Since 1958 it has been the stated policy of both the United States and the USSR to achieve a treaty that would ban all nuclear weapons tests. Andrei Sakharov, we now know, played a major, perhaps crucial, role in this matter. And several American scientists, including myself, played a role in establishing and carrying out U.S. policy in this same regard. During the formative period of the late '50s and early '60s we had no idea who Sakharov was or what he was doing. I believe if we had, we would have done a much better job, but the everpresent curtain of Soviet secrecy prevented it.
Diplomats, Scientists, and Politicians. The United States and the Nuclear Test Ban Negotiations