[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 139 (Thursday, October 14, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12628-S12631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY

  Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, there are many important Constitutional 
responsibilities of United States Senators, but none is more important 
than providing ``Advice and Consent'' for treaties with other nations. 
And among treaties, those involving control of nuclear arms, which 
continue to be the only instruments capable of threatening the physical 
survival of the United States, must top the list of our concerns.
  Since the landmark Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, every American 
president, no matter his party affiliation, has recognized the value of 
responsible and verifiable arms control agreements in making the arms 
race less dangerous and the American people more secure. And each time 
an American president has entered into negotiations, concluded a treaty 
and then sought ratification by the United States Senate, the debate in 
the Senate and in the country has been remarkably similar. For example, 
when President Kennedy announced the signing of the Limited Test Ban 
Treaty on July 16, 1963, he responded to the concerns and criticisms 
then being directed at that proposed first step in the effort to 
control nuclear weapons:

       Secret violations are possible and secret preparations for 
     a sudden withdrawal are

[[Page S12629]]

     possible, and thus our own vigilance and strength must be 
     maintained, as we remain ready to withdraw and to resume all 
     forms of testing if we must. But it would be a mistake to 
     assume that this treaty will be quickly broken. The gains of 
     illegal testing are obviously slight compared to their cost 
     and the hazard of discovery, and the nations which have 
     initialed and will sign this treaty prefer it, in my 
     judgment, to unrestricted testing as a matter of their own 
     self-interest. For these nations, too, and all nations have a 
     stake in limiting the arms race, in holding the spread of 
     nuclear weapons and in breathing air that is not radioactive. 
     While it may be theoretically possible to demonstrate the 
     risks inherent in any treaty--and such risks in this treaty 
     are small--the far greater risks to our security are the 
     risks of unrestricted testing, the risk of a nuclear arms 
     race, the risk of new nuclear powers, nuclear pollution and 
     nuclear war.

  Now, thirty-six years later, the United States Senate is being asked 
to give its advice and consent on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a 
goal first formulated in the Eisenhower Administration. The Treaty 
itself was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in September 
of 1996 by a vote of 158 to 3, and signed by President Clinton later 
that same month. As of today, 153 nations have signed the treaty, with 
47 of those formally ratifying it.
  Today, in spite of the long history of the treaty's development, in 
spite of the fact that we now have over a third of a century of 
experience in negotiating, implementing and monitoring arms control 
agreements, in spite of the long list of current and former military 
leaders have endorsed the treaty and in spite of the treaty's 
widespread support among the American people and other nations, we 
still confront the same doubts and fears that President Kennedy sought 
to address so long ago.
  While I have heard legitimate concerns voiced about certain aspects 
of the treaty, I reject the notion that the test this proposal must 
pass is one of perfection. Rather, in this world of imperfect men and 
women and laws, the test must be a less absolute one--Will the people 
of the United States, on balance, be better off if this treaty enters 
into force than if it doesn't? In other words, is it an acceptable 
risk, realizing that no possible course is risk free?
  In my opinion, this agreement appears to be very much in the best 
interests of the United States and its ratification will inhibit 
nuclear proliferation, enhance our ability to monitor and verify 
suspicious activities by other nations, assure the sufficiency of our 
existing nuclear deterrent, and inhibit a renewal of the nuclear arms 
race.
  Speaking on behalf of the unanimous view of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, General Henry Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told us on 
the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that:

       The Joint Chiefs support ratification of the CTBT with a 
     safeguards package. This treaty provides one means of dealing 
     with a very serious security challenge, and that is nuclear 
     proliferation. The CTBT will help limit the development of 
     more advanced and destructive weapons and inhibit the ability 
     of more countries to acquire nuclear weapons. In short, the 
     world will be a safer place with the Treaty than without 
     it, and it is in our national security interests to ratify 
     the CTBT Treaty.

  In other words, what the Joint Chiefs are telling us is that the 
fewer fingers on the nuclear trigger, the better.
  As reported in an October 8, 1999 New York Times article about a 
recent conference organized by the United Nations on the CTBT:

       Several delegates seemed mystified that hawkish Republicans 
     oppose the treaty. It was negotiated by a Republican 
     president, and polls show that 82 percent of Americans 
     support it. It would freeze the arms race while the United 
     States enjoys a huge lead. And instead of paying 100 percent 
     of the cost of the world's second-most-sophisticated nuclear-
     test detection system (the current American one), they said, 
     the United States would pay only 25 percent for the world's 
     most sophisticated one, with sensors deep inside Russia, 
     China, Iran and other nations where the United States is not 
     normally encouraged to gather data.

  Most of this debate has centered on questions like these, related to 
the risks of ratifying the treaty, and has been concerned about the 
verifiability of the proposal, and its impact on the credibility of the 
U.S. nuclear deterrent. These are indeed important questions, and I 
stand with the large majority of the American people, of our military 
leadership, and of our allies in concluding that, on balance, the CTBT 
is a net plus for our security.
  But when weighing the risks involved in the Senate's action on this 
treaty, we must also examine the risks involved in rejecting the 
treaty. The leaders of three of our major allies who have already 
ratified the CTBT, Great Britain, France and Germany--who also 
represent two of the world's seven recognized countries which have 
successfully tested nuclear weapons--recently sent an unprecedented 
joint communication to the United States Senate which concluded:

       Rejection of the treaty in the Senate would remove the 
     pressure from other states still hesitating about whether to 
     ratify it. Rejection would give great encouragement to 
     proliferators. Rejection would also expose a fundamental 
     divergence within NATO. The United States and its allies have 
     worked side by side for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty since 
     the days of President Eisenhower. This goal is now within our 
     grasp. Our security is involved, as well as America's. For 
     the security of the world we will leave to our children, we 
     urge the United States Senate to ratify the treaty.

  The consensus assessment of what will happen if the Senate rejects 
the treaty is that none of the other nuclear powers--Russia, China, 
India and Pakistan--will ratify the agreement while all are likely to 
do so if we ratify.
  In May of 1998, in an irresponsible show of strength, both India and 
Pakistan detonated nuclear devices to demonstrate to the world, but, 
more importantly each other, their formal initiation in the ranks of 
nuclear powers. Yesterday's disturbing news that the democratically 
elected government of Pakistan had fallen victim to a military coup 
stresses just how important the CTBT is to both the subcontinent and to 
global security. These events coupled with the recent elections in 
India which returned Prime Minister Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party 
(BJP)--the party which chose to ignite the nuclear arms race on the 
subcontinent--further underscore the need for sensibility when it comes 
to testing nuclear weapons. Both India and Pakistan have indicated 
their unwillingness to consider ending their nuclear arms race and sign 
the CTBT only if the United States has ratified the treaty. The 
national security of the United States and, in fact, the security of 
everyone on the planet, will be enhanced when countries such as India 
and Pakistan decide to stop testing nuclear weapons.
  The United States stands today as the unchallenged military 
superpower, with by far the largest, most reliable and most versatile 
nuclear arsenal, as well as the strongest conventional arsenal. Indeed, 
the trends of the last decade, where the demise of the Soviet Union has 
led to an ongoing and inexorable decline in the capacity of what had 
been the only comparable strategic nuclear force and a continuing 
``technology and investment gap'' has led to a circumstance where our 
conventional forces are vastly more capable than those of even our 
closest allies as evidenced by the recent war against Serbia, have 
placed us in the strongest relative military posture we have perhaps 
ever experienced as a Nation. As such, we are certainly more secure 
than when John F. Kennedy sought ratification of the Limited Test Ban 
Treaty in 1963, more secure than when Ronald Reagan sought approval of 
the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1988, and more secure than 
when President Bush submitted the START I Treaty for Senate 
ratification in 1992.
  While no course of human action is ever risk free, of all nations in 
the world, we have the most to gain from slowing the development of 
more capable weapons by others and the spread of nuclear weapons to 
additional countries, even if we cannot expect to prevent such 
developments altogether. In addition, the Treaty cannot enter into 
force unless and until all 44 nuclear-capable states, including China, 
India, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, have ratified it. Should any one 
of these nations refuse to accept the treaty and its conditions all 
bets are off. Finally, even if all of the required countries ratify, we 
will still have the right to unilaterally withdraw from the treaty if 
we determine that our supreme national interests have been jeopardized.
  After debating concerns about verification and the impact on our 
nuclear arsenal on September 22, 1963, the United States Senate, on a 
bipartisan

[[Page S12630]]

basis ratified the Limited Test Ban Treaty by a vote of 80 to 19. On 
October 7th of that year, President Kennedy signed the instruments of 
ratification in the Treaty Room at the White House. He said:

       In its first two decades, the Age of Nuclear Energy has 
     been full of fear, yet never empty of hope. Today the fear is 
     a little less and the hope a little greater. For the first 
     time we have been able to reach an agreement which can limit 
     the dangers of this age. The agreement itself is limited, but 
     its message of hope has been heard and understood not only by 
     the peoples of the three original nations but by the peoples 
     and governments of the hundred other countries that have 
     signed * * * What the future will bring, no one of us can 
     know. This first fruit of hope may not be followed by larger 
     harvests. Even this limited treaty, great as it is with 
     promise, can survive only if it has from others the 
     determined support in letter and in spirit which I hereby 
     pledge on behalf of the United States. If this treaty fails, 
     and it need not fail, we shall not regret that we have made 
     this clear and national commitment to the cause of man's 
     survival. For under this treaty we can and must still keep 
     our vigil in defense of freedom.

  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I oppose the Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty, (CTBT). I do so because this accord is, in my view, fatally 
flawed. While I share the almost universal goal of nuclear 
nonproliferation, it seems clear to me that this Treaty, as written, 
will weaken America's national security. I have been strongly 
influenced in my examination of this issue by the fact that this treaty 
is opposed by 6 past Secretaries of Defense, 2 past Chairmen of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, 5 past Directors of the Central Intelligence 
Agency, Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former National 
Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Ambassador to the United 
Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick and a host of other experts in the field.
  I took seriously the objection raised by these experts and public 
servants. And I have come to the conclusion that the CTBT would be 
dangerous to America, and to the American people. CTBT is not 
verifiable. It would erode our confidence in the safety and reliability 
of our own nuclear deterrent. And, perhaps most damning, it would 
utterly fail to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  Let me explain my reasoning.
  First, this treaty is not verifiable. The United States simply does 
not have the technical means to detect violations of the Treaty at this 
time. Nor are such technical means currently in development. Thus, it 
would be entirely feasible for an adversary to conduct significant 
military testing with little or no risk of detection.
  With our current capability, we could not detect, with any 
significant degree of confidence, any nuclear testing producing yields 
of less than 1 kiloton. Yet testing that is of real, military 
significance does not require a 1 kiloton yield. If we are to have 
effective verification, we must have high and rationally based 
confidence that we can detect militarily significant cheating.
  To make matter worse, potential adversaries can employ evasion 
techniques of varying complexity that would make nuclear tests with 
yields as large as 10 kilotons extremely difficult to detect and 
identify with any confidence. In addition, we should not forget that a 
country determined to develop a nuclear arsenal could do so without any 
testing whatsoever. The resulting nuclear capability might be 
unreliable. But it would be no less dangerous for that fact.
  Throughout the last several decades of test ban negotiations it has 
consistently been United States policy that our nation would not sign 
any treaty unless it were effectively verifiable. This position has 
been based on solid reasoning: any adversary that covertly tests--while 
the United States foregoes testing--could gain significant military 
advantage over us. Based on this fault alone, I would recommend against 
ratification of CTBT.
  But there are other serious flaws in this treaty that, in my view, 
dictate its rejection. Among these is the simple fact that reliability 
requires testing. Our nation's national security strategy is based on 
the policy of deterrence. CTBT will jeopardize our policy of nuclear 
deterrence by undermining the reliability of our nuclear weapons and by 
foreclosing the addition of advanced safety measures to our warheads.
  Mr. President, for deterrence to be effective, the nuclear stockpile 
must be safe and reliable. By banning testing, the CTBT would 
permanently deny the US the only proven means we have for ensuring the 
safety and reliability of our nuclear deterrent.
  The Administration is pursuing various new experimental techniques as 
part of its Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) to replace actual 
nuclear testing with sophisticated computer modeling and simulations. 
However, these new techniques are not yet proven and there is no way to 
confirm that even the best models will be able to predict, with 
adequate precision, the condition of weapons systems.
  In fact, Dr. James Schlesinger, the former Secretary of both Defense 
and Energy, has testified before the Senate that ``it will be many, 
many years before we can assess adequately the degree of success of the 
Stewardship Program and the degree to which it may mitigate the decline 
of confidence in the reliability of the stockpile.'' It would be 
irresponsible for us to bet something as critical to national security 
as the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons on unproven 
technology. We have no right to take such a leap of faith where the 
safety and very survival of the American people are involved. We must 
keep open the option of future testing.
  Finally, the CTBT will neither stop nor slow nuclear proliferation. 
As I have mentioned, nuclear testing is not a prerequisite to acquiring 
a workable arsenal. Simple nuclear weapons can be designed with high 
confidence without nuclear testing. For example, South Africa designed 
and developed nuclear weapons without testing. The CTBT will not create 
a significant or meaningful obstacle to nuclear proliferation. A nation 
that attempts to build complex nuclear weapons will encounter problems 
with reliability. But it is entirely feasible for a nation to design, 
build, and stockpile effective nuclear weapons without nuclear testing.
  CTBT, as its name implies, is simply a ban on nuclear explosions of 
any yield exceeding zero. It is not a treaty by which states which 
currently have nuclear weapons agree to give them up, reduce their 
numbers, even stop their development or agree not to give them to 
others. It simply would not provide any added safety in our dangerous 
world. Indeed, by reducing the reliability of our own nuclear deterrent 
and encouraging the secret development of nuclear weapons, it would 
significantly reduce the level of safety currently enjoyed by citizens 
of the United States, and of the world.
  I am convinced that it would be a tragic disservice to the American 
people for this body to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. I 
urge my colleagues to vote for safety by voting against this treaty.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I came across a quote from a Senate 
treaty debate, and I thought it was important to restate it for my 
colleagues. The quote reads:

       I am as anxious as any human being can be to have the 
     United States render every possible service to the 
     civilization and the peace of mankind. But I am certain that 
     we can do it best by not putting ourselves in leading 
     strings, or subjecting our policies and our sovereignty to 
     other nations.

  It struck me how familiar the passage sounded. It is similar in tone 
and substance to the remarks made during the debate on the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty these last few days. However, the quote 
is almost exactly 80 years old, because it was nearly 80 years ago 
today, that this body took its first steps towards rejecting the Treaty 
of Versailles, and preventing our entry into the League of Nations.
  The statement is from the distinguished Republican Majority Leader, 
Henry Cabot Lodge. Senator Lodge had a very real distaste for the 
President at the time. He, and a small minority of Senators used this 
treaty to send a political message to then President Wilson. The 
President had worked very hard to establish the League of Nations, he 
was very popular with the American people, and so was this treaty. 
However, through red herring arguments, and political arm twisting, 
Senator Lodge was able to block ratification. He thought he had 
embarrassed the President; he thought he had outmaneuvered the 
Democratic party; he thought he was laying the groundwork for the 
Presidential election of 1920. But Senator Lodge did not beat President 
Wilson that day, he beat America. Senator Lodge did not believe America

[[Page S12631]]

needed to lead. In his view, America could withdraw across the 
Atlantic, and the world events would take care of themselves.
  Detractors of this world view called its adherents ``little 
Americans.'' In other words, the proponents of isolation and 
withdrawal, saw the United States as a country with no particular place 
in history, and with no important place in world events. Twenty years 
later, millions around the world would pay the price for Senator 
Lodge's short-sightedness. The United States never did join the League, 
and that fact undermined its credibility from the word go. First, 
neighboring states in the western hemisphere withdrew from the League: 
Brazil, Honduras, Costa Rica and a host of others. The trend continued 
until finally Germany and Japan left the organization. Having abandoned 
our place at the table, the power vacuum was filled by other forces, in 
this case the ultra-nationalist and fascist regimes of Germany, Italy 
and Japan.
  To put that mistake into a little greater perspective, about 7 
million soldiers lost their lives in World War I. That was a shocking 
figure at the time, it was greater than the combined total of all the 
wars in Europe for the previous 100 years. However, the horrors of 
World War I, were completely overshadowed by what came next. The U.S. 
withdrew into isolation, the League of Nations failed, and World War II 
was the direct result. World War I was the worst disaster humanity had 
known in 1919, the loses in World War II were three times worse. This 
is a very high price to pay for a little presidential politics, and the 
false security of isolationism.
  Mr. President, we have an often repeated axiom in the Senate, that 
politics stops at the waters edge. The axiom is there to remind us of 
exactly the kind of mistake this body made 80 years ago. To play 
politics with international agreements is to invite disaster. The 
headlines were the same all over last night, the Senate handed the 
President a major defeat last night by rejecting the Comprehensive Test 
Ban Treaty. There is no defeating the President, he will be out of 
office in 18 months, his legacy will not rise or fall with the passage 
of this treaty. However, the members of this body can undermine 
America's standing in the world, and last night they did just that.
  As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I sat through several 
hearings, listened to testimony on the CTBT, and weighed the merits of 
the agreement. I understood the perspective of my Chairman, Senator 
Warner and others with respect to this agreement. There were legitimate 
concerns expressed by the directors of our national laboratories, there 
were serious questions about our ability to monitor this agreement, and 
I understand how reasonable minds can disagree about the merits of the 
treaty. However, what occurred last night was willful disregard for the 
leadership role that this nation plays in the world. That vote need not 
have occurred. We could have waited for a stronger consensus on the 
science of the stockpile stewardship program. Had we delayed 
consideration, we would have benefitted from the revised national 
intelligence estimate. We might also have negotiated with the Russians 
and Chinese to address some of the more difficult treaty monitoring 
questions. However, all such potential benefits of time are lost to us. 
All of this despite the fact that a clear majority of Senators would 
have preferred to delay consideration of the treaty. Sadly, I must 
conclude that the drive to bring this treaty to a vote was not a 
question of merit, it was a political exercise.
  We have numerous treaties sitting before the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee that might be brought up, and dealt with the same way. I'll 
give just one example--the Convention on the Elimination of all forms 
of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW. There are many in this body 
who oppose particular provisions of this treaty, and I am not certain 
that if we brought it to the floor, there would be sufficient votes to 
ratify it. The reason we do not bring it to the floor, is because the 
United States is not going to send a message to the world that the 
United States tacitly endorses discrimination, by actively rejecting 
this treaty. However, on something as important as nuclear 
proliferation, the majority felt compelled to do exactly that.
  Mr. President, I believe that a small group of the members of this 
body took aim at our President with last night's vote. Unfortunately, 
like Senator Lodge before them, they missed the President and hit the 
American people. President Wilson was fond of saying that American 
power, was moral power. He was right. The United States does not, and 
cannot rely on its nuclear weapons to convince the nations of the world 
to follow our example. The only real weapon that we have to combat 
nuclear proliferation is our world leadership and the power of American 
moral authority. With last night's vote, I am afraid that we 
unilaterally disarmed.

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