the treaty could produce `` the possibility of a detente '' between Washington and Moscow , `` which may not come to anything but which quite possibly could come to something . '' The meeting took place just nine months after the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba brought the world 's major nuclear powers to the brink of war . Kennedy said the Soviets were having `` domestic , internal economic problems '' and he was worried about the rise of China after a major diplomatic split in 1960 . `` I do n't think anybody can say with any precision , but there is n't any doubt that the dispute with China is certainly a factor , '' Kennedy said , adding , `` They want to avoid a nuclear struggle or ... they want to lessen the chances of conflict with us . '' But he said the rising nuclear ambitions of China , which would conduct its first tests the following year , could force the United States to resume its own tests . `` It may be that the Chinese test in the next year , 18 months , 2 years , and we would
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Former President John F. Kennedy saw a proposed ban on above-ground nuclear tests as a way to thaw U.S.-Soviet relations after the Cuban Missile Crisis , according to recordings released Thursday . President John F. Kennedy expresses a desire to thaw U.S.-Soviet relatations , on newly released recordings . `` If it does represent a possibility of avoiding the kind of collision that we had last fall in Cuba , which was quite close , and Berlin in 1961 , we should seize the chance , '' Kennedy said in a July 1963 meeting with top government scientists . He signed a treaty with the Soviets and the British the following month that banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere , underwater or in space . Kennedy 's presidential library in Boston , Massachusetts , released the four-minute recording of the meeting , held just four months before his assassination . The scientists taking part included John Foster and Norris Bradbury , the directors of two of the top U.S. nuclear laboratories ; Glenn Seaborg , then-head of the Atomic Energy Commission ; and a member of the commission , John Palfrey . Kennedy expressed hope that