Mr John McCloy, chief adviser on disarmament to President Kennedy, told the National Press Club today that a measure of agreement on disarmament with Russia may be a ╥concomitant╙ of the Berlin settlement.
He said that existing tensions made it all the more necessary to strive for some agreement on disarmament with the Soviet Union. If we wait until all is calm, Mr McCloy added, we may have to wait for a very long time indeed.
Mr McCloy told the meeting that Mr Khrushchev had assured him that it was possible for Russia to build a 100-megaton bomb that would be 5,000 times as destructive as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Some military leaders in the Soviet Union were eager to test this bomb now.
Mr McCloy said he got the impression from Mr Khrushchev that it would be necessary for the Russians to test this new bomb before it could be operational. Mr Kruschev left the impression that the Americans were ╥itching to test╙ and he seemed to be saying that he could wait until the Americans resumed nuclear testing before he would order tests on the new bomb.
