 The “problem” and “difficulty” to which Bell refers above is the conflict between the predictions of quantum theory and what can be inferred, call it \(C\), from an assumption of locality in Bohm’s version of the EPR argument, a conflict established by Bell’s inequality. \(C\) happens to concern the existence of a certain kind of hidden variables, what might be called local hidden variables, but this fact is of little substantive importance. What is important is not so much the identity of \(C\) as the fact that \(C\) is incompatible with the predictions of quantum theory. The identity of \(C\) is, however, of great historical significance: it is responsible for the misconception that Bell proved that hidden variables are impossible, a belief that physicists until recently almost universally shared, as well as for the view, even now almost universally held, that what Bell’s result does is to rule out local hidden variables, a view that is misleading.