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. 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. 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." 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.