[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 153 (Thursday, September 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9666-H9669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. Bonn of Oregon). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from American Somoa 
[Mr. Faleomavaega] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, earlier last week I shared with my 
colleagues and the American people some observations on the crisis that 
has occurred on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, as a 
consequence of French President Jacques Chirac's recent decision for 
the Government of France to resume testing of nuclear bomb explosions 
on the Pacific island atolls of Moruroa and Faugataufa.
  Mr. Speaker, despite thousands of petitions and the pleadings from 
leaders of countries from Europe, from South America, from Asia, and 
especially from the Pacific island nations, asking France to refrain 
from conducting nuclear bomb explosions under these Pacific atolls, 
President Chirac went ahead and pressed the nuclear button 3 weeks ago, 
exploding a nuclear bomb under Moruroa Atoll with a nuclear punch of 20 
kilotons. The nuclear bomb detonated, Mr. Speaker, was more powerful 
than the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan--which, 
incidentally, Mr. Speaker, killed some 200,000 men, women and children, 
from the direct explosion as well as the subsequent radioactive 
contamination of the residents of Hiroshima.
  Mr. Speaker, I realize that whenever a person calls out the word or 
name, ``Tahiti,'' immediately many of us think of paradise--the swaying 
palm trees, the lovely Polynesian maidens--a place where there is much 
dancing and singing in the air, amongst the festive Polynesian 
Tahitians.
  Perhaps, even more vividly, when the American people think of Tahiti, 
they recall visions from the silver screen classic, ``Mutiny on the 
Bounty,'' first with Clarke Gable and later starring Marlon Brando.
  The fact of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is that the Pacific islands of 
Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, and Bora Bora, truly are among the 
most beautiful volcanic islands in the world. The world famous writer 
and author, James Michener, has described the island of Bora Bora as 
the most beautiful in the world, and I agree with Mr. Michener.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, as I stand here in the well describing the 
magnificent beauty of these islands, something very serious has 
happened since these islands became a colony of France some 150 years 
ago. The islands of French Polynesia were what westerners would call 
colonized by France, after some 500 French soldiers with guns and 
cannons subdued the Tahitian chiefs and their warriors in the 1840's.

  Mr. Speaker, after the French were kicked out of their former colony, 
Algeria, in the early 1960's the late Charles de Gaulle immediately 
ordered his subordinates to find a new place where the French 
Government could continue its nuclear testing program. The French 
Government decided that the two Pacific atolls of Moruroa and 
Faugataufa in French Polynesia would be the sites for the French 
nuclear testing program. The Government of France has now exploded well 
over 180 nuclear bombs on the under these two atolls in the Pacific. 
The French have been exploding their nuclear bombs in the Pacific for 
the past 30 years.
  Mr. Speaker, with the cold war at an end and the Berlin Wall down, 
there has been a tremendous sense of relief among the leading countries 
of the world. As a result, a moratorium was called by the leading 
nuclear powers, including France, 3 years ago to suspend nuclear 
testing altogether.
  Mr. Speaker, in June of this year, the newly elected President of 
France Jacques Chirac, announced that France would explode eight more 
nuclear bombs--one a month, beginning this month of September until May 
of next year. And each nuclear bomb explosion, Mr. Speaker, shall be up 
to 10 times more powerful that the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, 
Japan.
  Mr. Speaker, despite extensive efforts made by citizens's 
organizations and government leaders, involving petitions and pleadings 
from all over the world to persuade President Chirac not to push that 
nuclear buttom--the Chirac government still went ahead and detonated 
their nuclear bomb.
  Mr. Speaker, President Chirac said recently through international 
wire services that the eight nuclear bomb explosions were absolutely 
necessary to improve France's nuclear weapons capabilities and that the 
matter was in the order of the highest national interest of the French 
Government. However, nuclear physicists contend that the safety and 
reliability of nuclear weapons could be ensured by non-nuclear tests 
and have suggested that what France is really pursuing with resumed 
testing is completion of a new warhead design. This new warhead is 
supposedly an advanced generation of neutron bombs designed to destroy 
life, while leaving property intact. Dr. Hutton, a Monash University 
physicist told the Weekend Australian that what France is not telling 
the public ``is the kinds of new weapons they are planning to use those 
simulation techniques to build.'' Why do they want simulation programs? 
``So they can go beyond the thresholds which will be defined in the 
Comprehensive Text Ban Treaty,'' he states.
  Mr. Speaker, there are some very serious and troubling issues that 
now need our national attention, and the international attention of 
other countries, as well. In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, France has now 
initiated the nuclear arms race again, and I would nominate Mr. Chirac 
as the world's leading nuclear arms proliferator. Additionally, Mr. 
Chirac's actions raise another serious probem--if I were Chancellor 
Kohl or any citizen of German, I would feel very uneasy and 
uncomfortable about the idea that President Chirac has his finger on a 
nuclear trigger that he is trying to make more lethal. I would also 
wonder as a German citizen or as citizens of other European countries 
what assurances there are that French nuclear-armed missiles shall 
never be pointed at Bonn, Munich or Berlin, or other cities in Europe?
  If I were Chancellor Kohl or a German citizen, I would further wonder 
what absolutely ensures that Mr. Chirac's nuclear forces would be used 
to defend Germany against in enemy country that might be an ally or a 
friend of Chirac's government. I believe, Mr. Speaker, we find 
ourselves in an interesting dilemma, and I am reminded of a Middle 
Eastern proverb that states that sometimes the friend of my friend is 
also my enemy.

  Mr. Speaker, every country in Europe should feel somewhat uneasy 
about the possibility that France is the only country among the 
continental European nations with a nuclear trigger that may be pointed 
against any one of them.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of tension and uncertainty that Mr. 
Chirac has raised since the re-opening of its nuclear testing program 
last week. The implications are obvious, Mr. Speaker, and if Mr. 
Chirac's motive is to raise fear and apprehension about France's 
nuclear capabilities among its European allies, I must say, President 
Chirac has succeeded in this endeavor.
  Mr. Speaker, the irony of this is that while 62 percent of the people 
of France do not approve of nuclear testing in the Pacific, the same 
majority of the people of France also want France to be recognized as a 
world leader and as a member of the nuclear club like Great Britain, 
the United States, Russia, and the People's Republic of China.
  The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that absent among the permanent members 
of the United Nations Security Council and the world's nuclear club are 
two nations that are considered as having the second and third most 
powerful economies in the world. Mr. Speaker, I am making reference to 
Japan and Germany, respectively.
  Mr. Speaker, if there is ever a time to examine regional and 
international conflicts as we confront them today, there is no way that 
we can deny the presence and considerable influence of Japan in the 
Asia-Pacific region and Germany throughout Europe, and certainly both 
nations to be directly involved with the affairs of the entire world.

[[Page H 9667]]

  Mr. Speaker, about 3 weeks ago I was in Tahiti in French Polynesia. I 
was joined with some 40 other parliamentarians from the Pacific, from 
Japan, from Asia, from South America, and from Europe. Led by the mayor 
of the town of Fa'aa and the leading Polynesian leader, Mr. Oscar 
Temaru, we joined together for a demonstration in the streets of 
Papeete, Tahiti to oppose the resumption of French nuclear testing on 
Moruroa and Faugataufa atolls. We were also joined by the Minister of 
Finance Mr. Takemura of Japan, and he also voiced his strong opposition 
to French nuclear testing.
  Mr. Speaker, earlier on August 30, 1995, Mr. Temaru and his 
associates, Mr. Vito Haamatua, and myself traveled to the island of 
Tureia which is located about 60 miles away from Moruroa where the 
nuclear bomb had already been placed in a shaft about 3,000 feet under 
the atoll. We were joined later with the arrival of the Rainbow Warrior 
II and together we headed for the Moruroa atoll.

  Mr. Speaker, in anticipation of the French Government's announcement 
that the first nuclear explosion would take place on September 1, 1995 
at about 6 in the morning, the Rainbow Warrior launched about six 
inflatable zodiacs at about 3 in the morning--in the dark, right under 
the nose of the French naval warships.
  What is remarkable about these zodiacs, Mr. Speaker, is that they 
were manned by young men and women who were from New Zealand, from 
Italy, from Australia, from the United States, from France, from 
Portugal--kind of a mini United Nations representation. Mr. Speaker, I 
commend these young people. They were not commandos or soldiers. They 
were just ordinary citizens, committed to a nuclear free world. It is 
no secret that the world is suffering tremendously as a result of man's 
own carelessness and sheer callousness in destroying the ecological 
balance between nature and all forms of plant and animal life.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to share this basic item of fact again with my 
colleagues and with the American people. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that 
the French Government has now exploded 176 nuclear bombs on Moruroa 
island. One hundred and seventy-six nuclear bombs exploded on one tiny 
island atoll. And President Chirac has the gall to say that this atoll 
is ecologically safe? Mr. Speaker, there are reports of hundreds of 
Tahitians who were subjected to nuclear contamination but were never 
properly tested after exposure.
  As a consequence of these explosions, British scientists have 
confirmed that the atoll underneath Moruroa Atoll is ``becoming a web 
of vitrified cavities, from which an unknown number of cracks are 
spreading like spiders' webs.'' Areas of Moruroa atoll have already 
sunk by one meter or more. In fact, Dr. Roger Clark, a seismologist at 
England's Leeds University, has said that one more test could trigger 
the atoll's collapse, leading to huge cracks opening to the sea, 
threatening the fish and other marine life, and ultimately threatening 
our marine environment throughout the Pacific.
  As early as 1987, the world-famous oceanographer and marine 
environmentalist, Jacques Cousteau, who I personally commend for his 
opposition to nuclear testings in the Pacific and for the appeals he 
made to Chirac, also found spectacular cracks and fissures in the 
atoll, as well as the presence of radioactive isotopes, in the form of 
iodine 131, plutonium 239, and cesium 134, more commonly known as 
nuclear leakage.
  Mr. Speaker, there is also a strong link between ciguatera poisoning 
and military operations involving nuclear testing in French Polynesia. 
Ciguatera poisoning occurs when coral reefs are destroyed, releasing 
toxic marine organisms which are absorbed by plankton that are eaten by 
fish, that are ultimately consumed by humans.

  Mr. Speaker, even if France stopped its nuclear testing today, the 
untold amounts of radioactivity encased in Moruroa Atoll will require 
scientific monitoring for decades to come. Yet France refuses to allow 
complete and unhindered scientific studies and health assessments to 
take place.
  Another fact remains, Mr. Speaker. As media coverage gave voice to 
every French diplomat around the world, as well as to France's position 
that nuclear testing was necessary to its national interest, the 
senselessness of the testing went untold. What the media failed to tell 
the world is that France did not need to update its technology via 
nuclear explosions. The United States had already offered France the 
technology it sought. Yet American journalists have not given this fact 
the same amount of airplay that French diplomats have gotten in 
asserting their insane claim that exploding eight more nuclear bombs in 
South Pacific waters is necessary to France's national interest.
  The media in foreign countries, including Japan, Australia, New 
Zealand, Germany, and others have done a far better job of covering the 
global implications of France's resumed nuclear testing than has the 
American media. How ironic that this should be the case, for a country 
that has zealously protected and promoted the right to free speech and 
press, and the widespread dissemination of information; and yet there 
was hardly any media discussion and debate in America concerning French 
nuclear testing. Just a few editorials here and there and that was it.
  Mr. Speaker, the irony of it all--while just about every American 
household has a television tuned in and, following the sequences on the 
fate of one man--Mr. O.J. Simpson, we have turned a deaf ear to health 
and welfare and even the lives of some 200,000 men, women, and children 
who are totally helpless and are not capable of withstanding the 
military might of the French Navy and the French Foreign Legion--as the 
French Government has literally forced the Polynesian Tahitians to 
accept such as awful fate, and a future with no promise to enhance 
their lives.
  And, Mr. Speaker, if and when the French colonial power ever does 
leave these islands, what a sad commentary for writers to state that 
France's two gifts to these Polynesian Tahitian's are cognac and 
islands that are contaminated as a result of French nuclear testings 
for the past 30 years.
  Mr. Speaker, I would have hoped that the French could have learned 
from America's experience with nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1954, 
on Bikini Atoll, the United States exploded the most famous hydrogen 
bomb of that time--a 15 megaton bomb, 1,000 times more powerful than 
the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The sad part of this story is 
that before the bomb was exploded, the officials who were conducting 
this experiment--the ``Bravo Shot''--discovered that the winds had 
shifted and that the 300 men, women, and children living on the nearby 
island of Rongelap would be put at risk by the explosion. They exploded 
the bomb anyway, subjecting 300 innocent people to nuclear 
contamination. The accounts of their suffering are well-documented.
  Though our Government is making every effort to resettle this island 
and offer monetary compensation to these people, the reality is, no 
amount of money can compensate for one's health. The women of Rongelap 
gave birth to what many termed ``jelly babies,'' babies that were born 
dead and did not appear to look human. The people of Rongelap have 
suffered from cancer, leukemia, and all manners of disease associated 
with nuclear contamination.
  Yes, we conducted these tests, but then realized the horrors 
associated with these tests. We realized how harmful these nuclear 
tests are to the atolls and to the Pacific Islanders way of life. So 
the United States stopped its nuclear testing program in the Pacific 
and moved its testing sites underground in the desert plains of the 
State of Nevada.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend President Clinton for his policy 
on nuclear testing. He has committed the United States to negotiate an 
absolute ban on all nuclear tests, and has rejected the argument that 
small-scale testing is necessary to ensure weapons reliability. This 
decision, serving as a model for the world, is a major step toward 
stopping nuclear proliferation.
  On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, I must express my disappointment that 
our Government did not release a strong statement condemning France 
after the explosion on Moruroa Atoll on September 1, 1995. While other 
countries vigorously denounced France's 

[[Page H 9668]]
detonation, the response of the United States was understated and weak.
  So I stand here in the well today, Mr. Speaker, to declare what our 
own State Department would not. Chirac's decision to promote nuclear 
proliferation, at the expense of a peaceful people, is an atrocity, a 
crime against humanity, not unlike France's decision in World War II to 
forcibly deport 75,000 of its own citizens, to Nazi concentration 
camps, where it is said that only 1,000 of those deported survived.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, France's resumption of nuclear testing, 
especially on soil other than its own, is nothing less than a classic 
example of colonialism in its worst form, and as such, an old ideology 
politicized by dominant Western cultures as a means to marginalize and 
oppress. Every enlightened French citizen should be ashamed that such 
atrocity reigns in the hands of its current leader, and that those 
Polynesian Tahitians are simply being forced against their will by the 
French colonial government to accept nuclear testing, like it or not.
  What President Chirac has done is inexcusable and offends the 
sensitivities of decent people throughout the world. This madness must 
stop, Mr. Speaker, and it must stop now, and again I urge any fellow 
Americans, as a gesture of your support, to oppose this mean-spirited 
policy by President Chirac--don't purchase French wine and French goods 
and products--this is the only way President Chirac will get the 
message.
  Mr. Speaker, within the coming weeks and months, if there will be 
more violence and even loss of lives in Tahiti because of nuclear 
testing, I cannot see how President Chirac can passively take this 
issue without any concern to the lives of those people who live on 
those Pacific Islands.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, I make this appeal to my colleagues and on behalf 
of thousands of people throughout the world--especially to the citizens 
of Japan, the citizens of Germany--to my fellow Americans, to show our 
compassion and concerns for the welfare of the 200,000 Polynesian 
Tahitians who are being forced to accept French colonial policy to 
conduct nuclear testings in the Pacific--a world citizenry movement not 
to purchase French wine, foods, and products as a gesture of support of 
the 200,000 Polynesian Tahitians who are against nuclear testing in the 
Pacific.
  Mr. Speaker, I include newspaper articles on the subject of my 
special order for the Record, as follows:

              [From the Associated Press, Sept. 26, 1995]

  Tahitian Government Leader Asks Chirac To End Tests Before Elections

       Papeete, Tahiti.--Tahiti has asked France to speed up its 
     South Pacific nuclear tests, which have prompted huge riots 
     and fueled the independence movement on the largest island in 
     French Polynesia.
       Tahitian Government President Gaston Flosse said he has 
     asked French President Jacques Chirac to complete the tests 
     before March so elections scheduled that month can be held 
     ``in a calmer atmosphere.''
       France's first nuclear blast at Mururoa Atoll on Sept. 5 
     set off two days of riots in Papeete, the capital of French 
     Polynesia. The test was the first in three years anywhere 
     except China.
       Protesters set fire to buildings, looted shops and torched 
     cars.
       Many of the rioters were members of Tahiti's pro-
     independence movement, called out on the streets by a pro-
     independence radio station after police confronted peaceful 
     protesters.
       Opponents of the testing have threatened to hit the streets 
     again this week when France is expected to set off a larger 
     nuclear warhead at Fangatufa, another atoll in the South 
     Pacific.
       Chirac has said he plans to conduct as many as eight tests 
     by the end of May. France says it needs the tests to update 
     its nuclear arsenal and develop computer simulation to 
     replace testing.
       However France has said it supports an eventual global ban 
     on nuclear testing.
       Also Tuesday, the European Parliament said it plans to 
     investigate possible links between the first blast and a 
     volcanic eruption more than 3,000 miles away in New Zealand.
       Some members of the 626-seat legislature suspect that the 
     French underground tests on Mururoa Atoll may have sent shock 
     waves along underwater fault lines and caused the eruption of 
     New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu.
       That mountain continued to spew ash and boulders Tuesday in 
     what could become New Zealand's biggest volcanic eruption in 
     50 years.
                                                                    ____


               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 19, 1995]

              French Nuclear Program Closely Tied to U.S.


    Sharing of Sensitive Codes, Access to California Labs to Expand

                (By William Drozdiak and Jeffrey Smith)

       When President Clinton traveled to Hawaii early this month 
     to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in 
     the Pacific, his aides dispatched an urgent message to the 
     French government: Please do not conduct the first in your 
     controversial series of nuclear blasts under a Pacific atoll 
     while Clinton is in the region.
       Even though French President Jacques Chirac was eager to 
     proceed with the nuclear tests in the teeth of international 
     protests, he realized he was in no position to turn down such 
     a request from a special friend. Reluctantly, Chirac put off 
     the politically embarrassing blast until Clinton had returned 
     to Washington.
       Chirac's gesture was partly a token of respect for the 
     close relationship he has nurtured with Clinton during his 
     first four months in office. But even more, say French and 
     American officials, it was a tip of the hat to the long years 
     of unannounced support and assistance provided by the United 
     States to the French nuclear weapons program.
       Despite its claims of developing an independent nuclear 
     deterrent, France has long relied on the United States for 
     some of the most sophisticated technologies needed to upgrade 
     and maintain a modern nuclear arsenal, these officials say.
       Although known to specialists, the U.S.-French nuclear 
     links have been little discussed over the years. With the 
     French nuclear tests generating opposition around the Pacific 
     and among environmentalists everywhere, however, the details 
     of the collaboration are getting a new look.
       In fact, even though the United States is no longer making 
     its own bombs and has publicly criticized the French tests, 
     U.S. officials say the cooperation is scheduled to expand to 
     an unprecedented degree.
       Washington and Paris currently are trying to negotiate an 
     arrangement, for example, under which the two sides will 
     begin to share sensitive computer codes that describe how 
     bombs behave when they are detonated. France needs the data 
     to make full use of access to two sophisticated new U.S. 
     nuclear weapons research facilities that Washington has 
     quietly offered French weapons experts.
       In addition, France has begun building a mammoth $4 billion 
     laser facility near Bordeaux for weapons-related research--
     nine stories high and 900 feet long--with the help of an 
     American scientist from the Lawrence Livermore National 
     Laboratory, which is one of three U.S. weapons design 
     centers.
       A senior U.S. defense official said the Defense Department 
     is straining to keep this collaboration within traditional 
     bounds, in which the United States has secretly shared 
     scientific data to help ensure that French weapons cannot be 
     detonated accidentally or without proper authority while 
     steering clear of collaboration in nuclear weapons design.
       But the official acknowledged there is ``so much 
     information in codes . . . [that] some of these data can be 
     used to improve their weapons.'' As a result, he said, 
     ``joint use of codes will have to be explored very 
     thoroughly. . . . We are still in the negotiating phase as to 
     how the increase in our collaboration would take place.''
       The Clinton administration says maintaining a close U.S.-
     French relationship is essential to ensuring French support 
     for the comprehensive test ban treaty to be signed next year. 
     Although French aircraft routinely are allowed to ferry 
     military equipment and personnel related to the French 
     nuclear tests in the South Pacific across U.S. territory, 
     according to a senior State Department official, the 
     flights ``are not supposed to carry'' plutonium for 
     nuclear weapons and ``to the best of our knowledge do 
     not.''
       The cooperation between the two nations dates from the Cold 
     War, when for more than two decades the United States offered 
     assistance in building up a French nuclear arsenal as an 
     important adjunct to the American strategic umbrella that 
     shielded the European allies from thousands of Soviet 
     warheads aimed at the West. U.S. officials helped France 
     design some missiles that carry its warheads and to develop 
     devices meant to prevent an accidental nuclear detonation.
       The new U.S. facilities to be opened to French weapons 
     scientists include the $1 billion National Ignition Facility 
     in Livermore, Calif., which is to simulate the flow of 
     radiation in a nuclear weapons fireball by firing 132 
     lasers--each more powerful than any laser elsewhere in the 
     world--at a pellet of special nuclear material.
       They will also be able to participate in experiments at the 
     new $400 million Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic test 
     center at Los Alamos, N.M., which is meant to snap two-
     dimensional or time-sequence photographs of the inner 
     workings of mock weapons as they are detonated.
       The experiments at these two facilities will not produce 
     fission, making them nonnuclear to comply with the terms of 
     the test ban treaty. But U.S. scientists acknowledge that the 
     resulting data are applicable not only to studies of aging 
     weapons in U.S. and French stockpiles, but also to the 
     potential design of new weapons.
       A delegation of U.S. energy and defense officials was 
     dispatched to offer this access after Chirac was elected in 
     May, provided that the existence of U.S.-French nuclear 
     collaboration be made public--which it was 

[[Page H 9669]]
     in August. A similar deal had been proposed earlier to Chirac's 
     predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, but Mitterrand refused to 
     allow Washington to make any statement referring to nuclear 
     cooperation between the two nations.
       In some quarters of the French government, the deepening 
     American connection has stirred consternation. Foreign 
     Minister Herve de Charette has warned that once France 
     embraces the American simulation technology, it will 
     jeopardize its own self-sufficiency. ``If we take everything 
     off the American shelf, we will no longer be certain that our 
     nuclear program is fully under our own control,'' de Charette 
     told foreign reporters recently.
       But French scientists and Defense Ministry officials 
     believe cooperation between France and the United States is 
     so great that the claim of self-sufficiency is a charade. 
     These officials say even more American help will be needed if 
     France pursues its ambition of developing a more robust 
     nuclear force by fitting its warheads on new air-to-ground 
     rockets--something that only the United States has mastered.
       French officials also argue that the cost of thermonuclear 
     research in the post-testing era will become so enormous--at 
     a time when Western countries are striving to slash defense 
     budgets--that sharing state-of-the-art technology will become 
     an absolute necessity.
       The United States and France have not always approached the 
     issue so amicably. When Pierre Mendes-France gave the green 
     light in 1954 to develop a French atomic bomb, the United 
     States was troubled by the specter of nuclear proliferation 
     and sought to block French development of the bomb.
       French determination to build a nuclear force grew after 
     Germany was allowed to begin rearming itself and the United 
     States expedited the flow of American assistance to France to 
     cope with such complex matters as ballistic missile guidance 
     systems and multiple warhead technology. High-speed computers 
     also were supplied to the French on an exceptional basis.
       When France shifted its testing site from the Algerian 
     desert to the Mururoa atoll in the South Pacific, the 
     American connection became even more critical. U.S. weapons 
     scientists were dispatched to the site to help the French 
     learn to diagnose their test results. French scientists, 
     equipment and even nuclear bomb components were flown in DC-8 
     transport planes from Paris to the Tahitian capital of 
     Papeets across American territory, with a refueling stop in 
     Los Angeles.
       Without permission to transit American air space, French 
     officials say their country's nuclear program would have been 
     stopped dead in its tracks. But in 1987, the U.S. Congress 
     became so alarmed about the risks of French nuclear warheads 
     and other dangerous materials flying across U.S. territory 
     that it passed a law barring the flights and Paris was 
     told to find an alternative route for its bomb parts.
       After scrutinizing the map, the French realized that Panama 
     was the shortest--and least troublesome--territorial crossing 
     for such sensitive cargoes. The DC-8 planes, it was decided, 
     would make the journey by flying with nuclear materials first 
     to the French territory of Guadeloupe for a refueling stop, 
     then proceeding across the isthmus before heading out over 
     the Pacific to the final destination at Mururoa.
       In a show of gratitude for Panama's willingness to provide 
     a Central American air bridge for the French nuclear program, 
     Mitterrand in 1987 bestowed one of France's highest awards--
     the title of commander in the Legion of Honor--on the 
     notorious Panamanian dictator, Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, 
     French officials who confirmed an account of the incident 
     published in the Newspaper Le Monde say it was the first 
     time, and probably the last, that a notorious drug trafficker 
     will be given such a medal.
                                                                    ____


               [From the New York Times, Sept. 12, 1995]

                          The Arms Race Is On

                      (By Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr.)

       In only a few months, the Republican Congress has quietly 
     managed to undermine more than two decades of progress on 
     nuclear arms control. With practically no public debate, the 
     Senate included in its Pentagon authorization bill a land-
     based missile defense system that would flagrantly violate 
     the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the foundation of all 
     nuclear weapons agreements.
       Under the bill, the United States would ``develop for 
     deployment'' a ballistic missile defense by 2003. The 
     legislation calls for trying to negotiate amendments to the 
     Antiballistic Missile Treaty to allow for the system; but if 
     such talks fail, we would have to consider withdrawing from 
     the treaty.
       The system, which could ultimately cost hundreds of 
     billions of dollars, is designed to intercept only long-range 
     ballistic missiles. The cold-war thinking behind it ignores 
     the reduced threat of Russian nuclear attack. No rogue state 
     will have long-range ballistic capability anytime soon.
       The bill tacitly recognizes the limited value of an 
     antiballistic defense system, because it also calls for 
     creating new cruise missile defenses (which could be equally 
     costly) and for spending at least $50 billion more on so-
     called theater missile defense systems that would protect 
     armed forces and allies overseas.
       In addition to its huge expense, this package would all but 
     destroy the possibility of new gains in nuclear arms control, 
     starting with the as yet unratified second Strategic Arms 
     Reduction Treaty. President Boris Yeltsin of Russia has said 
     that Start II ``can be fulfilled only provided the United 
     States preserves and strictly fulfills the bilateral 
     Antiballistic Missile Treaty.''
       Besides, if we build the antiballistic missile system, 
     Russia would probably begin building its own. This bilateral 
     buildup would preclude future reductions of strategic weapons 
     below the levels called for in Start II. Faced with expanded 
     Russian defenses, Britain, China and France would not likely 
     consider reductions in their nuclear forces and might even 
     seek increases.
       The proposed system is a much less effective defense than 
     the agreements it would wipe out. Start I and II call for 
     eliminating missiles and aircraft that could deliver at least 
     7,000 nuclear warheads; the proposed antiballistic missiles 
     would be lucky to knock down a hundred such warheads in a 
     full-scale assault.
       Finally, a new American buildup would give belligerent 
     countries grounds for withdrawing from the Nuclear 
     Nonproliferation Treaty or demanding changes in it.
       The Clinton Administration deserves some blame for this 
     dangerous new turn. Last year it advocated a theater missile 
     defense system that itself undercut the Antiballistic Missile 
     Treaty.
       President Clinton can atone for this mistake by vetoing the 
     Pentagon authorization bill unless the commitment to set up 
     the antiballistic defense system is dropped when the House 
     and Senate prepare the final version this fall. If he signs 
     the bill because Congress is certain to override a veto, he 
     must make clear that he will not deploy this system or seek 
     any changes in the ABM Treaty.
       Why risk restarting the arms race at a time when America 
     has never been in less danger of a nuclear attack?

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