Writing in 1981, George F. Kennan described Americans' response to the threat of nuclear war thus: have gone on piling weapon upon weapon, missile upon missile, new levels of destructiveness upon old ones. We have done this helplessly, almost involuntarily, like the victims of some sort of hypnotism, like men in a dream, like lemmings headed for the sea. 1 Eloquent as it is, Kennan's generalization is not wholly applicable. Americans have not always behaved like lemmings in confronting the nuclear danger; their engagement with that threat has gone through several distinct cycles of activism and apparent passivity. When directed to the years from 1963 to the late 1970s, however, Kennan's observations seem chillingly accurate. In those years public involvement with the nuclear weapons issue sank to a low level indeed. This article explores some of the sources of nuclear apathy during that protracted interval. Our starting point is September 24, 1963, when the Senate ratified with overwhelming approval the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty agreed on earlier in Moscow. The treaty also won enthusiastic public and journalistic support. David Lawrence, of the conservative United States News and World Report, wrote: There's a new word in the vocabulary of the day-or at least a more noticeable use of an old word-euphoria. Even I. F. Stone, a skeptical, leftwing Washington journalist not easily given to flights of enthusiasm, observed: Peace has broken out, and hope leaps up again. The treaty did not halt all tests; underground nuclear explosions were still permitted. Nevertheless, it was welcomed as the beginning of a process that would ultimately free the world of the nuclear menace. Expressing the prevailing view, the New York Times hailed the agreement in a front-page banner headline as a Major Step toward Easing Tension. ' 2