[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 177 (Thursday, November 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S16916]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               ACDA DIRECTOR HOLUM GOES TRICK-OR-TREATING

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I suppose that I am supposed to be 
discouraged, or at least surprised, that the Director of the Arms 
Control and Disarmament Agency overspoke himself--again--on Halloween 
by calling me an isolationist and by falsely asserting that I am 
holding both the Chemical Weapons Convention and this country's 
national security hostage. Perhaps he was playing trick-or-treat, and 
if he had stopped by our house, Dot Helms would have placed several 
pieces of candy in his bag.
  Seriously Mr. President, I had assumed that Mr. Holum had better 
control of himself than that--but I suppose he is so concerned about 
losing his place on the Federal bureaucratic totem pole that he is 
suffering a case of nervous jitters.
  His holding hostage outburst on Halloween is ludicrous on its fact. 
The Chemical Weapons Convention was first submitted as a treaty in the 
103d Congress, and Congress refused to ratify it at that time because a 
number of questions on issues such as verification and cost had gone 
unanswered. They are still unanswered, and any reasonable prudent 
American is likely to agree that the convention's approval must wait 
until the Senate can be certain what it will cost and the degree of 
risk in premature approval of it.
  Mr. President, I also find very sad Director Holum's strange 
assertion that the effort to consolidate ACDA's functions within the 
Department of State is what he called an isolationist attack on arms 
control. That one, as the saying goes, is off the wall--and Mr. Holum 
knows it.
  The first suggestion about abolishing ACDA was proposed by the 
Clinton administration in 1993; the State Department even drafted a 
comprehensive plan to absorb ACDA personnel and funds. Unfortunately, 
that proposal by Secretary of State Christopher was debated and 
defeated--not on its merits, but by the same kind of bureaucratic 
obstructionism that has impeded S. 908, the Foreign Relations 
Revitalization Act of 1995, every step of the way.
  So it comes as little surprise, Mr. President, that the plan to 
reorganize arms control has stirred up a hornet's nest. In testimony 
before the Foreign Relations Committee, one of ACDA's previous 
Directors, Dr. Fred Ikle, endorsed the plan to abolish ACDA, but warned 
that:

       Any effort to trim, or to abolish, a bureaucratic entity 
     hurts the pride and prestige of the affected officials, 
     jeopardize job security, and mobilizes throngs of 
     contractors, captive professional organizations, and other 
     beneficiaries of the threatened agency.

  When you get right down to it, at the heart of all these 
protestations regarding the plan to eliminate ACDA are, in fact, no 
more than a host of self-serving, bureaucratic interests. While nearly 
every aspect of government is being downsized and streamlined, ACDA's 
budget request for fiscal year 1996 was increased by 44 percent over 
the 1995 fiscal year budget. Director Holum's ACDA crowd, you see, 
proposes to spend fare more of the taxpayer's money and to hire more 
people. They even tried to commandeer one of the Department of 
Defense's radar systems in Alaska.
  Mr. President, when faced with possible elimination, there's nothing 
the ACDA crowd will not do or say. It is incredible that anyone will 
try to argue, with a straight face, that arms control will suffer if 
ACDA is eliminated. Nonsense, there are today more than 3,100 arms 
control experts working in more than 25 offices scattered throughout 
the Federal Government. ACDA employs about 250 of the 3,100, only 8 
percent of the total number of arms control experts in the Federal 
Government. Even the Commerce Department has more people assigned to 
nonproliferation and arms control. Simply put, arms control is big 
business, and ACDA is small potatoes, and almost irrelevant. That 
prompted ACDA Director Holum's outburst on Halloween.
  The truth of the matter is that the State Department and the National 
Security Council are responsible for arms control policy coordination 
and negotiation, not ACDA. One of ACDA's inspectors general put it best 
a few years ago, stating that:

       Once arms control became important presidential business . 
     . . Secretaries of State and Defense and national security 
     advisers became the dominant figures in arms control.

  Implementation and verification of arms control are conducted by the 
Department of Defense and the intelligence community. Since 1989 it has 
been the on-site inspection agency, not ACDA, that had performed on-
the-ground verification for all major arms control agreements. Of all 
the personnel involved in START inspections so far, fewer than 1 
percent were supplies by ACDA. In short, abolishing ACDA will not hurt 
the conduct of this Nation's arms control one iota. It is not an 
obvious anachronism--and it is time to bid farewell.
  By incorporating ACDA's handful of experts in a new, more efficient 
State Department, Congress can give arms control a comprehensive 
purview. After all the effectiveness and desirability of arms control 
depend upon its consideration in the broader foreign policy context. 
Just as importantly, doing this will save U.S. citizens at least $250 
million over the next 10 years. Consolidation makes good business sense 
and will reduce waste, duplication, and silly bureaucratic turf 
battles.
  Finally, any plan that has been endorsed by five former Secretaries 
of State, from Henry Kissinger to James Baker, can hardly be labeled 
isolationist. Director Holum should dispense with is schoolboy name-
calling. Let the issue of consolidation be debated on its merits.

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