994. Senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Representatives Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, John Hostettler of Indiana, Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota, and J. D. Hayworth of Arizona all won previously Democratic seats in 1994 elections and were defeated in 2006. Representative Sue Kelly of New York, also first elected in 1994, was defeated as well. The Democrats also won back the Kansas 2nd and Ohio 18th, both of which they had lost in 1994.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: The Democratic Party also claimed a majority of state governorships in the 2006 elections, gaining control of Republican-held governorships in New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Arkansas, Maryland and Ohio, to give the party a 28–22 advantage in governorships.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Scandals, including the Mark Foley congressional page scandal, the Jack Abramoff scandal, and various allegations of marital infidelity and abuse doomed certain candidates, especially incumbents in PA-10 and NY-20, which hosted one of the most negative campaigns in the country. Virginia Senator George Allen, a potential Republican 2008 Presidential candidate, saw his chances for reelection disappear when he was caught on video using a racial slur to describe a young Indian-American who worked for his opponent's campaign.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Democrats won control of Congress for the first time since the 1994 election, which is commonly known as the "Republican Revolution." For the first time since the creation of the Republican party in 1854, no Republican captured any House, Senate, or Gubernatorial seat previously held by a Democrat.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: The 33 seats in the United States Senate Class 1 were up for election. The Democrats gained six Senate seats by defeating Republican Senators in the states of Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia. Including Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, two independents who caucused with the Democrats, Democrats won a 51-to-49 majority in the Senate.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: All 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives were up for election. The Democrats won the national popular vote by a margin of eight percentage points and gained thirty-one seats from the Republicans.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: The election made Nancy Pelosi (D-California) the first-ever female, first-ever Italian-American, and first-ever Californian Speaker of the House Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) became the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Congress and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) became the first Buddhists in a United States governing body.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Of the 50 United States governors, 36 were up for election. Twenty two of those contested seats were held by Republicans, and the remaining 14 were held by Democrats. Of the 36 state governorships up for election, ten were open due to retirement, term limits, or primary loss. Democrats won open Republican-held seats in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Arkansas and Colorado, in addition to defeating incumbent Bob Ehrlich in Maryland and holding their sole open seat in Iowa. As a result of the 2006 gubernatorial elections, there were 28 Democratic governors and 22 Republican governors, a reversal of the numbers held by the respective parties prior to the elections.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Additionally, governorships were up for election in the U.S. territories of Guam, held by a Republican, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the Democratic governor was retiring. In each location, the incumbent party maintained control of the governorship.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Nearly all state legislatures were up for election. Prior to the general elections, with the exception of the nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature, 21 legislatures were controlled by Republicans, 19 by Democrats, and nine were split legislatures (where each house is controlled by a different party). As a result of the 2006 elections, 23 legislatures were carried by Democrats, 17 by Republicans, and 9 legislatures were split. In all, Republicans lost, and Democrats gained, more than 300 state legislative seats. Democrats gained control of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, the Minnesota Legislature, the Iowa General Assembly and the New Hampshire General Court. In New Hampshire's case, both houses of the legislature flipped from the Republicans to the Democrats. The Republicans, meanwhile, did not gain control of any state legislature. Instead, state Republicans lost their majorities in the Wisconsin Senate, the Michigan House of Representatives, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and the Indiana House of Representatives, turning those legislatures into split bodies. Conversely, Republicans gained control of 2 state houses – the Montana House of Representatives changed from a 50–50 split to a 50-49-1 split, with the lone Constitution Party representative voting for Republican control of that body. Also, the election produced a 26–26 split in the Mississippi Senate, previously under a Democratic majority, with the tie-breaking vote coming from Republican Lieutenant Governor Amy Tuck.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Democrats gained or retained control of the state legislatures and governorships of 15 states, thus creating unified government in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia, although the governorship of Louisiana reverted to the Republicans with the October 2007 election of Bobby Jindal. Republicans now control ten state governments, these being, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Utah.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Democrats won a veto-proof supermajority in both houses of the Connecticut General Assembly, with Democrats holding a commanding 131–56 majority.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: The most dramatic change in party control occurred with the New Hampshire General Court, where Republicans held a 92-seat majority in the lower House and an eight-seat majority in the upper Senate prior to the election. By the end of the evening, Republicans were down 81 seats in the House and five in the Senate, giving control of the General Court to the Democrats. This coincided with the landslide reelection of Democratic Governor John Lynch, the takeover of both of New Hampshire's U.S. House seats by Democrats, and New Hampshire's unique Executive Council gaining a Democratic majority.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Third parties received largely mixed results in the 2006 elections. In the Maine House of Representatives, Green State Representative John Eder was narrowly defeated by Democratic rival Jon Hinck in a bitterly contested campaign over Portland's 118th District. Eder's loss deprived the U.S. Green movement's highest elected position in any state office.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: In the Vermont House of Representatives, the Vermont Progressive Party successfully maintained its six seats within the chamber. The Vermont Progressive Party has in recent years become one of the most consistently successful third parties in the U.S. to be elected to higher office.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: In Illinois, out of seemingly dissatisfaction of both the candidacies of Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich and Republican candidate Judy Baar Topinka resulted in 10% of the electorate voting for the Green Party candidate Rich Whitney, an accomplishment by all means considering Whitney did not campaign on television or radio.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: In Montana, Rick Jore made history becoming the first candidate of the right-wing Constitution Party to be elected to a state legislature, elected to the 12th District in the Montana House of Representatives. Jore initially won in 2004 by three votes, only to see the courts throw out enough ballots to give the Democrat the victory. In the 2006 elections, Jore won convincingly, garnering 56.2% of the vote. However, the Montana Constitution Party is no longer chartered under the national party, denying the United States Constitution Party the claim of holding a higher office.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: An unusual local election occurred in South Dakota; Marie Steichen was elected to Jerauld County Commissioner, despite the fact that she died two months before the election. Her name was never replaced on the ballot, and voters who chose her were unaware of her death.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: In Richmond, California, a city of more than 100,000 residents, the Green Party challenger, City Councilperson Gayle McLaughlin, unseated Democratic incumbent Irma Anderson and became the first Green Party Mayor of a city of that size.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Two candidates in Nevada's branch of the Constitution Party, called the Independent American Party (Nevada), were also elected to office. Jackie Berg was elected Eureka County Clerk with 54.1% of the vote, easily topping Republican and Libertarian opposition. Also, Cel Ochoa will be the new Constable in Searchlight, Nevada by virtue of winning 54.93% of the vote to defeat her Republican rival. Another Nevada Independent Party member, Bill Wilkerson, was elected to the Elko, Nevada, School Board, in a non-partisan race.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: In Missoula County, Montana, residents passed a measure to encourage the County Sheriff's Department to make marijuana enforcement a last priority.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: In Dallas County, Texas, Democrats regained control in 41 out of 42 contested GOP judgeships, as well as the district attorney's office and the county judge's seat.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Beginning just after George W. Bush's reelection, political analysts point to a number of factors and events that led to the eventual Republican defeat in 2006. It is generally agreed that the single most important issue during the 2006 election was the war in Iraq, and more specifically President Bush's handling of it and the overall public weariness over it.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Public opinion polling conducted during the days just before the election and the weeks just after it showed that the war in Iraq was considered the most important election issue by the largest segment of the public. Exit polling showed that relatively large majorities of voters both fell into the category of disapproving of the war or expressing the desire to withdraw troops in some type of capacity. Both brackets broke extremely heavily for Democrats. The issue of the war seemed to play a large part in the nationalization of the election, a departure from previous midterm elections, which tended to be about local, district-centric issues. The effect of this was a general nationwide advantage for Democrats, who were not seen as being as tied to the war as Republicans, led by George Bush, were.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: President Bush himself, seen as the leader and face of the Republican party, was a large factor in the 2006 election. Exit polls showed that a large block of the electorate had voted for Democrats or for third parties specifically because of personal opposition to or dislike for Bush. The size of the segment that said it had voted specifically to support Bush was not as large. Opposition to Bush was based on a number of factors, these not limited to opposition to his Social Security privatization plan, the slow response of his administration to Hurricane Katrina, his perceived inaction in the face of and association with rising gas prices, and as mentioned above, his continued commitment to the war.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Congressional approval, which had been slightly negative since before the 2004 election, began a steady drop beginning in March 2005. Congress's unprecedented and unpopular involvement in the Terri Schiavo controversy is often pointed to as the catalyst for this drop. Congressional scandals, such as the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, the sentencing of Duke Cunningham to over eight years in prison, the indictment of then House majority leader Tom DeLay, the corruption of William J. Jefferson and Bob Ney, the misconduct of Cynthia McKinney, and the Mark Foley scandal all continued to pull down congressional popularity. In the months leading up to the election, congressional approval ratings flirted with all-time historical lows. Because congress was controlled by Republicans, this high disapproval affected Republicans much more negatively than it did Democrats.


title: 2006 United States elections

text: Democrats were successful in portraying the congress as a lazy, greedy, egotistical and inefficient "Do-Nothing Congress.", which they contrasted with their "New Direction for America" campaign. Indeed, the congress had been in session much less than previous ones had (including those under Republican control), and numerous public opinion polls showed that large majorities believed that the congress had accomplished less than normal. This too, took a toll on Republicans (as the leaders of the government).