[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 163 (Friday, October 20, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1992]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    UNFINISHED ARMS CONTROL BUSINESS

                                 ______


                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 19, 1995

  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Cord Meyer wrote a column entitled 
``Unfinished Arms Control Business'' which appeared in the Washington 
Times on October 13, 1995. I would like to draw the attention of my 
colleagues to his thoughtful article. The text follows:

               [From the Washington Times, Oct. 13, 1995]

                    Unfinished Arms Control Business

                            (By Cord Meyer)

       Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, has taken on a 
     heavy responsibility in trying to impose on President Clinton 
     his vision of how the important aspects of foreign affairs 
     should be organized. He has used his role as chairman of the 
     Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to demand that the Arms 
     Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the Agency for 
     International Development (AID), and the U.S. Information 
     Agency (USIA) be brought back under the State Department's 
     jurisdiction and control.
       In the case of the ACDA, with its comparatively small 
     budget and specialized staff, the domineering North Carolina 
     senator has run into a solid wall of resistance within the 
     Clinton administration and within the ACDA itself to any 
     attempt to merge it with the State Department and cut off its 
     direct access to the president. To bring pressure to bear, 
     Mr. Helms has delayed in his committee the approval of any 
     action on the START II treaty and on the Chemical Weapons 
     Convention. Both these essential arms control measures are 
     being held hostage to Mr. Helms' demand that the ACDA be 
     integrated into the State Department.
       The able director of the ACDA, John D. Holum, has made a 
     persuasive case for maintaining his organization as the lead 
     agency for negotiating, implementing and verifying arms 
     control agreements. He points out that in January of this 
     year, the vice president's National Performance Review 
     reaffirmed ACDA's role as a vital agency ``whose independence 
     is essential to effective work in the area of arms control 
     and nonproliferation.''
       Moreover, the State Department's own office of Inspector 
     General conducted a thorough review of ACDA from April 3 to 
     June 9, 1995, including inspection visits to Washington, 
     Geneva, Vienna, and the Hague. It concluded that an 
     independent arms control advocacy role was vital. It cited 
     ACDA's leadership in obtaining the indefinite extension of 
     the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Also, the ACDA 
     was virtually the only agency in the U.S. Government which 
     pushed for a Chemical Weapons Convention. In the face of 
     strong opposition from the State Department, ACDA finally 
     convinced the administration not to certify Pakistan's 
     nuclear program in view of evidence of evasion.
       In a speech last month to the American Enterprise 
     Institute, Mr. Holum warned that the delay forced by Mr. 
     Helms in the ratification of START II could have the effect 
     of encouraging Russian nationalists to oppose the treaty, 
     while the delay in acting on the Chemical Weapons Convention 
     increases the danger of proliferation. Warning that this is 
     not the time to bury arms control two levels down in the 
     State Department bureaucracy, Mr. Holum pointed out that ``an 
     assistant secretary of state is not going to tell the 
     president that the secretary of state is wrong.''
       Gen. Andrew Goodpastor, who served as staff secretary to 
     Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1954-1961, remembers that 
     Eisenhower was very insistent that the responsibility for 
     overseeing arms control be vested in a separate office under 
     a single, competent individual. He was convinced that if it 
     was assigned to the State Department, it would inevitably be 
     ``submerged'' under a host of other issues. Gen. Goodpastor 
     is convinced that Eisenhower was correct in this judgment, 
     and has strongly supported Mr. Holum.
       It is only fair to add that the support for ACDA is not 
     unanimous in the foreign affairs community. There are former 
     officials who believe the State Department could do a better 
     job, but they do not have the support of Mr. Clinton and his 
     principal advisers.
       In his speech, Mr. Holum defined some important, unresolved 
     problems. He warned that some critics in the United States 
     have tried to place ``unworkable'' limits on the U.S. 
     financial contribution to the Korean nuclear problem, and he 
     advised against ``lead-footed attempts to make political 
     points at China's expense.'' He has joined Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff Chairman John Shalikashvili in urging the Senate to 
     recognize that unilateral legislation to break the ABM treaty 
     could derail START II ratification in Russia.
       Mr. Clinton has correctly described some of the measures 
     proposed by Mr. Helms as ``the most isolationist proposals to 
     come before the U.S. Congress in the last 30 years.'' There 
     are signs that the tide is turning in warnings against 
     isolationism by former President George Bush and by former 
     Secretaries of State James Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger. 
     Arms control is too important to be left half-done.

                          ____________________