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." Renewed efforts 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. 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