[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 24576-24637]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                 COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST-BAN TREATY

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution of 
ratification.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Resolved, (two-thirds of the Senators present concurring 
     therein),
       That the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of 
     the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, opened for 
     signature and signed by the United States at New York on 
     September 24, 1996, including the following annexes and 
     associated documents, all such documents being integral parts 
     of and collectively referred to in this resolution as 
     ``Treaty'', (contained in Senate Treaty Document 105-28):
       (1) Annex 1 to the Treaty entitled ``List of States 
     Pursuant to Article II, Paragraph 28'';
       (2) Annex 2 to the Treaty entitled ``List of States 
     Pursuant to Article XIV''.
       (3) Protocol to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
       (4) Annex 1 to the Protocol.
       (5) Annex 2 to the Protocol.

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me just pose one unanimous-consent 
request before we begin. To the extent that it is possible with respect 
to people in the Chamber ready to make statements, I ask unanimous 
consent that the debate on the proposition be divided in a way that 
proponents and opponents speak in opposition to each other, one 
following the other.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. It has been raised whether or not that is a good idea. As 
I understand the unanimous-consent request, it is to the extent 
possible we will try to alternate between Democrat and Republican, 
opponents and proponents. That is the same as saying, with one 
exception, for and against. I do not expect that to mean that we would 
not engage each other in colloquy and debate so we don't just have 
statement after statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. That is precisely why I framed it the way I did.
  Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object----
  Mr. KYL. It would not be appropriate to say Republican and Democrat, 
since I know Senator Specter would like to speak not in opposition.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I hope the 
Senator would not put forth any unanimous-consent request. I hope we 
would simply have an agreement among the two leaders in the Chamber 
that they will alternate back and forth. The difficulty with a 
unanimous-consent agreement is you may get a circumstance where you 
have no one on one side and three or four speakers on the other side.
  I think it is practical to manage it the way the Senator has 
suggested.
  Mr. KYL. With the understanding that Senator Biden and I just 
reached, and the Senator just articulated, I withdraw the request, and 
I assume we can proceed in that fashion.
   Mr. President, I rise today to explain why I strongly oppose the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that has been submitted to the Senate for 
its advice and consent.
  I think the words of six distinguished Americans who formerly bore 
the responsibility for safeguarding our nation's security as Secretary 
of Defense frame the issue before the Senate quite well. In a letter to 
the majority leader this week, James Schlesinger, Dick Cheney, Frank 
Carlucci, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Rumsfeld, and Melvin Laird who 
served as Secretaries of Defense in the Reagan, Bush, Ford, and Nixon 
administrations, stated:

       As the Senate weighs whether to approve the Comprehensive 
     Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), we believe Senators will be obliged 
     to focus on one dominant, inescapable result were it to be 
     ratified: over the decades ahead, confidence in the 
     reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile would inevitably 
     decline,

[[Page 24577]]

     thereby reducing the credibility of America's nuclear 
     deterrent.

  For this reason, these former Secretaries of Defense conclude that 
the CTBT is ``incompatible with the Nation's international commitments 
and vital security interests . . . Accordingly, we respectfully urge 
you and your colleagues to preserve the right of this nation to conduct 
nuclear tests necessary to the future viability of our nuclear 
deterrent by rejecting approval of the present CTBT.''
  I couldn't agree more with the considered judgment of these 
distinguished Americans who have had the awesome responsibility of 
maintaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent throughout the cold war and 
beyond.
  Before discussing some of the flaws of the CTBT and how it will 
undermine the credibility of our nuclear deterrent, a few words on the 
importance of nuclear deterrence, and the limits of arms control I 
think are in order.
  As my colleagues recall, during the cold war, the Soviet Union 
enjoyed a tremendous advantage in conventional military forces in 
Europe. The United States was able to offset this advantage in 
conventional forces, and to guarantee the security of Western Europe 
until the cold war ended peacefully, through the maintenance of a 
credible nuclear deterrent. Our nuclear ``umbrella,'' as it is called, 
was extended to our allies in other parts of the world as well.
  Since the end of the cold war, some have argued that nuclear 
deterrence is an outdated concept, and the U.S. no longer needs to 
retain a substantial nuclear weapons capability. However, deterrence is 
not a product of the cold war and has been around since the beginning 
of diplomacy and war. Over 2,500 years ago, the Chinese philosopher Sun 
Tzu wrote about the value of deterrence stating, ``To win one hundred 
victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue 
the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.''
  Furthermore, the end of the cold war does not mean national security 
threats to the United States have evaporated. James Woolsey, President 
Clinton's first Director of Central Intelligence, aptly described the 
current security environment when he said, ``We have slain a large 
dragon [the Soviet Union]. But we live now in a jungle filled with a 
bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.''
  Rogue nations like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq have weapons of mass 
destruction programs and are hostile to the United States. China is an 
emerging power whose relationship with the United States has been rocky 
at best. And Russia retains significant military capabilities, 
including over 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads.
  The gulf war is an excellent case study of the continuing importance 
of nuclear deterrence in the post-cold-war world. In that conflict, the 
maintenance of a credible nuclear weapons capability, coupled with the 
understanding that it was possible that the United States would respond 
with nuclear weapons if attacked with other weapons of mass 
destruction, saved lives by deterring such an attack.
  As my colleagues recall, Iraq possessed a large arsenal of chemical 
weapons that it had used against its Kurdish population, and against 
Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. It is widely 
acknowledged that Iraq did not use chemical weapons against the United 
States-led coalition during the gulf war because we possessed a 
credible nuclear deterrent.
  Prior to the start of the gulf war, U.S. leaders practiced the art of 
deterrence by issuing clear warnings to Saddam Hussein. Secretary of 
Defense Dick Cheney stated:

       He [Saddam Hussein] needs to be made aware that the 
     President will have available the full spectrum of 
     capabilities. And were Saddam Hussein foolish enough to use 
     weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. response would be 
     absolutely overwhelming and it would be devastating. He has 
     to take that into consideration, it seems to me, before he 
     embarks upon a course of using those kinds of capabilities.

  President Bush also sent a strongly worded message to Saddam Hussein 
which said:

       Let me state, too, that the United States will not tolerate 
     the use of chemical or biological weapons. . . . The American 
     people would demand the strongest possible response. You and 
     your country will pay a terrible price if you order 
     unconscionable acts of this sort.

  Iraqi officials have confirmed that these statements deterred Baghdad 
from using chemical and biological weapons. In 1995, Foreign Minister 
Tariq Aziz reported to Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the U.N. commission 
charged with inspecting Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities, 
that Iraq was deterred from using its arsenal of chemical and 
biological weapons because the Iraqi leadership had interpreted 
Washington's threats of devastating retaliation as meaning nuclear 
retaliation.
  Aziz's explanation is corroborated by a senior defector, General 
Wafic Al Sammarai, former head of Iraqi military intelligence, who 
stated:

       Some of the Scud missiles were loaded with chemical 
     warheads, but they were not used. We didn't use them because 
     the other side had a deterrent force. I do not think Saddam 
     was capable of taking a decision to use chemical weapons or 
     biological weapons, or any other type of weapons against the 
     allied troops, because the warning was quite severe, and 
     quite effective. The allied troops were certain to use 
     nuclear arms and the price will be too dear and too high.

  Mr. President, as these statements show, a credible nuclear deterrent 
remains vitally important to our nation. I would hope that we could 
begin this debate on the CTBT by agreeing that a strong U.S. nuclear 
deterrent remains essential and that the Senate should reject any 
actions that would undermine the credibility of this deterrent.
  To the second preliminary point, the fallacy of arms control:
  Unfortunately, the CTBT negotiated by the Clinton administration 
would do just that. This is not surprising since the Clinton 
administration has sought to protect our national security with a 
fixation on arms control that columnist Charles Krauthammer aptly calls 
``Peace through Paper.''
  Of course, arms control is not a new idea. After all, in the year 
1139, the Roman Catholic Church tried to ban the crossbow. Like so many 
other well-intentioned arms control measures, this one was doomed to 
failure from the start.
  And who can forget the Kellog-Briand treaty, ratified by the United 
States in 1929, that outlawed war as an instrument of national policy. 
This agreement and others spawned in its wake left the United States 
and Britain unprepared to fight and unable to deter World War II.
  Yet despite these and many other notable failures, the Clinton 
administration still looks to arms control as the best way to safeguard 
our security. Under Secretary of State John Holum explained this 
philosophy during a speech in 1994, stating.

       The Clinton Administration's policy aims to protect us 
     first and foremost through arms control--by working hard to 
     prevent new threats--and second, by legally pursuing the 
     development of theater defenses for those cases where arms 
     control is not yet successful.

  The administration continues to cling tenaciously to the ABM Treaty, 
which prevents us from defending ourselves against missile attack, and 
numerous other arms control measures have been proposed by senior 
officials like Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, such as bans of 
shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, laser weapons, anti-satellite 
weapons, landmines, and even a proposal to limit the availability of 
assault rifles.
  As George Will has said of the administration's arms control 
philosophy, ``The designation `superstition' fits because the faith of 
believers in arms control is more than impervious to evidence, their 
faith is strengthened even by evidence that actually refutes it.''
  There is enduring wisdom in President Reagan's statement of ``Peace 
through strength.''
  In 1780, our Nation's first President, George Washington said, 
``There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to 
meet an enemy.'' Two hundred years later another President, Ronald 
Reagan, called this doctrine ``Peace Through Strength.''
  I urge Senators to think about the enduring wisdom of these 
statements in the coming days as we debate the

[[Page 24578]]

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the negative effects its ratification 
would have on our Nation's security.
  Let me turn now to a discussion of the CTBT's many flaws.
  America's nuclear weapons are the most sophisticated in the world. 
This was the point of the letter of the former Secretaries of Defense. 
They pointed out that each one typically has thousands of parts, and 
over time in nuclear materials and high-explosive triggers in our 
weapons deteriorate, and we lack the experience predicting the effect 
of these changes.
  Some of the materials used in our weapons, like plutonium, enriched 
uranium, and tritium, are radioactive materials that decay, and as they 
decay they also change the properties of other materials within the 
weapon. We lack experience predicting the effects of such aging on the 
safety and reliability of our weapons.
  We did not design our weapons to last forever. The shelf life of our 
weapons was expected to be about 20 years. In the past, we did not 
encounter problems with aging weapons, because we were fielding new 
designs and older designs were retired. But under the CTBT, we could 
not field new designs to replace older weapons, because testing would 
be required to develop new designs.
  Remanufacturing components of existing weapons that have deteriorated 
also poses significant problems. Over time, manufacturing processes 
will change, some chemicals previously used in the production of our 
weapons have been banned by environmental regulations, and our 
documentation of the technical characteristics of older weapons, in 
some cases, is incomplete. Furthermore, as James Schlesinger--who 
formerly served as Secretary of defense and Secretary of Energy--has 
testified to the Senate, the plutonium pits in some of our weapons are 
approaching the end of this life-span. According to Dr. Schlesinger, 
one of our national laboratories estimates the pits used in some of our 
weapons will last 35 years. Since many of the pits used in the current 
arsenal are about 30 years old, this means that we will soon need to 
replace these pits. But without testing, we will never know if these 
replacement parts will work as their predecessors did.
  As the former Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 
Dr. John Nuckolls said last month in a letter to me:

       Key components of nuclear warheads are ``aging'' by 
     radioactive decay and chemical decomposition and corrosion. 
     Periodic remanufacture is necessary, but may copy existing 
     defects and introduce additional defects. Some of the 
     remanufactured parts may differ significantly from the 
     original parts--due to loss of nuclear test validated 
     personnel who manufactured the original parts, the use of new 
     material and fabrication processes, and inadequate 
     specification of original parts. There are significant risks 
     of reducing stockpile reliability when remanufactured parts 
     are involved in warhead processes where there are major gaps 
     in our scientific understanding.

  The fact is that, despite our technical expertise, there is much we 
still do not understand about our own nuclear weapons. As C. Paul 
Robinson, Director of the Sandia National Laboratory has aid, ``some 
aspects of nuclear explosive design are still not understood at the 
level of physical principles.''
  These gaps in our knowledge do not merely present a theoretical 
problem. As President Bush noted in a report to Congress in January 
1993, ``Of all U.S. nuclear weapons designs fielded since 1958, 
approximately one-third have required nuclear testing to resolve 
problems arising after deployment.''
  Furthermore, in 1987, Lawrence Livermore Lab produced a report titled 
``Report to Congress on Stockpile Reliability, Weapon Remanufacture, 
and the Role of Nuclear Testing'' in which it extolled the importance 
of testing, noting that ``. . . there is no such thing as a `thoroughly 
tested' nuclear weapon.'' The report also goes on to state that of the 
one-third of weapons designs introduced into the stockpile since 1958 
that have required testing to fix, ``In three-fourths of these cases, 
the problems were discovered only because of the ongoing nuclear 
testing.'' This report went on to say that ``Because we frequently have 
difficulty understanding fully the effects of changes particularly 
seemingly small changes on the nuclear performance, nuclear testing has 
been required to maintain the proper functioning of our nation's 
deterrent.''
  Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger summed this point up nicely in 
1986 when he said:

       The irreducible fact is that nuclear testing is essential 
     to providing for the safety and security of our warheads and 
     weapons systems. It also is essential if we are to maintain 
     their reliability. This is not a matter of conjecture, but a 
     lesson learned through hard experience. For example, in the 
     case of one nuclear system--the warhead for the Polaris 
     [SLBM]--testing allowed us to fix defects that were suddenly 
     discovered. Until corrected, these defects could have 
     rendered the vast majority of weapons in our sea-based 
     deterrent completely inoperable.

  The importance of testing to the maintenance of any complex weapon or 
machine cannot be underestimated. As the six former Secretaries of 
Defense noted in this letter opposing the CTBT,

       The history of maintaining complex military hardware 
     without testing demonstrates the pitfalls of such an 
     approach. Prior to World War II, the Navy's torpedoes had not 
     been adequately tested because of insufficient funds. It took 
     nearly two years of war before we fully solved the problems 
     that caused our torpedoes to routinely pass harmlessly under 
     the target or to fail to explode on contact. For example, at 
     the Battle of Midway, the U.S. launched 47 torpedo aircraft, 
     without damaging a single Japanese ship. If not for our dive 
     bombers, the U.S. would have lost the crucial naval battle of 
     the Pacific war.

  The Clinton administration has proposed a program that it hopes will 
replace actual nuclear tests with computer simulations and a much 
greater emphasis on science-based experiments. It is called the 
Stockpile Stewardship Program. According to the Fiscal Year 2000 
Stockpile Stewardship Plan Executive Overview, released by the 
Department of Energy in March this year:

       The overall goal of the Stockpile Stewardship program is to 
     have in place by 2010 . . . the capabilities that are 
     necessary to provide continuing high confidence in the annual 
     certification of the stockpile without the necessity for 
     nuclear testing.

  I support the Stockpile Stewardship Program because it will improve 
our knowledge about our nuclear weapons. But as former Secretary of 
State Henry Kissinger, former National Security Advisor Brent 
Scowcroft, and former CIA Director John Deutch said in a letter this 
week, ``the fact is that the scientific case simply has not been made 
that, over the long term, the United States can ensure the nuclear 
stockpile without nuclear testing.''
  First, the Stockpile Stewardship Program faces tremendous technical 
challenges. As the Director of Sandia National Laboratories, Dr. 
Robinson has said, ``the commercially available and laboratory 
technologies of today are inadequate for the stockpile stewardship 
tasks we will face in the future. Another hundred-to-thousand-fold 
increase in capability from hardware and software combined will be 
required.''
  Dr. Victor Reis, the architect of the stewardship program, said this 
about it during a speech in Albuquerque:

       Think about it--we are asked to maintain forever, an 
     incredibly complex device, no larger than this podium, filed 
     with exotic, radioactive materials, that must create, albeit 
     briefly, temperatures and pressures only seen in nature at 
     the center of stars; do it without an integrating nuclear 
     test, and without any reduction in extraordinarily high 
     standards of safety and reliability. And, while you're at it 
     downsize the industrial complex that supports this enterprise 
     by a factor of two, and stand up critical new manufacturing 
     processes.
       This within an industrial system that was structured to 
     turn over new designs every fifteen years, and for which 
     nuclear explosive testing was the major tool for 
     demonstrating success.

  Senior officials at the Department of Energy and our nuclear labs are 
generally careful in how they couch their remarks about the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program. They typically state that the stewardship program 
is the best approach to maintaining our weapons in the absence of 
testing. But they are also careful not to guarantee that, despite the 
unquestioned brilliance of the scientists, the Stockpile Stewardship 
Program will succeed in replacing testing.

[[Page 24579]]

  In fact, the Stockpile Stewardship Program has already experienced 
setbacks. For example, the National Ignition Facility, which is the 
linchpin of the program, has recently fallen behind schedule and is 
over budget. It still faces a critical technical uncertainty about a 
major goal of its design: will it be able to achieve thermonuclear 
ignition?
  Another problem with relying on computer simulation to replace 
testing is the increased risk of espionage. Former Lawrence Livermore 
National Lab Director John Nuckolls made this point in his letter to me 
as well: ``Espionage is facilitated when U.S. progress is frozen, and 
classified information is being concentrated and organized in 
electronic systems.'' In short, in order to achieve the vast increases 
in computing power required for the stewardship program, much of the 
computer code required for the program will be written by hundreds of 
people at participating universities and colleges--in many cases by 
people who are not even American citizens.
  Mr. President, the bottom line is that a credible nuclear deterrent 
is just too important to put all our eggs in the stewardship basket.
  In addition to impairing the reliability of our nuclear arsenal, the 
CTBT will prevent us from making our nuclear weapons as safe as they 
can be. This is extraordinarily important.
  Nuclear weapon safety has always been a paramount concern of the 
United States. Throughout the history of our nuclear weapons program, 
we have made every effort to ensure that even in the most violent of 
accidents there would be the minimum chance of a nuclear explosion or 
radioactive contamination. The results of such an accident would be 
catastrophic.
  That's why President Clinton's Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, 
opposed a test moratorium when he was a Senator. During debate on an 
amendment imposing a moratorium on testing, August 3, 1993, then-
Senator Cohen said,

       A vote to halt nuclear testing today is a vote to condemn 
     the American people to live with unsafe nuclear weapons in 
     their midst for years and years--indeed until nuclear weapons 
     are eliminated. Not just a few unsafe nuclear weapons, but a 
     nuclear stockpile in which most of the weapons do not have 
     critical safety features.

  I digress a moment to note when he was asked about this statement 
this week, now-Secretary Cohen said, we have replaced those weapons 
with weapons in our inventory now that are safe.
  I know defense Secretary Cohen would agree, that is not a correct 
statement. All of the weapons in our current inventory lack one or more 
of the essential safety features that we have been talking about here.
  As the Director of Los Alamos National Lab, Dr. Sig Hecker, indicated 
in a letter to me in 1997, ``with a CTBT it will not be possible to 
make some of the potential safety improvements for greater intrinsic 
warhead safety that we considered during the 1990 time frame.'' The 
reason is that nuclear tests must be done in many cases to confirm that 
once new safety features are incorporated, the weapons are reliable and 
still operate as intended. The CTBT makes it pointless to try to invent 
new, improved safety features because they could not be adopted without 
nuclear testing. Even worse, the CTBT eliminates the possibility of 
improving the safety of current weapons through the incorporation of 
existing, well understood safety features.
  Safety features include items such as insensitive high explosive and 
fire resistant pits. Insensitive high explosive in the primary of a 
nuclear weapon is intended to prevent the premature detonation of the 
high explosive trigger, resulting in a potential nuclear explosion 
should the weapon be subjected to unexpected stress, like being dropped 
or penetrated by shrapnel or a bullet. Fire resistant pits are intended 
to prevent the dispersal of plutonium resulting in radioactive 
contamination of an area should the weapon be exposed to a fire, such 
as an accidental blaze during loading of a weapon on an aircraft.
  Unfortunately, few people know that many of our current weapons do 
not contain all the safety features that already have been invented by 
our National Laboratories. Only one of the nine weapons in the current 
stockpile incorporates all six available safety features. In fact, 
three of the weapons in the stockpile--the W78 warhead, which is used 
on the Minuteman III ICBM, and the W76 and W88 warheads, which sit atop 
missiles carried aboard Trident submarines--incorporate only one of the 
six safety features. Another weapon, the W62 warhead, does not have any 
of the six safety features incorporated into its design.
  The bottom line is that a ban on nuclear testing prevents us from 
making our weapons as safe as we know how to make them and creates a 
disincentive to making such safety improvements.
  Mr. President, another point I think is extraordinarily important as 
we debate this CTBT is that the purpose of the treaty cannot be 
achieved by its ratification. In addition to undermining our nuclear 
deterrent, as I have just spoken to, the treaty will not achieve its 
goal of halting nuclear proliferation.
  Supporters of the treaty say the United States must lead by example, 
and that by halting nuclear tests ourselves, we will persuade others to 
follow our example. Yet the history of the last eight years shows this 
theory is false. Since the United States halted testing in 1992, India, 
Pakistan, Russia, China, and France have all conducted tests.
  Furthermore, the CTBT will not establish a new international norm 
against nuclear weapons testing or possession. The Nuclear 
Nonproliferation Treaty, the NPT ratified by 185 countries has already 
established such a norm. The NPT calls for parties to the treaty, other 
than the five declared nuclear powers--the United States, the United 
Kingdom, Russia, China, and France--to pledge not to pursue nuclear 
weapons programs.
  Yet North Korea and Iraq, to name two who are parties to the NPT, 
have, of course, violated it. They have pursued nuclear weapons 
programs despite their solemn international pledge never to do so. The 
CTBT will not add anything useful to the international nonproliferation 
regime since these nations, in effect, would be pledging not to test 
the nuclear weapons they have already promised never to have under the 
NPT. So much for the international norm.
  Nor will the CTBT pose a significant impediment to the acquisition of 
nuclear weapons by rogue nations since, although nuclear testing is 
essential to maintaining the sophisticated nuclear weapons in the U.S. 
arsenal today, it is not required to develop relatively simple first-
generation nuclear devices, like those needed or being developed by 
Iran and Iraq. For example, the United States bomb dropped on Hiroshima 
was never tested, and the Israeli nuclear arsenal has been constructed 
without testing.
  Incidentally, the Clinton administration does not dispute this point. 
In Senate testimony in 1997, CIA Director George Tenet stated:

       Nuclear testing is not required for the acquisition of a 
     basic nuclear weapons capability (i.e. a bulky, first-
     generation device with high reliability but low efficiency.) 
     Tests using high-explosive detonations only ([with] no 
     nuclear yield) would provide reasonable confidence in the 
     performance of a first generation device. Nuclear testing 
     becomes critical only when a program moves beyond basic 
     designs to incorporate more advanced concepts.

  I believe Director Tenet is absolutely correct, based on the letter 
of the Secretary of Defense that I quoted earlier. We can't afford to 
underestimate the weapon described by Director Tenet--a ``bulky, first 
generation device with high reliability but low efficiency'' is a lot 
like the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima to change world history. It is a 
strategic weapon--if North Korea or Iran were able to deploy such a 
weapon, they could--to put it mildly--severely reduce our ability to 
protect our interests in East Asia or the Persian Gulf. These are 
weapons that would be designed to intimidate and kill large numbers of 
people in cities, not destroy purely military targets, as the United 
States weapons are designed to do.
  Another problem with the CTBT is that it is totally unverifiable. It 
cannot be verified despite the vast array of expensive sensors and 
detection technology being established under the

[[Page 24580]]

treaty, so it will be possible for other nations to conduct militarily 
significant nuclear testing with little or no risk of detection. 
Effective verification requires high confidence that militarily 
significant cheating will be detected in a timely manner. The United 
States cannot now, and will not in the near future, be able to 
confidently detect and identify militarily significant nuclear tests of 
one kiloton or less by the way, that is roughly 500 times larger than 
the blast which destroyed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. We 
cannot detect a test of that magnitude.
  What is ``militarily significant'' nuclear testing? Definitions of 
the term might vary, but I think we'd all agree that any nuclear test 
that gives a nation information to maintain its weapons or to develop 
newer, more effective weaponry is militarily significant.
  In the course of U.S. weapons development, nuclear tests with yields 
between 1 kiloton and 10 kilotons have generally been large enough to 
provide ``proof'' data on new weapons designs. Other nations might have 
weaponry that could be assessed at even lower yields. As we know, crude 
but strategically significant weapons, like the bomb we dropped on 
Hiroshima, don't need to be tested at all. But for the sake of 
argument, let's be conservative and assume that other nations would 
also need to conduct tests at a level above 1 kiloton to develop a new 
nuclear weapon design.
  The verification system of the CTBT is supposed to detect nuclear 
blasts above 1 kiloton, so it would seem at first glance that it will 
be likely that most cheaters would be caught. But look at the Treaty's 
fine print--the CTBT's International Monitoring System will be able to 
detect tests of 1 kilotons or more if they are nonevasive. This means 
that the cheater will be caught only if he does not try to hide his 
nuclear test.
  But what if he does want to hide it? What if he conducts his test 
evasively?
  It is a very simple task for Russia, China, or others to hide their 
nuclear tests. One of the best known means of evasion is detonating the 
nuclear device in a cavity such as a salt dome or a room mined below 
ground. Because it surrounds the explosion with empty space, this 
technique--called decoupling--reduces the noise, or the seismic signal, 
of the nuclear detonation.
  The signal of a decoupled test is so diminished--by as much as a 
factor of 70--that it will not be possible to reliably detect it. For 
example, a 1,000-ton hidden test would have a signal of a 14-ton open 
test. This puts the signal of the illicit test well below the threshold 
of detection.
  Decoupling is a well-known technique and is technologically simple to 
achieve. In fact, it is quite possible that Russia and China have 
continued to conduct nuclear testing during the past 7 years, while the 
United States has refrained from doing so. They could have done so by 
decoupling.
  There are also other means of cheating that can circumvent 
verification. One is open-ocean testing. A nation could put a device on 
a small boat or barge, tow it into the ocean, and detonate it 
anonymously. It would be virtually impossible to link the test to the 
cheater.
  While evasive techniques are expensive and complex, the costs are 
relatively low compared to the expense of a nuclear weapons program, 
and no more complicated than weapons design. Further, established 
nuclear powers are well positioned to conduct clandestine testing to 
assure the reliability and undertake at least modest upgrades of their 
arsenals. Russia and China do not have good records on compliance with 
arms control and nonproliferation commitments. In addition, according 
to the Washington Times, United States intelligence agencies believe 
China conducted a small underground nuclear test in June and Russia is 
believed to have conducted a nuclear test earlier this month. While 
neither country has ratified the CTBT, both have signed the treaty and 
have promised to adhere to a testing moratorium. Again, so much for the 
norm.
  The bottom line is that a determined country has several means to 
conceal its weapons tests and the CTBT is not effectively verifiable.
  Let me stress here that my assessment is not based on opinions. Our 
inability to verify a whole range of nuclear testing is well-known and 
has been affirmed by the U.S. Intelligence Community. As the Washington 
Post reported earlier this week, our intelligence agencies lack the 
ability to confidently detect low-yield tests. We would be 
irresponsible in the extreme to ratify an unverifiable arms control 
treaty--especially when that treaty will inevitably reduce our 
confidence in our own nuclear deterrent.
  President Clinton's first Director of the Central Intelligence 
Agency, James Woolsey, summed up the problems with verification of the 
treaty stating in Senate testimony that,

       I believe that a zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 
     is extraordinarily difficult, to the point of near 
     impossibility--and possibly to the point of impossibility--to 
     verify from afar.

  In addition to the negative consequences that would result from 
treaty ratification, I would also point out that this accord is very 
poorly crafted. The CTBT is weakest at its very foundation--it actually 
fails to say what it bans. Nowhere in its 17 articles and 2 annexes are 
the terms ``nuclear weapon test explosion'' or ``nuclear explosion'' 
defined or quantified and these are the terms used in the treaty's 
basic obligations.
  Acting Under Secretary of State John Holum admitted this point in 
responses to questions for the record on June 29 of this year stating:

       The U.S. decided at the outset of negotiations not to seek 
     international agreement on a definition of ``nuclear weapon 
     test explosion'' in the Treaty text. The course of 
     negotiations confirmed our judgment that it would have been 
     extremely difficult, and possibly counterproductive, to 
     specify in technical terms what is prohibited by the Treaty.

  May I read that again:

       The course of negotiations confirmed our judgment that it 
     would have been extremely difficult, and possibly 
     counterproductive, to specify in technical terms what is 
     prohibited by the Treaty.

  But another nation might choose to apply a less restrictive 
definition and conduct very low-yield testing, what we call 
hydronuclear testing. While the United States interprets the treaty to 
ban all nuclear explosives testing--that is why they call it a zero ban 
test--other nations could conduct very low-yield testing, as I said, 
which we could not verify but which they would consider in compliance 
with the treaty. This so-called hydronuclear testing is very useful to 
nuclear weapons programs by helping improve the understanding of 
fundamental nuclear weapons physics, develop new weapons concepts, 
ascertain existing weapons' reliability, and exercise the skills of 
scientists, engineers, and technicians. The nuclear energy released in 
a hydronuclear test can be less than the equivalent released by four 
pounds of conventional high explosives. This is virtually nothing, and 
such a low-yield test would almost certainly escape detection.
  This is where the treaty's vagueness is actually harmful to our 
interests. Even if we were able to detect it, the nation conducting a 
hydronuclear test could simply argue that it was legal under the 
treaty. And they would have the historical CTBT negotiating record on 
their side. Many drafts of the CTBT prior to the Clinton administration 
allowed for low-yield ``permitted experiments.''
  The verification regime of the CTBT--centered around the 
International Monitoring System, or IMS--will not be able to detect 
tests with far greater yields than hydronuclear tests. These tests can 
be conducted with virtually no risk of detection by either the IMS 
system or U.S. technical means.
  There is much more to say about this treaty, but I believe I have 
outlined the primary reasons why the only prudent course for the Senate 
is to reject the CTBT. It will jeopardize rather than enhance our 
national security. It will undermine our vital nuclear deterrent by 
jeopardizing the reliability of our nuclear stockpile. It will prevent 
us from making our weapons as safe as they can be. It will not stop 
nuclear

[[Page 24581]]

proliferation, and it is not verifiable. It is not worthy of Senate 
approval.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am anxious to respond point by point to 
my friend. I suggest, to believe his arguments, as the old saying goes, 
requires the suspension of disbelief. I find them to be well intended 
but half true. I will be very specific about each one of them, 
beginning with this notion of the value of deterrence.
  I find it fascinating, my colleagues talk about these other nations 
can have a Hiroshima-type bomb and build without testing and that would 
radically affect our security; yet we cannot rely in the future on our 
certainty of 6,000 sophisticated nuclear weapons in the stockpile. I 
urge my friends to read today's New York Times and Washington Post 
where our allies are apoplectic about the fact my colleagues are going 
to reject this treaty.
  The absolute notion that this idea is--don't let them kid you about 
this debate, folks, anybody watching this. You do not have to be a 
nuclear scientist to understand. You do not have to be a sophisticated 
foreign policy specialist to grasp what is at stake.
  Think of it this way when they tell you the security of our nuclear 
stockpile is going to become so unreliable over time, that, as Dr. 
Schlesinger has said and my friend from Arizona has alluded, our 
enemies are going to know we do not have confidence in it and that is 
going to embolden them, and our allies such as Germany and Japan are 
going to go nuclear because they cannot count on us.
  That is fascinating. Why did all of our allies sign and ratify this 
treaty? Why are they apoplectic about the prospect that we will not 
sign this treaty? I ask my colleagues when is the last time they can 
remember the Prime Minister of Great Britain or the President of France 
saying publicly: My Lord, I hope the Senate doesn't do that.
  You cannot have it both ways. This is an argument that I find 
absolutely preposterous. Although one can technically make it, it does 
require the suspension of disbelief in order to arrive at that 
conclusion.
  One has to be an incredible pessimist to conclude that the 6,000 
nuclear weapons configured in nine different warheads are going to 
atrophy after spending $45 billion over the next 10 years, and after 
having been able to certify without testing for the last 3 years that 
it is in good shape, that some nation is going to say: We got them now, 
guys; I know they don't believe their system is adequate; maybe one of 
those bombs won't go off, maybe 10 of them, maybe 100 of them, maybe 
1,000 of them, maybe 3,000 of them.
  We still have 3,000 left. Back when the Senator from Nebraska and I 
were kids and Vietnam was kicking up, we used to see bumper stickers: 
One atom bomb can ruin your day.
  I am going to go into great detail on every point my friend raised 
and talk about, for example, the idea we cannot modernize these weapons 
when we find a defect; we cannot deal with them without testing.
  Dr. Garwin yesterday--one of the most brilliant scientists we have 
had, who has been involved in this program since 1950--says, you can 
replace the whole physics package without changing.
  By the way, I am going to yield to my friend from Pennsylvania.
  Names are mentioned here: Dr. Robinson, of Sandia; Victor Reis, the 
architect of the program, whom I spent 2\1/2\ hours with the other day. 
They do not tell you the end of the sentence. The end of the sentence 
is: They both are for this treaty. They both are for this treaty, along 
with 32 Nobel laureates in physics. I ask unanimous consent that the 
list be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 A Letter From Physics Nobel Laureates

     To Senators of the 106th Congress:
       We urge you to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
       The United States signed and ratified the Limited Test Ban 
     Treaty in 1963. In the years since, the nation has played a 
     leadership role in actions to reduce nuclear risks, including 
     the Non-Proliferation Treaty extension, the ABM Treaty, 
     STARTs I and II, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 
     negotiations. Fully informed technical studies have concluded 
     that continued nuclear testing is not required to retain 
     confidence in the safety, reliability and performance of 
     nuclear weapons in the United States' stockpile, provided 
     science and technology programs necessary for stockpile 
     stewardship are maintained.
       The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is central to future 
     efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Ratification 
     of the Treaty will mark an important advance in uniting the 
     world in an effort to contain and reduce the dangers of 
     nuclear arms. It is imperative that the CTBT be ratified.

         Philip W. Anderson, Princeton University, 1977 Nobel 
           Prize; Hans A. Bethe, Cornell University, 1967 Nobel 
           Prize; Nicolaas Bloembergen, Harvard University 1981 
           Nobel Prize; Owen Chamberlain, UC, Berkeley, 1959 Nobel 
           Prize; Steven Chu, Stanford University, 1997 Nobel 
           Prize; Leon N. Cooper, Brown University, 1972 Nobel 
           Prize; Hans Dehmelt, University of Washington, 1989 
           Nobel Prize; Bal L. Fitch, Princeton Unversity, 1980 
           Nobel Prize; Jerome Friedman, MIT, 1990 Nobel Prize; 
           Donald A. Glaser, UC, Berkeley, 1960 Nobel Prize; 
           Sheldon Glashow, Harvard University, 1979 Nobel Prize; 
           Henry W. Kendall, MIT, 1990 Nobel Prize; Leon M. 
           Lederman, Illinois Institute of Technology, 1988 Nobel 
           Prize; David M. Lee, Cornell University, 1996 Nobel 
           Prize; T.D. Lee, Columbia University, 1957 Nobel Prize; 
           Douglas D. Osheroff, Stanford University 1996 Nobel 
           Prize;
         Arno Penzias, Bell Labs, 1978 Nobel Prize; Martin L. 
           Perl, Stanford University, 1995 Nobel Prize; William 
           Phillips, Gaithersburg, 1997 Nobel Prize; Norman F. 
           Ramsey, Harvard, 1989 Nobel Prize; Robert C. 
           Richardson, Cornell University, 1996 Nobel Prize; 
           Burton Richter, Stanford University, 1976 Nobel Prize; 
           Arthur L. Schawlow, Stanford University, 1981 Nobel 
           Prize; J. Robert Schrieffer, Florida State University, 
           1972 Nobel Prize; Mel Schwartz, Columbia University, 
           1988 Nobel Prize; Clifford G. Shull, MIT, 1994 Nobel 
           Prize; Joseph H. Taylor, Jr., Princeton University, 
           1993 Nobel Prize; Daniel C. Tsui, Princeton, 1998 Nobel 
           Prize; Charles Townes, UC, Berkeley, 1964 Nobel Prize; 
           Steven Weinberg, Univ. of Texas, Austin, 1979 Nobel 
           Prize; Robert W. Wilson, Harvard-Smithsonian, 1978 
           Nobel Prize; Kenneth G. Wilson, Ohio State University, 
           1982 Nobel Prize.

  Mr. BIDEN. Five of the last six Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
are for this treaty, along with people such as Paul Nitze of the Reagan 
administration, Stansfield Turner, Charles Curtis, and so on. I ask 
unanimous consent that a list of those in support of the treaty be 
printed in the Record
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

    Prominent Individuals and National Groups in Support of the CTBT


   current chairman and former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff

       General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff.
       General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint 
     Chiefs of Staff.
       General Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
     of Staff.
       General David Jones, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff.
       Admiral William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
     of Staff.


                       former members of congress

       Senator John C. Danforth.
       Senator J. James Exon.
       Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker.
       Senator Mark O. Hatfield.
       Senator John Glenn.
       Representative Bill Green.
       Representative Thomas J. Downey.
       Representative Michael J. Kopetski.
       Representative Anthony C. Beilenson.
       Representative Lee H. Hamilton.


              directors of the three national laboratories

       Dr. John Browne, Director of Los Alamos National 
     Laboratory.
       Dr. Paul Robinson, Director of Sandia National Laboratory.
       Dr. Bruce Tarter, Director of Lawrence Livermore National 
     Laboratory.


              other prominent national security officials

       Ambassador Paul H. Nitze, arms control negotiator, Reagan 
     Administration.
       Admiral Stansfield Turner, former Director of the Central 
     Intelligence Agency.
       Charles Curtis, former Deputy Secretary of Energy.


                   other prominent military officers

       General Eugene Habiger, former Commander-in-Chief of 
     Strategic Command.
       General John R. Galvin, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.
       Admiral Noel Gayler, former Commander, Pacific.

[[Page 24582]]

       General Charles A. Horner, Commander, Coalition Air Forces, 
     Desert Storm, former Commander, U.S. Space Command.
       General Andrew O'Meara, former Commander U.S. Army Europe.
       General Bernard W. Rogers, former Chief of Staff, U.S. 
     Army; former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.
       General William Y. Smith, former Deputy Commander, U.S. 
     Command, Europe.
       Lt. General Julius Becton.
       Lt. General John H. Cushman, former Commander, I Corps 
     (ROK/US) Group (Korea).
       Lt. General Robert E. Pursley.
       Vice Admiral William L. Read, former Commander, U.S. Navy 
     Surface Force, Atlantic Command.
       Vice Admiral John J. Shanahan, former Director, Center for 
     Defense Information.
       Lt. General George M. Seignious, II, former Director Arms 
     Control and Disarmament Agency.
       Vice Admiral James B. Wilson, former Polaris Submarine 
     Captain.
       Maj. General William F. Burns, JCS Representative, INF 
     Negotiations, Special Envoy to Russia for Nuclear 
     Dismantlement.
       Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll, Jr., Deputy Director, 
     Center for Defense Information.
       Rear Admiral Robert G. James.


                        other scientific experts

       Dr. Hans Bethe, Nobel Laureate, Emeritus Professor of 
     Physics, Cornell University; Head of the Manhattan Project's 
     theoretical division.
       Dr. Freeman Dyson, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute 
     for Advanced Study, Princeton University.
       Dr. Richard Garwin, Senior Fellow for Science and 
     Technology, Council on Foreign Relations; consultant to 
     Sandia National Laboratory, former consultant to Los Alamos 
     National Laboratory.
       Dr. Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky, Director Emeritus, Stanford 
     Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University.
       Dr. Jeremiah D. Sullivan, Professor of Physics, University 
     of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
       Dr. Herbert York, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University 
     of California, San Diego; founding director of Lawrence 
     Livermore National Laboratory; former Director of Defense 
     Research and Engineering, Department of Defense.
       Dr. Sidney D. Drell, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 
     Stanford University.


                  Medical and Scientific Organizations

       American Association for the Advancement of Science.
       American Medical Students Association/Foundation.
       American Physical Society.
       American Public Health Association.
       American Medical Association.


                         Public Interest Groups

       20/20 Vision National Project.
       Alliance for Nuclear Accountability.
       Alliance for Survival.
       Americans for Democratic Action
       Arms Control Association.
       British American Security Information Council.
       Business Executives for National Security.
       Campaign for America's Future.
       Campaign for U.N. Reform.
       Center for Defense Information.
       Center for War/Peace Studies (New York, NY).
       Council for a Livable World.
       Council for a Livable World Education Fund.
       Council on Economic Priorities.
       Defenders of Wildlife.
       Demilitarization for Democracy.
       Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (ECAAR).
       Environmental Defense Fund.
       Environmental Working Group.
       Federation of American Scientists.
       Fourth Freedom Forum.
       Friends of the Earth.
       Fund for New Priorities in America.
       Fund for Peace.
       Global Greens, USA.
       Global Resource Action Center for the Environment.
       Greenpeace, USA.
       The Henry L. Stimson Center.
       Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (Saugus, MA).
       Institute for Science and International Security.
       International Association of Educators for World Peace 
     (Huntsville, AL).
       International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
       International Center.
       Izaak Walton League of America.
       Lawyers Alliance for World Security.
       League of Women Voters of the United States.
       Manhattan Project II.
       Maryknoll Justice and Peace Office.
       National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans 
     (NECONA).
       National Environmental Trust.
       National Commission for Economic Conversion and 
     Disarmament.
       Natural Resources Defense Council.
       Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
       Nuclear Control Institute.
       Nuclear Information & Resource Service.
       OMB Watch.
       Parliamentarians for Global Action.
       Peace Action.
       Peace Action Education Fund.
       Peace Links.
       PeacePAC.
       Physicians for Social Responsibility.
       Plutonium Challenge.
       Popualtion Action Institute.
       Population action International.
       Psychologists for Social Responsibility.
       Public Citizen.
       Public Education Center.
       Safeworld.
       Sierra Club.
       Union of Concerned Scientists.
       United States Servas, Inc..
       Veterans for Peace.
       Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.
       Volunteers for Peace, Inc.
       War and Peace Foundation.
       War Resistors League.
       Women Strike for Peace.
       Women's Action for New Directions.
       Women's Legislators Lobby of WAND.
       Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
       World Federalist Association.
       Zero Population Growth.


                            Religious Groups

       African Methodist Episcopal Church.
       American Baptist Churches, USA.
       American Baptist Churches, USA, National Ministries.
       American Friends Service Committee.
       American Jewish Congress.
       American Muslim Council.
       Associate General Secretary for Public Policy, National 
     Council of Churches.
       Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men's Institutes.
       Church Women United.
       Coalition for Peace and Justice.
       Columbian Fathers' Justice and Peace Office.
       Commission for Women, Evangelical Lutheran Church in 
     America.
       Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans.
       Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States 
     and Canada.
       Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
       Church of the Brethren, General Board.
       Division of Church in Society, Evangelical Lutheran Church 
     in America.
       Division for Congressional Ministries, Evangelical Lutheran 
     Church in America.
       Eastern Archdiocese, Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch.
       The Episcopal Church.
       Episcopal Peace Fellowship, National Executive Council.
       Evangelicals for Social Action.
       Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
       Fellowship of Reconciliation.
       Friends Committee on National Legislation.
       Friends United Meeting.
       General Board Members, Church of the Brethren.
       General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist 
     Church.
       General Conference, Mennonite Church.
       General Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
       Jewish Peace Fellowship.
       Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs, Evangelical 
     Lutheran Church in America.
       Mennonite Central Committee.
       Mennonite Central Committee, U.S.
       Mennonite Church.
       Methodists United for Peace with Justice.
       Missionaries of Africa.
       Mission Investment Fund of the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran 
     Church in America.
       Moravian Church, Northern Province.
       National Council of Churches.
       National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.
        National Council of Catholic Women.
       National Missionary Baptist Convention of America.
       NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.
       New Call to peacemaking.
       Office for Church in Society, United Church of Christ.
       Orthodox Church in America.
       Pax Christi.
       Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
       Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.
       Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
       Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
       The Shalom Center.
       Sojourners.
       Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
       United Church of Christ.
       United Methodist Church.
       United Methodist Council of Bishops.
       Unitarian Universalist Association.
       Washington Office, Mennonite Central Committee.
       Women of the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

       Sources: Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers and Statement 
     by President Clinton, 7/20/99.

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, this idea that the stockpile is not going 
to be reliable, that you can't--we have thousands of parts, and the 
Russians have missiles with bombs with only 100 parts, and that has 
some significance. I have said it before.

[[Page 24583]]

  I will yield now. I used to practice law with a guy named Sidney 
Balick--a good trial lawyer. Every time he would start a jury trial, he 
would start off by saying: I want you to take a look at my client. I 
want you to look at him. They're going to tell you he's not such a good 
looking guy. He's not. They're going to tell you you would not want to 
invite him home for dinner to meet your daughter. I wouldn't either. 
They're going to tell you--and he would go on like that. But he would 
say: I want you to keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the 
ball. Follow the bouncing ball. Did he kill Cock Robin? That is the 
question.
  The question is, At the end of the day, if we reject this treaty, are 
we better off in terms of our strategic interest and our national 
security or are we better off if we accept and ratify the treaty that 
all our allies have ratified? Which is better? Keep your eye on the 
ball.
  I will respond, as I said, in due time to every argument my friend 
has made, from ``the safety features argument'' to ``the purpose can't 
be achieved'' to ``nations that don't have sophisticated weapons are 
going to be able to cheat,'' and so on and so forth. But in the 
meantime, out of a matter of comity, which is highly unusual, because I 
should do a full-blown opening statement, I will yield to my friend 
from Pennsylvania because he has other commitments. Then I will come 
back to a point-by-point rebuttal of the statement by my friend from 
Arizona.
  How much time is the Senator seeking?
  Mr. SPECTER. I think I can do it in 20 minutes. It might take a 
little longer.
  Mr. BIDEN. It can't take any longer. I will yield 20 minutes to the 
Senator.


                         Privilege Of The Floor

  I ask unanimous consent that Patrick Cottrell be able to be on the 
floor for the remainder of this debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Senator from Delaware for yielding me time 
at this time.
  Mr. President, this debate on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty may 
one day be classified as a historic debate. The issue which is being 
framed today, in my opinion, is the most important treaty issue, 
international issue which has faced this Senate since the Treaty of 
Versailles, which was rejected by the Senate, setting off an era of 
isolationism and, for many, enormous international problems resulting 
in World War II.
  It is my hope this treaty will be ratified. I do not expect it to be 
ratified in a vote on Tuesday because the picture is clear that there 
are not enough Senators to provide the two-thirds constitutional 
balance. But it is my hope before that scheduled vote arises on Tuesday 
that we will have worked out an operation to defer the vote on this 
treaty.
  I agree with my distinguished colleague from Arizona, Senator Kyl, 
that a nuclear deterrent is vital for the national security of the 
United States. When he cites the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as being 
negotiated by the Clinton administration--really an idea of the Clinton 
administration--I would point to the statements of President Eisenhower 
more than 40 years ago when he articulated the national interest in a 
comprehensive test ban treaty.
  In a speech on August 22, 1958, President Eisenhower said this:

       The United States . . . is prepared to proceed promptly to 
     negotiate an agreement with other nations which have tested 
     nuclear weapons for the suspension of nuclear weapons tests. 
     . . .

  In a very succinct statement in a letter to Bulganin, on January 12, 
1958, President Eisenhower said:

       . . . that, as part of such a program which will reliably 
     check and reverse the accumulation of nuclear weapons, we 
     stop the testing of nuclear weapons, not just for two or 
     three years, but indefinitely.

  It is hard to give a more emphatic bipartisan flavor than President 
Eisenhower's specific statements.
  When the Senator from Arizona cites a list of six preeminent former 
Secretaries of Defense, I say that is, indeed, impressive. I would look 
to the assurances which we have today from Gen. Hugh Shelton, the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense, 
William Cohen, in analyzing the two basic issues which have been set 
forth in the parameters by Senator Kyl. And they are: Can we assure 
stability of our stockpile? Can we reasonably verify compliance by 
others?
  There is a balance of risks. There is no test which will be absolute 
in its terms. But the essential question on balancing the risks and 
balancing the judgment is whether we would be better off with the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or without it.
  The United States has an enormous lead on nuclear weapons. We have 
the nuclear deterrent. We have seen other nations--India and Pakistan--
starting the test process. We have reason to be gravely concerned about 
North Korea's capacity with nuclear weapons. We worry about rogue 
nations such as Iraq, Iran, Libya, and others. So that, at least as I 
assess the picture, on a balance of risks, we are much better off if we 
limit testing than if we proceed to have testing.
  The Stockpile Stewardship Program, I think, is reasonably effective. 
Is it perfect? No, it is not. The issue of verification, I think, is 
reasonably effective. It does not get some of the low-yield weapons. 
And activities are underway to try to solve that.
  Secretary of Energy Richardson was in Moscow within the past week 
working with the Soviets on the so-called transparency test--
illustrative of one of the efforts among many being undertaken to 
narrow the gap on verification. But again, it is a matter of balancing 
the risks. With or without the treaty, where are we better off?
  I had an occasion to talk to Gen. Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, earlier this week. I asked General Shelton the details 
of these questions, about the stability of our nuclear stockpile and 
the verification procedures. General Shelton said that we were in good 
shape on both issues.
  Then I asked General Shelton the obvious question: Was his view, was 
his judgment colored to any extent by being in the administration of 
President Clinton as President Clinton's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff? It is not unheard of for even four-star generals to be a 
little concerned about what the Commander in Chief might prefer. 
General Shelton looked me in the eye and said: Senator, these are my 
honest views. If they weren't, I wouldn't state them; and rather than 
state views I didn't believe in, I could always retire.
  I had occasion to talk at some length with Secretary of Defense 
William Cohen. It is true, as the Senator from Arizona outlines, at one 
point then-Senator Cohen had a different view. And as Secretary Cohen 
testified in hearings this week, a number of factors have led him to a 
different conclusion.
  The question might also be raised as to whether the Commander in 
Chief of the Secretary of Defense might color, to some extent, his 
views. I am satisfied that Bill Cohen, with whom I worked in this body 
for some 16 years, would not put America at risk if he didn't believe 
what he said, that this Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, balancing all 
considerations, was appropriate.
  Once moving beyond the study of the treaty, which I have done, having 
announced my support for the treaty some time ago, after study and 
after looking at some of the experts, the question, in my judgment, is 
essentially a political question. I believe the lessons of history 
support arms control. That is a view I have held for some time.
  I started my own personal studies of the United States-Soviet 
relations as a college senior, majoring in international relations at 
the University of Pennsylvania, and wrote my college thesis on United 
States-U.S.S.R. relations. One of the first resolutions I offered, 
coming to the Senate in early 1982, was a resolution for arms control. 
In 1982, Senators were pretty well lined up on philosophical grounds, 
those who favored arms control and those who did not favor arms 
control.

[[Page 24584]]

  I recall that as a very tough debate against the chairman of the 
Armed Services Committee, John Tower. Who is Arlen Specter to tell the 
President what to do in pushing for a summit agreement? Senator Tower 
put me through the paces, so to speak, and we talked about our nuclear 
deterrence.
  Fortunately, I had been to Grand Forks, ND, taken a look at the 
Minuteman silo, absolutely terrified to see that enormous missile, 
looked down; about 100 feet into the ground it went. I had gone to 
Charleston, SC, to take a look at our nuclear submarines. I had been to 
Edwards Air Force Base to take a look at some of our latest bombers. 
The Senate decided with my position, on a vote of 90-8, we ought to 
have a summit. President Reagan was a major proponent of arms control, 
and President Reagan then pushed the summit concept. So the idea of 
arms control is not an idea which has originated with President 
Clinton, with President Eisenhower, President Reagan foursquare behind 
it.
  I have not hesitated to buck the arms control concept if I thought 
the United States had some technical advantage to be gained by stepping 
out on our own, if that would promote our national security. Attending 
the Geneva arms control talks in the mid-1980s, I became persuaded that 
the Strategic Defense Initiative was a sound proposition, though very 
controversial, that turned on our ability to develop the SDI, the 
Strategic Defense Initiative, as to whether the Anti-Ballistic Missile 
Treaty was subject to the broad interpretation or the narrow 
interpretation.
  There were some very heated debates on the floor of the Senate. 
Senator Moynihan was involved. Senator Nunn, a leading expert in the 
entire field, argued very strenuously for the narrow interpretation of 
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. I argued for the broad 
interpretation, which I thought was legitimate, because it would give 
leave to develop the strategic arms initiative. That was a complex 
issue. Many people said it was Star Wars, spy in the sky, couldn't be 
done.
  I recollected, historically, that Vanevar Bush, a leading expert in 
the field, testified before Congress during World War II, actually in 
1945, that it would be ``impossible to develop intercontinental 
ballistic missiles.'' Fanciful as it may have been in 1945, we now know 
they have been developed.
  Then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said, in 1945, that the 
United States had such a tremendous lead, the Soviets could never catch 
us. He was wrong, too. They caught us and surpassed us. We know the 
story that is not apocryphal, that a clerk in the Patent Office 
resigned at the turn of 19th century because there was nothing new to 
be discovered. I agreed with President Reagan's vision on the Strategic 
Defense Initiative that we spent a lot of money on it, and I don't 
think the money was wasted because we still are working and, more 
recently, with some success on missile defense.
  In that context, President Reagan had an idea for control. President 
Reagan spoke out about sharing what we would learn with the Soviets to 
give them our defense system so there would not be an imbalance, so the 
nuclear deterrence on both sides, that balance of power, would not be 
affected.
  I had occasion to have a long discussion with President Reagan on 
September 17, 1987, the 200th anniversary of the signing of the 
Constitution of the United States. President Reagan went to my 
hometown, Philadelphia. We had a long plane ride and a fair-sized car 
ride. I asked the President how he could see to it that the Soviet 
Union had our secrets when it really wouldn't be a matter during his 
Presidency and really it is a matter up to Congress. Candidly, 
President Reagan had no absolute answer to that point. But it was his 
vision that we would have the Strategic Defense Initiative and that we 
would share it with the Soviet Union.
  When we take a look at the specifics and the technicalities, my sense 
is, there are reasonable assurances but it is a matter of balancing the 
risks.
  We had a remarkable closed session of 5 hours in S-407 upstairs, 
which is the room where we have our secret briefings. After 5 hours, 
there was no doubt that it is a complicated subject. The distinguished 
chairman of the Arms Services Committee, Senator Warner, came to the 
Republican luncheon caucus on Tuesday and said there is an adequate 
record to assure a negative vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. 
I later had a chance to discuss with my distinguished colleague from 
Virginia the converse question. May the Record show he is on the floor 
now; nothing behind his back.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, no, indeed; I am right here. At such point 
as the Senator will entertain a question, I will be happy to put it to 
my colleague.
  Mr. SPECTER. We may come to that.
  I will repeat the assurances that Senator Warner gave me, that while 
he said there was an adequate record for a negative vote, he also said 
there was an adequate record for an affirmative vote, depending on how 
one looked at the evidence. So my view is, it comes down to a judgment 
call. It comes down to an issue which is essentially a political 
question as to how the national security of the United States is better 
served by relying on our superiority today and stopping other nations 
from achieving superiority.
  I believe the United States would be well advised to move ahead to 
ratify this treaty and to show the world we still have a preeminent 
role of world leadership in moral terms as well as in armament terms.
  We have the unprecedented event just this morning, where we have the 
op-ed piece appearing in the New York Times with the Prime Minister of 
Britain, the President of France, Chancellor of Germany, all urging 
this Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.
  I had occasion to travel to Ukraine in August; I talked to the 
President of Ukraine, Foreign Minister, and other ranking officials. 
The ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty was high on their 
agenda. Ukraine has taken a unique attitude in giving up nuclear 
weapons. Many nations around the world seek nuclear weapons as a sign 
of their national power. Ukraine is prepared to give them up. I asked 
the leader of that country why. President Kuchma responded: Well, we 
prefer the Japanese model of economic strength. Also, we have had the 
terrible experience at Chernobyl, and we do not want to have nuclear 
weapons for fear of what happened at Chernobyl. But high on the agenda 
of the Ukraine top officials is ratification by the United States.
  Senator Hank Brown and I had occasion to travel to the subcontinent 
in 1995. We talked to Indian Prime Minister Rao.
  He told us that he would be very interested in seeing the 
subcontinent nuclear free. A day or two later, we were in Pakistan 
talking to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and we related to Prime 
Minister Bhutto what Premier Rao had to say. She said, ``Did you get it 
in writing?'' We thought it was a little flip, perhaps.
  We said, ``No,'' and countered with, perhaps, an equally flip 
question: ``When was the last time you talked to the Prime Minister of 
India?'' She said, ``We don't talk.'' Senator Brown and I said, ``Well, 
we think you should.''
  The next day, August 28, we had departed for Damascus. Senator Brown 
and I sent a letter to the President urging him to call into the Oval 
Office the Prime Minister of India and the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
  I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                  Washington, DC, August 28, 1995.
     The President
     The White House, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: I think it important to call to your 
     personal attention the substance of meetings which Senator 
     Hank Brown and I have had in the last two days with Indian 
     Prime Minister Rao and Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir 
     Bhutto.
       Prime Minister Rao stated that he would be very interested 
     in negotiations which would lead to the elimination of any 
     nuclear weapons on his subcontinent within ten or fifteen 
     years including renouncing first use of such weapons. His 
     interest in such negotiations with Pakistan would cover 
     bilateral

[[Page 24585]]

     talks or a regional conference which would include the United 
     States, China and Russia in addition to India and Pakistan.
       When we mentioned this conversation to Prime Minister 
     Bhutto this morning, she expressed great interest in such 
     negotiations. When we told her of our conversation with Prime 
     Minister Rao, she asked if we could get him to put that in 
     writing.
       When we asked Prime Minister Bhutto when she had last 
     talked to Prime Minister Rao, she said that she had no 
     conversations with him during her tenure as Prime Minister. 
     Prime Minister Bhutto did say that she had initiated a 
     contact through an intermediary but that was terminated when 
     a new controversy arose between Pakistan and India.
       From our conversations with Prime Minister Rao and Prime 
     Minister Bhutto, it is my sense that both would be very 
     receptive to discussions initiated and brokered by the United 
     States as to nuclear weapons and also delivery missile 
     systems.
       I am dictating this letter to you by telephone from 
     Damascus so that you will have it at the earliest moment. I 
     am also telefaxing a copy of this letter to Secretary of 
     State Warren Christopher.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Arlen Specter.

  Mr. SPECTER. There is great power in the Oval Office. No one declines 
an invitation to the Oval Office--at least, I don't know of anybody who 
has declined an invitation to the Oval Office. I had occasion to speak 
to the President about it later in 1995, and he said he thought it was 
a good idea, but he wanted to defer it until after the 1996 election. I 
talked to him after the 1996 election, and he said he still wasn't 
ready to do it, and what would happen with China and India.
  I am not going to criticize the President for not calling them in. I 
hope he will yet. But I think when India and Pakistan tested nuclear 
weapons in the spring of 1998, it was a very dangerous sign for the 
world. How can the United States ask India and Pakistan not to test 
nuclear weapons when we won't ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty? 
It simply doesn't make any sense. And that is why I think the national 
security of the United States would be enhanced on a balance of risks. 
It may not be perfect on verification, or it may not be perfect on the 
stability of our stockpiles, but whatever risk is involved there, I 
believe it is minimal. It is a small risk compared to having India and 
Pakistan test nuclear weapons and set off an arms race there that can 
be duplicated around the world.
  The failure of the United States to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban 
Treaty has caused a ripple around the world. People wonder why the 
United States has not ratified this treaty. But if the Senate were to 
reject the treaty on a Senate vote, there would be a wave around the 
world, and it would be a tidal wave. What is now a ripple of wonderment 
would turn into a tidal wave of disbelief and could cause a chain 
reaction, which would be----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 20 minutes yielded to the Senator has 
expired.
  Mr. SPECTER. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. With great pleasure. We are listening and learning.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will ask for an additional minute on our 
side, to be charged to our time, to ask a question of my good 
colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The entire debate is evenly divided. There are 
many hours on each side.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I think the Senator from Virginia will have all the 
time he wishes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania may continue.
  Mr. SPECTER. To repeat my last thought, which might have been lost in 
the UC request, the failure of the United States, up to date, to ratify 
the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty has caused a ripple of wonderment. A 
vote by the Senate rejecting the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty would 
cause a tidal wave of astonishment. It might set off a chain reaction 
around the world, which would be even more serious than the chain 
reaction of the atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
  When we take a look at what is scheduled for next Tuesday, where we 
have the vote, it is my hope that we will find a way yet to work our 
way out of the unanimous consent request. I believe that a vote of 
rejection on Tuesday--and I have used this word before, and I use it 
advisedly, but I think it is accurate--I think rejecting the treaty 
would be catastrophic.
  We are in a situation where our distinguished majority leader, 
Senator Lott, is unwilling to defer the vote if he is going to have to 
face a crescendo of demands during next year. Senator Lott did not want 
to schedule the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty vote at this time. I know 
because I had asked him to do so. I had asked him to do so in private 
conversations. When he had given me his reasons, I awaited his 
judgment. There was substantial urging, maybe even agitation, maybe 
even goading on the Senate floor by some that Senator Lott should 
schedule this vote. He finally responded to it. He responded to it in a 
context where the treaty is assured to be defeated.
  President Clinton held a dinner last Tuesday evening, which was 
attended by a number of people here, including Senators Warner, Biden, 
Hagel, myself, and others. I think it is fair to comment, as it has 
been in the media.
  The President declined to ask that the vote be deferred on the 
condition that the President not ask that it be taken up all during the 
year 2000. I think the President felt that would signify backing off, 
and he thought some events might develop where he had to call for the 
treaty to be ratified. He said, candidly, he would have a hard time 
explaining it to our allies.
  Well, I can understand Senator Lott not wanting to see this matter 
become a political football in the year 2000. It has that potential, 
whether the parties intend it or not. If there is a crescendo of demand 
for the treaty to be ratified, taken up in the spring, fall, or summer 
of next year, it could have an affect on the election in 2000. I think 
it is realistic to take it out of the election.
  Senator Levin, the distinguished ranking member of Armed Services, 
made a public comment in the hearings that he thought the treaty should 
not come up for ratification before the election. I think that is a 
sound judgment. There may be a way out of that dilemma by scheduling 
the treaty debate and vote on November 15 of the year 2000. That will 
take it out of the election cycle and it would allow President Clinton, 
who has advocated the treaty, to be a spokesman and have it decided on 
his watch.
  There is another alternative, which is not as good as doing it in 
November of 2000, but that would be to schedule the debate and vote 
between January 3 and January 20 of 2001. We would not have a lame duck 
Senate, and it would be out of the election cycle.
  I think it is very important to take this treaty out of politics and 
out of partisanship. There is an overhang that we should not ignore--a 
partisan overhang to this debate. All 45 Democrats are said to be in 
favor of the treaty. The number of Republicans is unknown precisely, 
but very, very limited. That is bad for America and that is bad for the 
world. When we had the vote on the use of force in the Gulf in January 
of 1991, it was largely partisan, where 42 Republicans and only 10 
Democrats backed a Republican President. When we had a vote on the use 
of airstrikes in Yugoslavia earlier this year, it was 58 to 41. Only 17 
of 55 Republicans joined the Democrats. That partisanship is highly 
undesirable.
  I ask for one additional minute.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will do that. We have 7 hours of debate, 
and we have 31 people. This is the last minute, and not one second 
over. I love him, but I will object.
  Mr. SPECTER. Love doesn't last very long if it is only up to a 
minute.
  I think there ought to be a recognition of another problem, which I 
will state in 20 seconds. There is a certain lack of trust between 
Capitol Hill and the White House, and that is a fact that we have to 
take into account in our calculations. Within 20 seconds, I can't 
recount why.
  In conclusion--the two most popular words in any speech--I think we 
ought to avoid playing nuclear roulette with the Comprehensive Test-Ban 
Treaty. Russian roulette is a great sport, played with a revolver in 
which one chamber has the bullet.

[[Page 24586]]

  But I think in this matter, we are playing with nuclear roulette if 
we go to a vote next Tuesday and reject this treaty.
  I urge my colleagues to work hard to find a way to debate and vote 
this issue at a later time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield time.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, on the time allocated to those in 
opposition, I want to ask my good friend a question.
  First, we joined this institution at about the same time a number of 
years ago. I very much respect the Senator. So much of the Senator's 
career has been devoted to international relations, and he reflects 
very warmly one of the great teachers he had, and that was Senator 
Tower, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
  But I want to go back to a particular reference that the Senator made 
in his opening remarks to the support by the uniformed officers of the 
chairman of the Joint Chiefs and others for this treaty. It is true 
that there is a division of opinion between the Joint Chiefs. I don't 
speak in terms of those in opposition today, but I mean those who 
precede.
  We have letters on both sides pointing out how men and women of good 
conscience--men and women who have had extensive experience in these 
fields--are different on this treaty. But the question I put to my good 
friend relates to the President's letter of transmittal of this treaty 
on September 22, 1997. I am reading from that document which 
accompanied the treaty to the Senate. There is a provision in there 
called ``the safeguards.''
  I recite a sentence of that.

       The understanding that if the President of the United 
     States is informed by the Secretary of Defense and the 
     Secretary of Energy (DOE)--advised by the Nuclear Weapons 
     Council, the Directors of DOE's nuclear weapons laboratories, 
     and the Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command--that a high 
     level of confidence in the safety or reliability of a nuclear 
     weapon type that the two Secretaries consider to be critical 
     to our nuclear deterrent could no longer be certified, the 
     President, in consultation with the Congress, would be 
     prepared to withdraw from the CTBT under the standard 
     ``supreme national interests'' clause in order to conduct 
     whatever testing might be required.

  Speaking for myself--and I have in the course of the last several 
days as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee dealt extensively with 
this entire issue before the Senate today--I have time and time again 
referred to the fact that it is my conclusion, drawn from talking with 
a number of these senior military officers who have given their 
support, and who in years past have given their support, that it is 
this clause that is the foundation for their opinion of support.
  But I say to my good friend that were we to ratify this treaty, and 
if it would go into force, then many nations could rely on the act of 
the United States--as a matter of fact, one of the principal reasons 
for this treaty is to induce other nations to follow--and then 8, 10, 
or 15 years down the road we exercise the right under this, what 
happens to those nations? They are left out there stripped of 
protection that they could, with their own systems, have developed. 
And, worse yet, if we were ever compelled to announce to the world that 
we have concern about the credibility and safety of our nuclear 
arsenal, that would send a frightening message across the land that 
what we have had in place these 50 years, referred to as the ``nuclear 
umbrella,'' which umbrella preserved the peace from major conflict in 
Europe for 50 years, is now in doubt.
  Mr. President, as you talk about who is supporting the treaty, let's 
go back and examine the reasons.
  I say that the military relied very heavily on that clause. In my 
judgment, if that clause were ever utilized, this country would be in a 
far worse position than if the Senate were to exercise its right and 
withhold the advice and consent on ratification.
  I ask my good friend, if that clause were invoked, what would be the 
reality among the world's community of nations? What would be the 
reality of the signal going out that our credible deterrent is in 
question?
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am delighted to respond to that 
question from the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services 
Committee on a number of levels.
  First of all, the clause is there, so that when the Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs and others support the treaty because of the presence of 
that clause, that is a very important factor. And that clause is worth 
relying upon.
  That is the reason, if there should be a problem either with the 
stability of our stockpile, or with the verification, and we felt it 
was necessary for national security to invoke that clause and withdraw, 
that we would do so.
  With respect to other nations which might ratify the treaty based on 
our leadership, they do so with the full knowledge that that clause is 
present, and that we have the right to withdraw in our supreme national 
interest, so that if we should exercise the right of this entire affair 
in our dealings with those nations because they have known from the 
very outset that is a distinct possibility, there is nothing hidden 
about that.
  When you ask the pointed question at the very end of the series of 
implicit questions, when you ask the question, how would it look for 
our national security if we made a concession that we had a test, and 
withdrew from the treaty, I would say to my distinguished colleague 
from Virginia that is no worse than if we did not have the treaty and 
we started to test.
  The only reason we would exercise that clause and withdraw from the 
treaty would be so that we could start to test.
  Assume that we don't have the treaty. Assume down the road that we 
start to test. That is going to be a loud signal, an explosive signal, 
to the world that we are not satisfied with the status quo when we have 
to test.
  I think that exercising that clause would be no more emphatic or no 
more of a problem for the United States than not doing so.
  But I think when you take a look behind General Shelton, and other 
Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs--General Shalikashvili, Colin Powell, 
David Jones, Bill Crowe, only Admiral Vessey, Chairman Vessey, was on 
the other side.
  I think that is a very weighty consideration.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I simply focus your attention on one or 
more nations, should this treaty be ratified, saying there is no 
necessity for us to launch our own program because there stands the 
United States, the leader. And nowhere in the history of the United 
States have we ever exercised such a clause as this, I say to my good 
friend. I don't think there is a precedent in our 200-year history of 
ever pulling out. But, nevertheless, we could be faced with those 
facts. Otherwise, there would have been no reason to have put that 
clause in there.
  It was a real situation to the President at that time in transmitting 
the treaty to the Senate that these conditions could arise, and he put 
that clause in. I daresay it was put in there such as the military 
uniformed community could lend their support.
  But what happens to that nation that did not start this program and 
10 or 12 years hence is left out there? Take, for example, Japan. It 
has the capacity to generate a program in a matter of a few years. They 
have relied in many respects on our nuclear deterrent. But if that is 
ever put in doubt, that nation and others would want to start this 
program. But it would take a decade for them--perhaps not Japan but 
most nations--to put into place any credible nuclear deterrent.
  I say to my good friend--I know other Senators want to speak; it is 
important, and we are going to have a good debate today--in my opinion, 
you jeopardize substantially the world community if at any time you say 
we might pull out pursuant to that clause.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if I may respond briefly, I think that 
Japan is well advised to rely on the

[[Page 24587]]

United States and our nuclear deterrent for whatever risk there may be 
of pulling out. But Japan has, up to the present time, as the Senator 
from Virginia knows, relied upon the United States. Japan has had ample 
opportunity to develop whatever nuclear system they could have wanted. 
They have made the decision to the present time not to. There is no 
reason to believe they are about to change, regardless of what the 
United States does.
  However, when we talk about the withdrawal provision, that is not 
unique to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We have debated repeatedly 
on the floor of this Senate the provisions of the Anti-Ballistic 
Missile Treaty which allows withdrawal on notice--again, for supreme 
national interests. So the insertion of this clause in the treaty is no 
signal that we are considering using it. I think that is a standard 
provision.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in fairness to other Senators, we must 
yield the floor. However, I hope at some point this issue is revisited 
with my good friend, the distinguished Senator from Delaware.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. I yield myself 2 minutes, and then I yield to my friend 
from New York.
  First, the very essential safeguards the chairman indicated all 
military guys want, I find it fascinating that the Republican 
leadership would not allow the Senate to include those in the treaty. 
That indicates what a stacked deck this is and how outrageous is this 
approach of how we are proceeding on this is.
  The very things all the Joint Chiefs and the President of the United 
States said they wanted in the treaty as the six safeguards when we 
brought this up in the unanimous consent agreement, we were not allowed 
to include those as part of the treaty. I think that is telling.
  The second point. The Senator says, Have we ever exercised this 
clause? The appropriate question is, Have we ever needed to? The answer 
is, we have never concluded we needed to. Such a clause, or a 
variation, is in every treaty the United States of America signs. This 
is a bit of a red herring. In every treaty we sign of consequence 
relating to our national security, there is a supreme national interest 
clause. The reason we haven't exercised it is that no President has 
concluded there was a need.
  The third point I make, if my friend is concerned--as I know he is--
about our friends at one point not being able to rely upon the United 
States and deciding to go their own route, I ask him why Tony Blair and 
Jacques Chirac are making a personal appeal to the President of the 
United States, for goodness sake, pass this treaty. Japan and Germany 
are saying please, please, pass a treaty. We signed it; we ratified it.
  How much time does the Senator from New York require?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Twenty minutes.
  Mr. BIDEN. I am delighted to yield 20 minutes to my friend from New 
York.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sessions). The Senator from New York.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, to continue on the point made by our 
distinguished ranking member that the leaders of Britain, France, and 
Germany are appealing to the Senate this very day to sign this treaty, 
I make a point to the Senate which I don't know has ever been made. 
That is that in the aftermath of the Cold War we find ourselves the one 
nation on Earth that has the power to shape events all over the Earth.
  Coral Bell, of the Australian National University, wrote about this 
in an article in the recent issue of ``The National Interest,'' called 
``American Ascendancy.'' There is a striking passage. She writes:

       During the 1990s, the United States has mostly tiptoed 
     through the current unipolar structure of the society of 
     states with a sort of ponderous tact, like a benign 
     Ferdinand-type bull making its way delicately around a china 
     shop of unknown value. That prudence has been well justified: 
     the situation is still quite new and of uncertain import to 
     all the world's policymakers. History is not much help, for 
     no equal degree of unipolarity has existed since the high 
     point of the Roman world, almost two millennia ago.

  I repeat, there has been no such unipolarity since the high point of 
the Roman world, two millennia ago.

       The central balance of power had seen the main agenda of 
     world politics for more than five centuries.

  We think of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, of the British role in 
the balance of power in Europe, and such the like.

       Bell continues, ``. . . this `intermission,' even for a 
     time whose length remains a matter of speculation, is a truly 
     transformatory event.''

  A truly transformatory event. Nothing such has happened in two 
millenia.
  As if evidence were required, in this morning's New York Times, 
Jacques Chirac, the President of France, and Tony Blair, Prime Minister 
of Britain, and Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor of Germany, wrote an op-
ed article pleading with the Senate to ratify this treaty. I ask 
unanimous consent to have that article printed after my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. At any time in our history, can anyone imagine the 
effective heads of the Governments of the United Kingdom, France, and 
Germany pleading with the Senate in our own press to do what we had led 
the world to do in the first place.
  The point has been made that the idea of a Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty was first proposed by President Eisenhower in 1958. I note that 
when we finally got around to drafting one, the United States was the 
first signatory on that same day in New York. The other four of the 
five declared nuclear powers also signed. However, we were the first to 
propose it, as we were the first to develop nuclear power as a weapon; 
the first to propose ending tests to continue expanding our arsenals; 
and now the first to sign such a treaty, almost a generation after 
Eisenhower proposed it.
  There were increments along the way. I was in the Kennedy 
administration at the time the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty was signed. 
It seemed such a large event, and it was.
  Governor Harriman was a negotiator in Moscow and made the point--I 
had served him in Albany, and we talked about this--he said that when 
he arrived, the Soviets had already decided to sign this treaty, but of 
course we had to have days of intense negotiations to reach the point 
where they would agree to do what they had already decided to do. The 
Soviets had said yes, there is too much danger to mankind.
  That was something they had not previously concerned themselves over 
much with, save as a revolutionary state.
  Just a line from the article by the three heads of government:

       The decisions we take now will help determine, for 
     generations to come, the safety of the world we bequeath to 
     our children. As we look to the next century, our greatest 
     concern is proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and 
     chiefly nuclear proliferation. We have to face the stark 
     truth that nuclear proliferation remains the major threat to 
     world safety.

  They are speaking to us in this near-empty Chamber. Some of our most 
distinguished authorities in these matters are here. Most Senators are 
not. The powers that dominated the last 500 years of politics: England, 
France, Germany--Spain somehow not there for the moment--pleading with 
us.
  May I be specific, if I can, on the matter of particular interest? 
You may be sure it was on the minds of the leaders who have written to 
us today, and that is the situation in the subcontinent, which is to 
say India and Pakistan. I was Ambassador to India in 1974 when the 
Indians set off what they called a ``peaceful nuclear explosion.'' They 
intended it as such. In conversations with Prime Minister Gandhi, she 
was persuasive that they were not going to build a bomb; they simply 
wanted to establish that they had the capacity to do so. It was a 
matter of prestige. It was a matter of reminding Westerners that Indian 
physicists, such as Satyendranath Bose, had been as much a part of the 
great era of discovery early in the century as the Europeans, and more 
than Americans.
  A quarter century goes by. The Congress Party with its universalist 
tendencies and professions has gone into a

[[Page 24588]]

minority. A new party, a Hindu party, as it calls itself, the BJP, came 
to power in March of 1998. Two months later, India set off a series of 
five nuclear explosions. That was followed almost instantly with 
Pakistan doing the same. At the same time, they demonstrated a missile, 
probably of North Korean origin, which they named the Ghauri, in honor 
of the first Islamic invader of Hindu India.
  Here you have all those things that conspire to destruction. This 
spring there was a Pakistan offensive in the Kargil mountains of 
Kashmir. The Indian Government quite successfully held it back and 
repulsed it, I believe, but not before Pakistani military officers had 
said: Keep this up and there are other options available to us.
  Those other options of course include the nuclear option.
  Here an important distinction is to be made. In India, to its great 
credit, nuclear development is a matter directly under the control of 
the Prime Minister and is not under the control of the military. The 
Indian military have been very apolitical, kept out of politics, and 
have followed civilian command from the beginning. Not so Pakistan. The 
Pakistan bomb is in the armamentarium of the Pakistan military.
  Here, if I can make a point on which I do have total confidence, but 
I believe is a shared judgment: It is not clear that the Indian tests 
last year were all that successful. They probably did not achieve a 
hydrogen bomb as they proclaimed. Even the 1974 test was exaggerated in 
its volume. The Indians have kept the military out of nuclear matters, 
but their scientists know they have not sufficiently succeeded, and 
they want to test more.
  In the report from India in this morning's press announcing the BJ 
Party has been returned to office with a very solid coalition, it was 
noted that the outgoing government, which will now be coming back in, 
had committed itself to further testing. They need to do that because 
they are, obviously, at a disadvantage as regards their adversary, the 
Pakistanis. They need, as it were, to show the Pakistanis they have the 
weapons that they have claimed to have. In turn, the Pakistanis will 
respond.
  Pakistan is not a stable country, not a country with civil authority 
very secure, and an impoverished country, a country that will be 
selling nuclear weapons. They will be selling them to the Middle East. 
A Saudi prince has recently visited Pakistan and was shown nuclear 
facilities. We have to expect this migration. It is ineluctable, unless 
we get this treaty.
  The point I finally make is we dare not reject the treaty but we need 
not instantly ratify it. The treaty, very carefully drawn, provides 
that 44 states must have ratified this treaty before it goes into 
effect--44. As of today, of the 44 states required, 41 have signed the 
treaty but only 26 have ratified it, which is to say another 18 
countries, including the United States, have to do so before it goes 
into effect. Of these countries, the most significant clearly are India 
and Pakistan. I assure you--well, I withdraw that remark--I prophesy 
that, should we turn this treaty down, the forces in New Delhi and in 
Islamabad will say: ``You see, there are the Western imperialists 
demanding their own liberties to do anything they wish--tests, they 
have already the 1,030 tests--and they want now to deny them to us? No. 
That day is over.''
  Can we not listen to our closest friends and allies? We cannot ratify 
today. Someday we will, but we must not reject this treaty. It would be 
sending a ruinous signal. The complexities of our procedures in the 
Senate are not understood abroad, and they need not be in that sense. 
The word will be we said no, just as in 1919 we said no to the Treaty 
of Versailles, we would not become involved in the affairs of Europe. 
And how many years was it until D-Day when we had to land our forces 
there?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question on 
my time?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am happy to do so and honored.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I have had some discussions with the 
distinguished senior Senator from New York, as have others, on the 
question of the timing of the Senate's final deliberation of the 
treaty. Indeed, I think our leadership and all of us are looking at 
this in a very serious way. But it seems to me--and this is my 
judgment--that an element of such consideration has to be a recognition 
that under our Constitution, next year elections are held across this 
Nation for the Office of the Presidency, one-third of the Senate, and 
the entire House. To inject a treaty which, in the minds of many--not 
this Senator, but I respect the views of others--is so vital to our 
security interests into that atmosphere and the dynamics of an election 
year, in my judgment, would not give a fair and objective opportunity 
for this treaty to be considered solely on its merits. I use the phrase 
``solely on its merits.'' Does my colleague agree with me?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I entirely agree with the Senator, if we can preface 
his remarks by the statement that we do not have the votes to ratify 
the treaty today.
  Mr. WARNER. I say to my friend, I will work during the course of the 
day, and he has indicated a willingness to join me in this venture.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I most certainly have.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the Senator. I yield the floor because I know 
others are anxious to speak.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I shall be honored to work with the Senator from 
Virginia and the Senator from Delaware. This may be a very productive 
moment in what looks like a perilous time.
  Mr. President, I have spoken at some length. I am happy to yield the 
floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                [From the New York Times, Oct. 8, 1999]

                          A Treaty We All Need

          (By Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder)

       During the 1990's, the United States has made a vital 
     contribution to arms control and nonproliferation. Thanks to 
     the common resolve of the world's powers, we have achieved a 
     substantial reduction in nuclear arsenals, the banning of 
     chemical weapons, the indefinite and unconditional extension 
     of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and, in 1996, the 
     conclusion of negotiations on the Comprehensive Test Ban 
     Treaty. South Africa, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus have 
     renounced nuclear weapons in the same spirit.
       The decisions we take now will help determine, for 
     generations to come, the safety of the world we bequeath to 
     our children. As we look to the next century, our greatest 
     concern is proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and 
     chiefly nuclear proliferation. We have to face the stark 
     truth that nuclear proliferation remains the major threat to 
     world safety.
       Failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will be 
     a failure in our struggle against proliferation. The 
     stabilizing effect of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, extended 
     in 1995, would be undermined. Disarmament negotiations would 
     suffer.
       Over half the countries that must ratify the new treaty to 
     bring it into force have now done so. Britain, France and 
     Germany ratified last year. All the political parties in our 
     countries recognize that the treaty is strongly in our 
     interests, whether we are nuclear powers or not. It enhances 
     our security and is verifiable.
       The treaty is an additional barrier against proliferation 
     of nuclear weapons. Unless proliferators are able to test 
     their devices, they can never be sure that any new weapon 
     they design or build is safe and will work.
       Congress realized this in 1992 when it compelled the United 
     States Presidential Administration to seek the conclusion of 
     a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996. It was a welcome 
     move for the world's strongest power to show the way.
       The treaty is effectively verifiable. We need have no fear 
     of the risk of cheating. We will not be relying on the good 
     will of a rogue state to allow inspectors onto its territory. 
     Under the treaty, a global network of stations is being set 
     up, using four different technologies to identify nuclear 
     tests. The system is already being put in place. We know it 
     will work.
       Opponents of the treaty claim that, without testing, it 
     will not be possible to guarantee the continuing safety and 
     reliability of nuclear weapons. All nuclear powers, including 
     the United States, Britain and France, examined this issue 
     carefully. All reached the same conclusion. With the right 
     investment and modern technology, the necessary assurance of 
     safety and reliability can be maintained without further 
     nuclear tests.
       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

[[Page 24589]]

     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 PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I yield 12 minutes to the Senator from 
Nebraska, Mr. Hagel.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
  Mr. HAGEL. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, what is the objective of a comprehensive test ban 
treaty? What is the objective of what we are about? The objective is to 
stop nuclear proliferation. The objective is to make the world safer 
for mankind. Unfortunately, this noble effort now must be rescued from 
partisan politics. We are trapped in a political swamp as we attempt to 
compress a very important debate on a very important issue.
  A few minutes ago, there was an exchange about timing. We only have a 
few hours to debate. My goodness, is that any way to responsibly deal 
with what may, in fact, be the most critical and important vote any of 
us in this Chamber will ever make? It is not. We cannot have a serious 
debate about nuclear proliferation when artificial timelines prevent 
that important debate. Unfortunately, the political environment has 
captured this issue.
  Aside from all the technical debate that will go on, as has begun 
this morning, and rightfully so, about this treaty, this treaty is 
symbolic. It represents 50 years of America's leadership throughout the 
world in dealing with our allies and, yes, our adversaries, in trying 
to curb nuclear proliferation.
  Much has been said this morning by my distinguished colleagues about 
our allies, Great Britain and France. They moved forward in good faith 
last year and ratified this treaty. Consequently, they are dismantling 
their nuclear testing facilities. What do we say to them if we defeat 
this treaty? What do we say to the rest of the world, and what is that 
symbol, what is the message we project?
  We are far better off to take the time necessary to work our way 
through the critical questions and issues. This debate needs to be 
taken down many layers, many levels in the questions that are relevant. 
We have forced hearings this week in three committees. The committee on 
which I serve, Foreign Relations, had more than 6 hours of hearings 
yesterday. They were informative and important. There is a great amount 
of doubt and question and concern about the governance language in this 
treaty: Who governs the implementation of this treaty, who is in 
charge, aside from all the technical questions. We could take days on 
the provisions for site inspections alone, and we should.
  What are the consequences of us pulling out of this treaty? I hear 
from a number of my friends: If it is a bad treaty, we sign it and go 
ahead, and if the President of the United States says in the supreme 
national security interests of America we will pull out of the treaty--
my goodness, do we think it is that easy to arbitrarily pull out of a 
treaty we led for over 50 years under the leadership of President 
Eisenhower, that was further anchored by the actions of President 
Kennedy with the first ban on nuclear testing in 1963? Do we think the 
political environment would be such that we could just arbitrarily pull 
out when we wanted? Do we not understand the consequences of that?
  What about side agreements? We learned yesterday, for example, in the 
Foreign Relations Committee hearings that there are side agreements. 
That does not mean it is bad, but what are those side agreements? How 
do they affect us? What is the management? What is the governance? Who 
makes the deal? Do those side agreements have force behind them? What 
happens in 10 years when there are new governments?
  My colleagues understand and share with me the same fundamental 
responsibility to this country, and that is, America's security is 
paramount; nothing else is more important. That is our premier 
responsibility as Senators as we debate this issue. The fundamental 
principle we must follow is not to jeopardize the security of our 
people and our country.
  The U.S. nuclear deterrent has prevented a worldwide conflagration 
for over 40 years. As former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger 
said yesterday in the hearings, that effective deterrence depends 
entirely on the assurance that our nuclear arsenal will work when it 
needs to work. It is a huge issue, a huge question. The safety and 
reliability of the nuclear arsenal, therefore, must be maintained above 
all.
  We might be able to do that with computers and other means, other 
than testing. That may well be feasible. But I want to be assured a lot 
more than I am now that, in fact, can be done without jeopardizing the 
security of the United States.
  We heard much about intelligence reports in all three committees that 
held hearings this week. The administration says those intelligence 
reports are not yet complete. Why are we rushing to a vote when we do 
not have all the intelligence, when we do not have all the information? 
Why is there this arbitrary test timeline that we must have a vote?
  What about the next administration? There will be a new 
administration, Democrat or Republican. I read this morning Donald 
Trump is interested in a Trump administration. There may be a Jesse 
Ventura administration, I say to Senator Biden. We do not know.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HAGEL. Certainly.
  Mr. BIDEN. Never mind; I withdraw it.
  Mr. HAGEL. I suspect his contribution would not be relevant to the 
debate. The very serious fact is, we will have a new administration.
  Is this treaty, essentially born 50 years ago from Eisenhower 
forward, relevant to the challenges of today?
  Is it relevant to the new challenges of this next new century, the 
new challenges that this new administration, this new President will 
have to deal with? Are we boxing in this new administration? Shouldn't 
this new administration coming in, in January 2001, have an opportunity 
to review arms control, look at what those needs are, what is relevant?
  The world has changed. It has changed in 10 years. The world used to 
be rather simple when we took this issue up 50 years ago, 20 years ago, 
10 years ago: Two superpowers, the Soviets, the Americans; they were 
the ones with the nukes. Therefore, we created a structure, a protocol, 
a treaty that dealt with that. That has changed.
  I strongly urge the President of the United States, as I did the 
other night--telling him directly, and my leader and the Democratic 
leader, and all of my colleagues--to not allow us to get into a box we 
cannot get out of and take a vote on Tuesday. It is irresponsible. It 
will surely go down. There will be consequences for that vote. It is 
the wrong thing to do for America. It is not responsible governance.
  What do we do? Why not continue to hold hearings on this very 
important issue, take this down to as many levels as we need, get the 
answers? Maybe we have to restructure; I don't know. But the way it is 
now, we are not prepared to vote. Why not inform the American public? 
Why not allow the American public to understand what we are doing? Why 
not allow all of our Senators to understand a little bit more than we 
do now about this issue?
  The tough questions must be asked, the consequences played out. We 
must not allow ourselves to get trapped again in a timeline.
  I heard this morning, Why not take a vote right after the election 
next year? That is interesting. Why not float it out? Why not do this 
up or down? But why force an artificial timeline? If the political 
environment is not right to have an honest, open, legitimate debate, it 
is not right. That is a fact of life. But do not rush something that is 
going to have dire consequences for the future of the world to satisfy 
some political dynamic or someone's interest in driving a timeline or 
driving a political determination. That is irresponsible.

[[Page 24590]]

  Regrettably, I must say to my colleagues, if that vote is held on 
Tuesday, I will have to vote against this treaty. That will be 
regrettable because I would like to have more time to ask more 
questions, to understand what we are doing, because I, as do all my 
colleagues, take this responsibility very seriously. I say again, this 
vote, if it does come Tuesday or next year or in 2001, may in fact be 
the most critical vote any of us ever cast.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. HAGEL. I surely will, I say to the Senator.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Do I take it, from what the Senator so ably set forth 
about his concerns on both sides, that he would be receptive to a 
proposal to put off this vote?
  Mr. HAGEL. That is correct, I say to the Senator. I think it is a 
wise course of action. I so informed the President the other night at 
the White House. I so informed my colleagues. I again say, as I did, if 
I have to vote Tuesday, I will vote against it. That will be 
regrettable because I believe arms control, the focused management of 
nuclear proliferation, is a responsibility this country has had.
  We have taken the lead position on that for 50 years. I am proud of 
that. You are proud of that. To box ourselves in, surely knowing the 
impending defeat, I think would be a catastrophe for our leadership in 
the world.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I agree ``catastrophic'' is not too strong a term. And 
the Senator would be receptive to postponing a foregone catastrophe on 
Tuesday?
  Mr. HAGEL. I would, sir.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. KYL. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized for 15 
minutes.
  Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair and thank the Senator from Arizona for 
giving me this valuable time because we do not have a lot of time.
  First of all, let me say I respect the Senator from Nebraska so much, 
and yet I have to disagree with him. I respect certainly the senior 
Senator from New York as well as the Senator from Delaware. But the 
reason I disagree with them is, it is not as if this came up all of a 
sudden and we did not have any time to look at it. This treaty has been 
here for 2 years. We could read it. We could study it. We could prepare 
amendments. We could spend time evaluating it, talk to the experts. I 
have been doing this. I assume many of my colleagues have been doing 
this.
  So procedurally let me just explain, so there is no misunderstanding 
where we are, what my position is.
  We had a unanimous-consent request propounded--it was agreed to a few 
days ago--that said we were going to have possibly up to two 
amendments, not necessarily, but if we did, it would be 4 hours of 
debate equally divided. Then we would have a vote on the treaty. There 
would be 14 hours of debate, which we are in the process of having 
right now.
  This was done by unanimous consent. That means any one of these 
Senators we have been listening to this morning could have objected to 
that unanimous-consent request. Certainly, the senior Senator from New 
York could have done it, the Senator from Nebraska, the Senator from 
Delaware. Anyone could have done it. Only one Senator has said he would 
not have done it if he had been on the floor or if he had been aware of 
it. That was the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd.
  That is the way the Senate is run. It is run by unanimous consent. So 
anyone could have stopped it. And they did not do it. But they could 
have.
  It takes unanimous consent to vitiate that unanimous consent 
agreement. If this happens, I made an announcement yesterday and the 
day before, sitting on the Armed Services Committee--with such 
distinguished witnesses as our Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen; as 
General Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; as the 
Directors of all the labs, all three of them--and I said in the event 
someone asks for a unanimous-consent agreement to delay this vote, I 
will object. I want everybody to know right now, I will object to that.
  There may be some parliamentary maneuvering where they can figure out 
a way to get around my objection. If they do, I am sure it will have to 
be passed on by the Parliamentarian. And that might happen. I might 
lose this thing.
  But we have been looking at this right now for over 2 years. 
Certainly we have had ample time to study it and digest it. It is not 
something that just jumped up. Any Senator, of 100 Senators, could have 
stopped the vote that is supposed to take place on Tuesday or Wednesday 
when the debate time expires. So let me just serve notice I will be 
here to object to that, so we get down to it. The reason is, we do not 
need to keep delaying and delaying this thing.
  The President has been yelling for 2 years: Bring it up. Bring it up. 
We want to bring this up for a vote. Yet now that it is up and he 
knows--he suspects; he does not know--he suspects he does not have the 
votes for ratification, he wants to bring it back. So anyway, that is 
where we are today.
  Let me just respond to a few of the comments that have been made on 
the floor. The distinguished Senator from Delaware talked about the 
distinguished list of supporters of this test ban treaty. I would like 
to submit for the Record a list of those who are opposed to the 
ratification of this treaty. They include six former Secretaries of 
Defense--Schlesinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Laird, Carlucci, Weinberger--
and several former Directors of Central Intelligence; 13 generals, 
commanding generals, who are now retired.
  In fact, I would suggest--I might be challenged on this so I will say 
probably most of the military officials who are supporting the 
ratification of this treaty now are serving in the capacity in which 
they are serving at the will of the President.
  So I ask unanimous consent this distinguished list of some 33 leaders 
saying we should oppose and vote down this treaty be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                   Partial List of Opponents of CTBT

       Jim Schlesinger (Former Secretary of Defense); Dick Cheney 
     (Former Secretary of Defense); Don Rumsfeld (Former Secretary 
     of Defense); Melvin Laird (Former Secretary of Defense); 
     Frank Carlucci (Former Secretary of Defense); Caspar 
     Weinberger (Former Secretary of Defense); Jim Woolsey (Former 
     Director of Central Intelligence); Bob Dole; Governor George 
     W. Bush; Elizabeth Dole; Judge William Clark (Reagan National 
     Security Adviser); Richard Allen (Reagan National Security 
     Advisor); Jeane Kirkpatrick (Former US Ambassador to the 
     United Nations); William Graham (Reagan Science Adviser); 
     Gen. Russ Dougherty, USAF (Former Commander, Strategic Air 
     Command).
       Gen, Louis Wilson (Former Commandant, US Marine Corps); 
     Gen. Jim Johnson (Former Commanding General, 1st US Army); 
     Gen. Albion Knight (Former Director, Atomic Energy 
     Commission); Gen. Larry Skantze (Former Vice Chief of Staff, 
     US Air Force); Gen. Tom Kelly (Former Director for 
     Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff); Gen. Jack Singlaub 
     (Former Chief of Staff, US Forces in Korea); Gen. Mike Loh 
     (Former Commander, Air Combat Command); Gen. Fred Kroesen 
     (Former Commander, US Army in Europe); Gen. Don Starry 
     (Former Commander, US Readiness Command); Gen. Milnor Roberts 
     (Former Chief, US Army Reserve); Gen. Lewis Wagner (Former 
     Commander, Army Materiel Command); Gen. Joseph Went (Former 
     Assistant Commandant, US Marine Corps); Admiral Jerry Miller 
     (Former Deputy Director, Strategic Planning Staff); Troy Wade 
     (Former Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs); 
     Edwin Meese (Former Attorney General); William Middendorf 
     (Former Secretary of the Navy); Midge Decter (Former 
     President, Free World Committee); Norman Podhoretz (Former 
     Editor, Commentary Magazine).

  Mr. INHOFE. Secondly, the Senator from Delaware is talking about our 
allies--I am very sensitive to our allies--and our allies have signed 
this treaty, so if our allies have signed this treaty, we have to do 
it.
  Frankly, I am not concerned about our allies. I am concerned about 
our adversaries. I am not at all concerned that Great Britain is going 
to send a missile over to the United States. I am concerned about China 
and Russia and now North Korea. Right now, as we

[[Page 24591]]

speak, the President is sending money and making promises to North 
Korea so they will not test a missile they have called a Taepo Dong 2 
that will reach Washington, DC, from anyplace in the world, take 35 
minutes to get over here, and we do not have any defense against this 
thing. So those are the ones about whom I am concerned. Have they 
ratified this treaty? No, certainly not China, not Russia, not North 
Korea. North Korea hasn't even signed it. Those are the ones about whom 
I am concerned.
  Thirdly, certification. Certification doesn't mean we have weapons we 
know will be operative at any point in the future. It merely says we 
don't know that they won't be; we don't know of any. We can certify we 
don't know of any problems. How can they know of problems, if they are 
not testing them? I think that is a very weak argument.
  Lastly, I would like to address the reference made by the Senator 
from Delaware to Dr. Paul Robinson. He is the Director of the Sandia 
Laboratory. He is the one the Senator from Delaware talked about as 
being, apparently, a credible source, or he would not have mentioned 
his name in his opening statement. Dr. Robinson says:

       We know today that a test ban cannot prevent states from 
     acquiring nuclear weapons if they are determined to do so. 
     Credible nuclear weapons can be constructed without nuclear 
     testing, as several nations, including South Africa, have 
     demonstrated. The underground nuclear tests by India and 
     Pakistan in 1998 are another example. These events were not 
     developmental tests. They were demonstrations of nuclear 
     capability that had been developed much earlier with little 
     or no testing.
       Those who claim that by ending nuclear testing we will 
     close off the threat of terrorist development and use of 
     nuclear explosives mislead themselves. Congress should not 
     accept such arguments as a basis for endorsing the test ban.

  Further, Dr. Paul Robinson said:

       It is indeed correct that the United States would be ill-
     advised to place a sophisticated nuclear explosive design 
     into the stockpile that had not been previously tested and 
     validated. There is no question that actual testing of 
     designs to confirm their performance is the desired regimen 
     of any high technology device, from cars and airplanes to 
     medical equipment and computers. For a device as highly 
     consequential as a nuclear weapon, testing of the complete 
     system, both when it is first developed and periodically 
     throughout its lifetime to ensure that aging effects do not 
     invalidate its performance, is also the preferred 
     methodology. I and others who are or have been responsible 
     for the safety and reliability of the United States stockpile 
     for nuclear weapons have testified to this obvious conclusion 
     many times in the past. To forgo that validation through 
     testing is, in short, to live with uncertainty.

  I don't want to live with uncertainty. There is no way of knowing 
that we have a nuclear deterrent if we have to live with uncertainty.
  There is no one I respect more highly than Secretary Bill Cohen, our 
Secretary of Defense. I served with him on the Armed Services Committee 
of the Senate, and he is certainly a most knowledgeable individual. I 
do have to say this: He has certainly changed his story since he was in 
the Senate. I am going to quote what Secretary Cohen said in 1992, when 
at that time he was the most vigorous opponent of a ban on nuclear 
testing we had in the Senate. This is Secretary Bill Cohen when he was 
a Senator:

       Many of these nuclear weapons which we intend to keep in 
     our stockpile for the indefinite future are dangerously 
     unsafe. Equally relevant is the fact that we can make these 
     weapons much safer if limited testing is allowed to be 
     conducted. So when crafting our policy regarding nuclear 
     testing, this should be our principal objective--to make the 
     weapons we retain safe. The amendment that was adopted last 
     week [speaking of 1992] does not meet this test, because it 
     would not permit the Department of Energy to conduct the 
     necessary testing to make our weapons safe.
  When I asked that question, there was some suggestion that maybe we 
are talking about different weapons. We are not talking about different 
weapons. These are the nine weapons we are talking about today. These 
same nine weapons were there in 1992, the same ones to which Secretary 
Cohen alluded.
  This chart tells us that there are five tests for safety features. 
These are the five tests. The most significant ones are the intensive 
high explosive and the fire resistance pit. That is to make sure they 
don't inadvertently explode during use or during storage; the same with 
the fire. If we look right here, we see that only one of these 
weapons--that is the W84--has any type of safety. I guess all five of 
the hazards are listed. The W62 has none. So this was true in 1992. It 
is true again today.
  Some people have said, well, in the worst-case scenario, if something 
happens to the safety of this thing, we have a way of getting out of 
this thing. It is called safeguard F. Safeguard F is one sentence in 
the treaty. That sentence says that there is a way out in the event 
that it becomes a supreme national interest to get out. So that would 
be interpreted by our Commander in Chief or President, whoever is 
President at that time. I have often said--I don't think anyone is 
going to refute it--that we have a President who has a very difficult 
time telling the truth. Let us assume he is telling the truth. This is 
what he said his interpretation would be in his application of 
safeguard F: In the event that I were informed by the Secretary of 
Defense, the Secretary of Energy, advised by the Nuclear Weapons 
Council, the directors of the Energy Department's nuclear weapons labs 
and the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command that a high level of 
confidence in the safety or reliability of a nuclear weapons type, 
which the two Secretaries consider to be critical to our nuclear 
deterrent, could no longer be certified, I would be prepared, in 
consultation with Congress, to exercise the supreme national interest 
under the CTBT in order to conduct whatever testing might be required.
  He is saying, even if these five people; that is, everyone who has 
anything to do with or any knowledge of these nuclear weapons, even if 
all of them insist on it, he didn't say he would do it. He said he 
would be prepared to do it. That is a very weak statement. It doesn't 
mean he would do it at all. I don't find any comfort at all in what he 
stated.
  Coming close to the end of my time, let me share a couple other 
thoughts about which I do have strong feelings. We had all three 
Directors of our three labs before our committee yesterday. All three 
of them testified that we have to test these nuclear weapons in order 
to make sure they will continue to work if called upon. These are the 
ones who are responsible for doing that. Verification has to be talked 
about.
  It is kind of interesting. I will read an article that was in the 
paper a couple of days ago. It was an article in the Washington Post by 
Robert Suro, entitled ``CIA Unable to Precisely Track Testing.'' This 
was last Sunday, I believe, talking about something that might have 
occurred on Saturday, less than a week ago right now. Again, it was 
entitled ``CIA Unable to Precisely Track Testing.'' Among the troubling 
facts uncovered:

       According to senior officials, the CIA has concluded that 
     it cannot monitor low-level nuclear tests by Russia precisely 
     enough to ensure compliance with the CTBT. . . . Twice last 
     month, the Russians carried out what might have been nuclear 
     explosions at its Novaya Zemlya testing site in the Arctic. 
     The CIA found that the data from the seismic sensors and 
     other monitoring equipment were insufficient to allow 
     analysts to reach a firm conclusion about the nature of the 
     events.

  Having read that and then having had Gen. Henry Shelton and Secretary 
Cohen on the same panel, I asked them the question: Can you sit here 
and tell us that the Russians did not conduct those tests just a few 
months ago referred to in the article in last Sunday's Washington Post? 
They said: No, we can't.
  We asked the same question of the Directors of the lab. They said: 
No, there is no way of knowing it.
  Verification has always been a real serious problem with me.
  Mr. President, I ask for 5 more minutes. I think that will be 
acceptable. The time I am asking for is from our side.
  Mr. KYL. How much time does the Senator wish?
  Mr. INHOFE. About 4 minutes should be enough.
  Mr. KYL. I ask that the Senator from Oklahoma conclude his remarks in 
4

[[Page 24592]]

minutes, after which the time would go to that side.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. I wonder what 
the other timetable is. I have a flight I have to catch at 12:15. Is 
there a short time that would be available to me soon?
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, we have been alternating. We have had two 
Republicans, and the Senator from Michigan needs additional time.
  Mr. LEVIN. If it is all right with the others in line, that is all 
right with me.
  Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator is brief, we will be happy to yield to you. 
That will have been three Republicans in a row, but to accommodate, we 
are happy to do that.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, after the Senator from Texas goes ahead of 
us--which is fine if she has to catch a flight--could there be two 
Democrats at that point?
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I have no objection to that. Senator Allard 
is waiting. Unfortunately, about three people have gone ahead of him. 
He has also presided. Maybe he can have some time.
  Mr. ALLARD. I would not want to lose my time. I have an appointment I 
need to attend, so I hope I can get out of here by 1:30.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, after their two speakers, Senator Allard will 
be next.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized for 4 
minutes.
  Mr. INHOFE. I will conclude in less time than that. I want to 
accommodate the wishes of others who want to be heard.
  As I look at this, if we allow ourselves to be put in a situation 
where we do not know whether we have a nuclear deterrent, that is 
nothing short of unilateral disarmament. I know there are differing 
philosophies around here. I believe in the White House they honestly 
believe that if we all stand in a circle and hold hands and disarm, 
everybody is going to be happy. But I am not at all satisfied with 
that. I believe we need to have a nuclear deterrent.
  Right now, we are faced with a situation where, because of the vetoes 
of this President, we don't have a national missile defense system. 
That is to say, if they should deploy one of these missiles from North 
Korea, China, or Russia, which takes 35 minutes to get here, we have no 
way of knocking it down. We would be dependent upon a nuclear stockpile 
to have something to send back that is more significant. And not 
knowing whether or not those weapons would work would be worse than 
knowing they would not work.
  So the time is here to do it. I have applied this to my ``wife 
test,'' which I often apply to things. I asked, ``Can we take a chance 
on not being able to fire missiles?'' She agrees with me, and she is 
never wrong.
  Seeing the junior Senator from Texas, I recall something the senior 
Senator from Texas has said many times, which I think is very 
appropriate to quote at this time:

       We have to remain strong. We all wish for the day and hope 
     for the day when the lion and the lamb can lie down together. 
     But when that day comes, I want to make sure we are the lion.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues across the aisle 
for allowing me to go forward.
  This is such an important debate. It is an important issue for our 
country but also for the world. There is no question the cold war ended 
with communism in full retreat and democracy on the rise throughout the 
world largely because the United States maintained an awesome military 
capability that deterred war.
  No American should forget that our stockpile of safe and reliable 
nuclear weapons has deterred nuclear conflict for these past 50 years. 
When Saddam Hussein threatened to use weapons of mass destruction prior 
to Desert Storm, it was the certain knowledge that the United States 
would respond overwhelmingly that prevented Saddam Hussein from 
unleashing his own chemical and biological weapons.
  This is a question of whether or not we, as a nation, intend to 
maintain our nuclear deterrent capability--so vitally important to us 
over the last 50 years in maintaining peace in the world--or if we 
intend to unilaterally disarm. Make no mistake, that is the question 
before us.
  Our founders purposely made it hard to enter into treaties and 
required a two-thirds majority in the Senate for ratification. Thomas 
Jefferson wrote, ``We had better have no treaty than a bad one.''
  I am afraid this test ban treaty is a bad one and it would be better 
not to have it. A treaty is permanent. It requires great vision and 
caution. Ratification of this test ban treaty would ultimately endanger 
our national security. I hope our citizens are paying close and careful 
attention.
  There are really two questions before us: First, if we ratify this 
treaty, will the United States be able to maintain a safe, reliable, 
and credible nuclear capability? Second, will we be able to verify that 
this treaty is being enforced by other countries that have joined us? 
Unless both questions can be answered ``yes,'' then we cannot possibly 
ratify this treaty.
  On the issue of reliability, nuclear tests are the only proven method 
to assure confidence in the reliability and safety of our nuclear 
weapons. We have heard testimony to this effect from scientists and 
other experts. They worry that as we make advances in material science 
and component technology for these very complex weapons, the inability 
to test these advances through actual detonations will leave us with 
doubt about whether they will work if used.
  This treaty prohibits all nuclear tests, even of the lowest yield. 
The new diagnostic tools are still unbuilt and unproven. Scientists 
admit with humility that actual tests have often radically altered 
their chalkboard theories drawn out in the laboratory. At this point, 
anything short of testing is not sufficient to assure reliability and 
safety. Reliability of our weapons means they will work as intended. So 
it is clear that reliability is key to our national strategy.
  My second concern is that once the United States ratifies this 
treaty, we will stop testing our weapons because we abide by treaties, 
but rogue nations will not. Several countries that signed the Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreeing not to produce nuclear weapons, 
violated the treaty. They built the nuclear weapons anyway. Now we are 
expecting them to sign this treaty and agree not to test.
  I agree with Dr. Kathleen Bailey of Lawrence Livermore Labs, who 
noted in testimony before the Armed Services Committee that this treaty 
expects nations to ``agree not to test weapons they previously agreed 
not to acquire.''
  The Secretary of Defense has acknowledged in his own testimony that 
``we would not be able to detect every evasively conducted test.''
  In fact, I pursued this direct line of questioning with former 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili, in Defense 
appropriations hearings on March 5, 1997. He was the Joint Chiefs 
Chairman at the time, and he did his best. But even then, he could not 
say he would guarantee the safety.
  General Shalikashvili said, ``With each year that goes by and we are 
further and further away from having done the last test, it will become 
more and more difficult. That is why it is very important that we do 
not allow the energy budget to slip, but continue working on this 
science-based stockpile verification program and that we get this thing 
operating. But even then, Senator, we won't know whether that will be 
sufficient not to have to test. What we are talking about is the best 
judgment by scientists that they will be able to determine the 
reliability through these technical methods.''
  I then asked him, ``Do you think we should have some time at which we 
would do some testing just to see if all of these great assumptions 
are, in fact, true?''
  General Shalikashvili responded, ``I don't know. I won't pretend to 
understand the physics of this enough. But I

[[Page 24593]]

did meet with the nuclear laboratory directors and we talked about it 
at great length. They are all convinced that you can do that. But when 
I ask them for a guarantee, they cannot give it to you until all of the 
pieces are stood up.''
  He continued, ``Obviously if we stand it up and we cannot do that, 
then we will have to back the President and say we will have to test. 
Hopefully it will work out. But we are still a number of years away 
before we will have that put together so that we can tell you for sure 
it will not work or it will.''
  I said, ``Well, mark one Senator down as skeptical.''
  General Shalikashvili responded, ``Mark one Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff joining in that skepticism. I just don't know.''
  Mr. President, ``just don't know'' is being unsure. Close is not good 
enough. It is not good enough when you are talking about a permanent 
treaty and when it comes to nuclear safety.
  The recent letter to the majority and minority leaders from six 
former Secretaries of Defense of both parties was even more chilling. 
This letter from six former Secretaries of Defense from both parties:

       As the Senate weighs whether to approve the Comprehensive 
     Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), we believe Senators will be obliged 
     to focus on one dominant, inescapable result were it to be 
     ratified: over the decades ahead, confidence in the 
     reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile would inevitably 
     decline, thereby reducing the credibility of America's 
     nuclear deterrent.

  They go on to say:

       The nuclear weapons in our nation's arsenal are 
     sophisticated devices, whose thousands of components must 
     function together with split-second timing and scant margin 
     for error. A nuclear weapon contains radioactive material, 
     which in itself decays, and also changes the properties of 
     other materials within the weapon. Over time, the components 
     of our weapons corrode and deteriorate, and we lack 
     experience predicting the effects of such aging on the safety 
     and reliability of the weapons. The shelf life of U.S. 
     nuclear weapons was expected to be some 20 years. In the 
     past, the constant process of replacement and testing of new 
     designs gave some assurance that weapons in the arsenal would 
     be both new and reliable. But under the CTBT, we would be 
     vulnerable to the effects of aging because we could not test 
     ``fixes'' of problems with existing warheads.

  I think it is clear from the experts, from former Secretaries of 
Defense and from former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs that they cannot 
give us a guarantee.
  We are talking about nuclear safety. We are talking about the major 
tool we have for deterrence. We are talking about the security of the 
United States of America, and we have a treaty before us that is 
permanent.
  How could we go forward with a treaty such as this with these kinds 
of questions? Close is not good enough when we are talking about 
permanence, and when we are talking about our own national security.
  In fact, when it came to a test-ban treaty, President Reagan and 
other Cold War Presidents supported a ban only on high-yield nuclear 
tests. These tests would be of sufficient explosive power to be 
detected and identified by the sophisticated equipment designed to 
monitor underground explosions.
  Under that proposal, lower yield tests would be permitted, to help 
ensure that our weapons were reliable. It makes sense not to ban low-
yield tests because they're too small to detect and identify with the 
monitoring equipment. That was a sensible approach that has 
unfortunately been discarded by the Clinton Administration.
  In fact, just last month, it appears the Russians may have conducted 
low-level nuclear tests at an Arctic test site. I say ``may have'' 
because the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that seismic 
sensors and other monitoring equipment simply can not provide the data 
needed to know for sure.
  Supporters of the treaty say it will result in a more extensive 
monitoring program, including inspections by experts. But a more 
extensive inspection system is not going to increase our capability to 
detect violations in advance. And having the right to request on-site 
inspections of test facilities doesn't give any added assurance of 
verification either. Let's face it: We've had that right in Iraq for 
the last eight years, and it's not worth the paper it's printed on.
  Look at recent events in North Korea as an example of this 
Administration's policy of buying compliance with treaties and 
agreements. That policy has actually promoted nuclear and missile 
proliferation.
  When the administration became convinced North Korea was building a 
nuclear device, in violation of their commitments under the Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty, it threatened a variety of sanctions.
  The North Koreans responded that sanctions were tantamount to a 
declaration of war and soon we were at the negotiating table with this 
rogue nation. Prior to their possession of a nuclear weapon, it had 
been a tenet of our foreign policy for over 40 years that the United 
States would not negotiate directly with the North Koreans without our 
South Korean allies at the table.
  However, once it became clear that North Korea was trying to enter 
the nuclear club, we began to negotiate. We set a lavish buffet of 
incentives--cash transfers, fuel, helping them build safer nuclear 
reactors. This began a dangerous cycle in which the North Koreans 
threaten to act badly and we bribe them not to.
  After that pattern, despite our warnings and threats, Pakistan soon 
thereafter tested a nuclear weapon and claimed membership in the 
nuclear club.
  As former Majority Leader Bob Dole has pointed out, ``We refer to 
states as rogue regimes because they regularly violate international 
law and refuse to be held accountable to international norms. The best 
way to deal with them is to deter them.''
  This treaty will not end nuclear testing. A ``feel good treaty'' 
doesn't make the world a safer place. The world is safer only when 
America is strong. A critical element of our military strength is a 
credible nuclear capability. This treaty will not result in a nuclear 
weapons free world. It will only result in a nuclear weapons free 
America, and that would be a much more dangerous world.
  I urge my colleagues not to go forward with this treaty that we will 
have to abide by, on a permanent basis, not knowing if we will be able 
to keep our arsenal up to date and safe. This is a chance we cannot 
afford to take as the stewards of the national defense of our country.
  I urge my colleagues to vote no on this treaty if it does come 
forward.
  Once again, Mr. President, I thank Senator Allard from Colorado, 
Senator Levin, Senator Dorgan, and all who have allowed me to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
  I wish to begin also by thanking the chairman of the Senate Armed 
Services Committee, Senator Warner, for holding 3 days of hearings on 
the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. These hearings were well 
balanced and very informative. They were also very much overdue. But at 
least we have begun the process of exploring this treaty.
  What do we know after 3 days of those hearings?
  We know the best professional judgment of our senior military leaders 
is that the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty is in our Nation's 
national security interest. The best professional judgment of our 
senior military leaders, civilian and uniform, is that we are better 
off with this treaty than without it. We know after these hearings that 
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will make it harder and more 
expensive for other countries to maintain existing stockpiles. We know 
the treaty would make it harder and more expensive for nations that do 
not yet have nuclear weapons to develop and deploy those weapons. We 
know that the treaty, as all treaties, is not perfectly verifiable. But 
we also know that tests conducted below our level of detection would 
not militarily disadvantage the United States.
  That doesn't come from me, although I believe it. It comes from our 
senior military leaders.

[[Page 24594]]

  We know that our overall monitoring and verification capabilities are 
very capable today and will improve with the entry into force of the 
treaty. We know, despite a 7-year moratorium on nuclear testing, that 
the U.S. nuclear stockpile remains safe and reliable today. We haven't 
tested in 7 years. We have relied on our Stockpile Stewardship Program. 
That program is up and running. We rely on it every year for a 
certification that our stockpile is safe and reliable.
  This isn't some future concept that is being discussed. It is a 
Stockpile Stewardship Program that is, of course, not finished. It may 
never be finished. But it has made significant progress. We rely on it. 
We have invested billions in it. And our lab Directors have said three 
times, based on a Stockpile Stewardship Program that we now have up and 
running, that our nuclear inventory is safe and reliable. Without that 
stewardship program, they cannot make those certifications now on which 
we so heavily rely.
  So the Stockpile Stewardship Program is already serving as a basis 
for certifying safety and reliability of this stockpile. We also know 
that its capabilities will improve substantially in the future, but 
that if at any point in the future the Stockpile Stewardship Program is 
not adequate to certify the safety and reliability of our stockpile at 
that point under the guarantees that are in the letter from the 
President--and that we will write into the ratification resolution--
then the United States will exercise its supreme national interest 
clause and begin testing again.
  We have informed every signatory that is what we will have the right 
to do. We have put all the parties on notice as to what our supreme 
national interest is. We have said that if we can't certificate safety 
and reliability without testing--and we believe that we can do it 
without testing--we will then return to testing.
  We also know there is no military requirement for the United States 
to resume testing at the present time and there are no plans to resume 
testing with or without a Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
  Most important of all, we know that if we do not ratify this treaty, 
we will miss an opportunity, which is a historic opportunity, to stem 
the tide of nuclear proliferation, and we will instead be encouraging a 
new and possibly worldwide nuclear arms race.
  Prohibition of nuclear weapons tests have been the goal of Presidents 
since President Eisenhower. It was President Eisenhower who said almost 
40 years ago that not achieving a nuclear test ban, in his words, 
``would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any 
administration of any decade of any time and of any party.''
  The whole world, including nuclear weapons powers and countries that 
might want to become nuclear weapons powers, will be watching what the 
Senate does with this treaty. Our action is going to affect the 
willingness of other nations to ratify the treaty and our ability to 
persuade other nations to refrain from future nuclear testing. 
Rejection of this treaty will have a profound negative impact on the 
battle against proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  We urge other countries--particularly, most recently India and 
Pakistan--to give up nuclear testing, to sign this treaty. India and 
Pakistan test weapons and we say: Stop it for your sake, for the 
world's sake. It is a road you should no longer walk. It is a road 
which could lead to your mutual total destruction and could spread to 
other parts of the world.
  We make those pleas to India, Pakistan, and other countries. How in 
the world can we expect other countries to refrain from nuclear testing 
if we are unwilling to do so? How will we have any standing to ask 
India, Pakistan, China, and other countries to stop nuclear testing for 
the sake of the world, for the sake of our kids, and their kids? How 
would we have the gall to ask other countries to refrain from testing 
if we, ourselves, are unwilling to do so?
  Our Secretary of Defense, our Joint Chiefs, four former chairmen of 
the Joint Chiefs--including General Shalikashvili, General Powell, 
Admiral Crowe, General Jones--have reviewed this treaty and have told 
the Senate Armed Services Committee that they also support this test 
ban treaty. General Shalikashvili's name was brought in by the Senator 
from Texas. I want to read what General Shalikashvili said this week. 
We heard what he said 2 years ago; now let's see what he says today. By 
the way, it is even stronger than where he was leading 2 years ago.

       In short, the chief and I have supported this treaty, 
     together with the safeguards package, because it answered our 
     military concerns and because our country is better off with 
     this treaty than it is without it.

  That is General Shalikashvili putting in a nutshell what the issue 
is: Is this country better off with or without this treaty? His answer 
is, it is.
  General Shelton, who is the current Chairman of our Joint Chiefs, 
testified as follows before our committee:

       This treaty will help limit the development of more 
     advanced and destructive weapons and inhibit the ability of 
     more countries to acquire nuclear weapons. It is true that 
     the treaty cannot prevent proliferation or reduce current 
     inventory, but it can restrict nuclear weapons progress and 
     reduce the risk of proliferation.

  In short, our top uniform military official says the world will be a 
safer place with the treaty than without it, and it is in our national 
security interests to ratify the treaty.
  Secretary Cohen, at the same hearings this week, testified that the 
treaty would restrain other nations from creating and building nuclear 
arsenals. He said:

       By banning nuclear explosive testing, the treaty removes a 
     key tool that a proliferator would need in order to acquire 
     high confidence in its nuclear weapons design. Further, the 
     treaty helps make it more difficult for Russia, China, India 
     and Pakistan to improve existing types of nuclear weapons and 
     to develop advanced new types of nuclear weapons. In this 
     way, the treaty contributes to the reduction of the global 
     nuclear threat. Thus, while the treaty cannot prevent 
     proliferation or reduce the current nuclear threat, it can 
     make more difficult the development of advanced new types of 
     nuclear weapons and thereby help cap the nuclear threat.

  Opponents of ratification have raised two major arguments. They 
contend other nations could cheat because a low-yield nuclear test 
might not be picked up by our sensors; and second, we need to conduct 
nuclear tests in order to maintain the safety and reliability of our 
nuclear stockpile.
  General Shelton and Secretary Cohen, on the basis of current 
intelligence information, have said that we would be able to detect any 
militarily significant level of nuclear testing. Secretary Cohen 
explained the conclusion this way:

       Is it possible for States to cheat on the treaty without 
     being detected? The answer is, yes. We would not be able to 
     detect every evasively conducted nuclear test, and from a 
     national security perspective we do not need to.

  This is his conclusion.
  Secretary Cohen said:

       I believe that the United States will be able to detect a 
     level of testing, the yield and the number of tests by which 
     a state could undermine the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

  General Shelton also pointed out that the treaty, if it comes into 
effect, will increase our ability to observe and monitor tests because 
it will create an international monitoring system of over 300 
monitoring stations in 90 countries.
  Some refer to information developed by the intelligence community 
over the last 18 months. I specifically asked the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense whether or not their testimony, 
their opinion, includes consideration of all of the intelligence 
community's information that has been gathered in the last 18 months 
and before.
  Secretary Cohen states:

       I have been apprised of all the developments. I am not 
     aware of any information at this point that would call into 
     question our ability to maintain our strong nuclear 
     deterrent, that any balance has shifted or would call into 
     question our ability to defend ourselves.

  With regard to the safety of the stockpile, it is now safe, it is 
certified as safe, even though we have done no testing since 1992.
  The answer of the heads of our laboratories--when I directly asked 
them this question: Are you signed on to this treaty?--was:


[[Page 24595]]

       Yes, provided the safeguards are written into the 
     ratification resolution and providing there is robust funding 
     of our safeguards and our stockpile security program.

  The lab Directors are, in the words of one of them, ``on board'' 
under those conditions and those conditions now exist.
  My friend from Virginia apparently has a question, and I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Earlier, my distinguished colleague referred to General 
Powell. I have had the opportunity to be counseling with General 
Powell, soliciting his views, and he has been soliciting mine for some 
several days. He just telephoned me because he is watching this debate. 
He authorized me to say the following, that in view of the mounting 
conflicting testimony--primarily before the Senate Armed Services 
Committee in the course of the three hearings which my colleague is now 
addressing and I shall address at some point here--in view of the 
mounting conflict of testimony, particularly as it relates to the 
credibility of this deterrent and, indeed, safety issues--we need only 
look at the testimony by the lab Directors yesterday--he has authorized 
me to say at this time he joins those who recommended the delay of 
final consideration of the treaty at this point in time.
  That should be clearly understood. He feels it should not be killed 
because he thinks, hopefully, if it is modified in certain ways, that 
it can be another brick in our walkway leading towards nonproliferation 
and stronger arms control regimes. However, at this time, he wishes to 
be on record as saying the Senate should not act and should not act 
because of the mounting conflicting testimony on the key essential 
elements that he and other uniformed officers--I addressed this earlier 
in the safeguards provision and likewise, which says at some point in 
time a President could withdraw from this treaty because of information 
brought to his attention.
  So that is an important part of the treaty. It is under the 
``supreme'' clause, which is in all of our treaties, but it is 
amplified. So I just wanted to correct the record.
  Mr. LEVIN. You are not correcting the record at all. You are 
amplifying the record, if I may say to my good friend from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. You said he supported the treaty but at this point in 
time----
  Mr. LEVIN. I said he supported the treaty; and I am glad to hear he 
supports delay in the vote, and I hope our colleagues will listen to 
both of his statements, both that we should not now vote on this 
treaty--because he is correct for many reasons--and also I hope they 
will listen to his statement of January 27, 1998, when he, along with 
General Shalikashvili, former Chairman Crowe, and former Chairman Jones 
said the following:

       On September 22, 1997, President Clinton submitted the 
     Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban (CTB) Treaty to the United 
     States Senate for its advice and consent, together with six 
     Safeguards that define the conditions under which the United 
     States will enter into this Treaty. These Safeguards will 
     strengthen our commitments in the areas of intelligence, 
     monitoring and verification, stockpile stewardship, 
     maintenance of our nuclear laboratories, and test readiness. 
     They also specify the circumstances under which the President 
     would be prepared, in consultation with Congress, to exercise 
     our supreme national interest rights under the CTB to conduct 
     necessary testing if the safety or reliability of our nuclear 
     deterrent could no longer be certified.

  This is his conclusion, General Powell, on January 27, 1998:

       With these Safeguards, we support Senate approval of the 
     CTB Treaty.

  Those are his words. I am glad to have this printed in the Record and 
I am happy to hear at this point, at least, General Powell does support 
the delay in the vote. I think that is a wiser course to take for three 
reasons, and I will conclude with those reasons.
  Mr. WARNER. The reasons he gave me are in view of the conflicting 
testimony that has evolved since the point in time at which he made 
that statement. That is the predicate on which he now thinks the vote 
should be delayed.
  Mr. LEVIN. There are at least three predicates I would support for 
delaying this treaty. I am glad to hear he reaches the same conclusion 
for whatever reason he wants to give now.
  Mr. WARNER. They are very important reasons, Mr. President.
  Mr. LEVIN. I am not going to comment on his reasons. I am delighted 
he reached the conclusion he did. I disagree with his reasoning as to 
how he reached his conclusion because I think the evidence is 
overwhelming, and the testimony, if anything, has grown stronger. In 
fact, one of the arguments against this treaty is that we need somehow 
to defeat it in order to protect our allies; that they are relying on 
our deterrent--which, of course, they are--that somehow or other our 
allies would be disadvantaged if we ratified this treaty.
  Yet three key allies have taken an unusual step. I do not remember 
when this has ever happened, when the heads of three states closely 
allied with us have urged this Senate directly to ratify a treaty. Yet 
that is what they are now doing.
  We have heard arguments for the last few days: Look how important our 
strategic deterrent is, not just to us, which it is, but to our allies, 
which it has been and will continue to be.
  What does President Chirac say and what does Prime Minister Blair say 
and what does Chancellor Schroeder say? They say: We need this treaty, 
Senate. They are directly addressing the U.S. Senate. I do not remember 
that ever happening.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Never.
  Mr. LEVIN. Directly, directly asking the U.S. Senate to ratify the 
comprehensive test ban.
  What do they say:

       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 [they say] 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 U.S. Senate to ratify the treaty.

  So much for the argument that somehow or other defeating this treaty 
is not only good for us but it is good for our allies. Not in their 
view, it is not. Not in my view, it is not. And I hope not in the view 
of the majority of this Senate.
  But I want to go back to the delay, and I am going to wind up because 
I do happen to agree, we should not vote on this treaty at this time--
for a number of reasons.
  First of all, because it would be tragic to reject this treaty, and 
if it comes to a vote now, it is going to be rejected. It would be 
tragic for our security--that is our top military leaders saying that, 
and I feel that keenly. It would be tragic for the world for us to 
defeat this treaty. It would reverse the direction in which we are 
heading, which is an ongoing effort to try to reduce the threat of 
proliferation of nuclear weapons. That effort, which I hope all of us 
share, will be damaged severely if we reject this treaty. And because 
we will reject this treaty if it comes to a vote, I think we should 
delay it.
  No. 2, this treaty should not be involved in any way in Presidential 
politics, partisan politics, political meanderings, conflicts. We ought 
to be looking at this treaty based on its merits without this political 
environment being heeded. We cannot and are not doing that at this 
moment. It is a good reason to delay this treaty.
  We delayed the Chemical Weapons Convention. The reason we delayed our 
vote, even though it was scheduled--and I tell my good friend who is 
presiding, even though we had actually scheduled a vote on the Chemical 
Weapons Convention, by unanimous consent I believe, too--when Senator 
Dole came out against that Chemical Weapons Convention shortly before 
we were voting, and while he was running for President, we decided as a 
Senate we would delay that vote until after that Presidential election.
  We then, taking calm deliberation, adding conditions, reservations--
we

[[Page 24596]]

then ratified that treaty. We took the time to do it. In fact, we spent 
a lot of time in the Old Senate Chamber, as I remember, as part of that 
deliberation. We should do that here.
  The third reason we should not proceed to vote at this time is that 
we as a Senate have a responsibility to deliberate on a treaty. We put 
ourselves in a position, through a unanimous consent agreement, where 
we could not do that adequately. I think that was a mistake. But we do 
not have to compound our mistakes and make a worse mistake by voting on 
it just because we agreed to a unanimous consent agreement that we 
would begin the debate on it. That does not force us to proceed to vote 
on that treaty.
  We have done some good with this unanimous consent agreement already, 
although I believe, looking back, it was a mistake to constrain 
ourselves as we did--that we could not add amendments other than one on 
each side, could not add reservations, could not add conditions, and so 
forth. What we have done as an institution is to put ourselves in a 
straitjacket with this unanimous consent reservation, which is not in 
keeping with the great traditions of the Senate. Senator Byrd, Senator 
Moynihan, and others made that point. I think they made it eloquently. 
I keenly believe it. We have a responsibility here to deliberate on a 
treaty, to be open to considering conditions, qualifications, 
reservations, statements--to complete our committee work.
  My good friend from Virginia knows--in fact he was the one, I think, 
who brought this out--we are currently in the middle of receiving a 
national intelligence estimate which is not yet completed. We should 
see that completed. We should have whatever hearings are needed.
  By the way, we should have a committee report. I cannot remember a 
treaty which has ever come to the floor of the Senate--at least of this 
magnitude--without a committee report. On the Chemical Weapons 
Convention, we had a committee report of 350 pages for consideration by 
this body. We do not have one page from any of the committees.
  So it seems to me it makes the most sense for us, under these 
circumstances--I am going to be perfectly candid; one of the reasons 
that compels me is that I believe if we voted now, this would be 
defeated. I think that would be a tragic setback in the fight against 
proliferation. But there are other very important institutional 
reasons, which I hope will appeal to others, that we should not ever as 
a body put ourselves in a position where we need to vote, or have to 
vote, on something which is not ready to be voted on.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield on our time. The 
distinguished ranking member of the Armed Services Committee and I, the 
distinguished ranking member of the Foreign Relations and Senator 
Moynihan--a group of us are trying to work on a framework for the 
purpose of our two respective leaders, and, indeed, the President is 
involved.
  Yesterday, in the course of our hearings, I addressed my concern--I 
support the delay of the final consideration, as now under the UC, but 
I am also very concerned that whenever the Senate resumes consideration 
of this treaty it be done in a time period after careful records have 
been created on this treaty and questions that concern General Powell 
about the conflict of testimony have been resolved to the best of our 
ability, and that it not be done under the dynamics of the U.S. 
constitutional process of electing a President and the Members of the 
Congress. That is the thing that concerns me. Those dynamics might, in 
all fairness, affect the outcome of this treaty which could be adverse 
to the national security interests of this Nation and our allies who 
depend upon us.
  In searching for the format of a consensus to move off the UC consent 
of having the vote next week, we need to address that issue. Will my 
dear colleague say exactly what he did in open session yesterday about 
how he basically endorses my concerns over the year of the national 
elections under our Constitution?
  Mr. LEVIN. As I said yesterday, indeed, the day before, in the 
absence of circumstances that I cannot foresee----
  Mr. WARNER. Primarily, Mr. President, international intervention of 
some type.
  Mr. LEVIN. No, I do not limit it to that.
  Mr. WARNER. Each Senator has an opportunity to address that.
  Mr. LEVIN. That is correct. But in the absence of circumstances I 
cannot foresee, I would oppose bringing this treaty up next year for 
the reasons I have given. In conclusion, at a minimum, I believe we 
should do no harm. At least let us do no harm in the battle against 
proliferation. Bringing this treaty up now for a vote--not for debate, 
which we are doing under a UC, but for a vote--in my judgment, would do 
harm to the battle against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I hope 
we will be able to find a way that we not reach that vote. I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I concur in my good friend's comments. In 
other words, I have been urging him to say these things for some time. 
I thank him because this is very helpful as I and other Senators, 
hopefully with him, continue to work to provide our leadership with a 
framework within which this can be achieved.
  Mr. LEVIN. If I can have 10 more seconds, I have not been reluctant 
at all to say this over the last few days. I have been very open about 
my feelings on this issue and that bringing this treaty to a vote now 
would do harm. I join my friend from Virginia in that belief.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if it will help my colleagues, we have been 
trying to equalize this. I am about to yield to Senator Dorgan for 15 
minutes, but I say to Democrats who are waiting to speak, we have 
Tuesday as well. I will be yielding in the 5-to-7-minute range for 
people who wish to speak after this, if people want to speak. We will 
reserve enough time at the conclusion of this debate.
  I yield 15 minutes to Senator Dorgan who has been, quite frankly, the 
leader on our side of this issue who has been trying very hard for a 
year to get us to this point of debate. I yield 15 minutes to my friend 
from North Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, for all the anxiety that is expressed in 
this Chamber about when we might vote and the consequences of that 
vote, I at least observe that we are finally on the right subject. This 
is an important issue. This is an important matter for the Senate to 
consider. There are big issues and then there are small issues. There 
are important issues and some not so important. Stopping the spread of 
nuclear weapons, in my judgment, is a big, important issue.
  Will the United States of America be a leader, will it assume its 
moral responsibility in the world to provide leadership to stop the 
spread of nuclear weapons and reduce the risk of nuclear war? That is 
the question before the Senate.
  Sadly, some in this Chamber answer that question by saying: No, not 
us, not now. In fact, some, if you look at their record on arms control 
agreements say: Not us, never.
  This treaty is not so difficult to understand, despite the 
protestations of some.
  Forty years ago, President Eisenhower called for a treaty of this 
type. Seven years ago, the United States decided we would unilaterally 
stop the testing of nuclear weapons. Nearly 5 years ago, our country 
was a leader in convening nations to negotiate a comprehensive test ban 
treaty. Two years ago, that Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was sent to 
the Senate for ratification. Not 1 day of hearings was held in the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2 years--not 1.
  Then abruptly, 10 days ago, we were told there would be 14 hours of 
debate and 10 days hence we would have a vote on the Comprehensive Test 
Ban Treaty.
  That was not and is not a thoughtful way for the Senate to deal with 
this issue, especially an issue of this importance.

[[Page 24597]]

  Now to the debate. Mark Twain once said when asked if he would 
participate in a debate: Absolutely, provided I can take the negative 
side.
  They said: We have not told you what the debate is about.
  He said: It doesn't matter, you don't need time to prepare for the 
negative side.
  I will not ascribe those motives to those who are strongly in 
opposition to this treaty, but some of the charges and allegations made 
just seem, to me, to be preposterous. I heard an hour or so ago in this 
Chamber the term ``unilateral disarmament'' applied to the U.S. 
ratifying this treaty. What a preposterous charge, unilateral 
disarmament.
  Let's look at who supports this treaty. I heard a discussion about 
Gen. Colin Powell. Gen. Colin Powell supports this treaty. He said so. 
We have the date, the time, the place, the statement. He now, 
apparently, in a telephone call he said he would like to defer the vote 
because of questions raised in hearings, hearings that were 2 years in 
the making. Gen. Colin Powell, General Shalikashvili, the last four 
Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Shelton, the present 
Chairman and the Secretary of Defense--all of whom say they support 
this treaty. Why? Because they believe this treaty protects this 
country's security interests. They believe this treaty is in this 
country's interest.
  I will read some statements because those who come to the floor 
talking about the military consequences of this treaty need to 
understand to what all the senior military leaders in this country now 
testify.
  The Joint Chiefs, the senior military leaders in this country, say:

       In a very real sense, one of the best ways to protect our 
     troops and our interests is to promote arms control. . . . In 
     both the conventional and nuclear realms, arms control can 
     reduce the chances of conflict. . . . Our efforts to reduce 
     the number of nuclear weapons coincide with the efforts to 
     control testing of nuclear weapons. . . . The Joint Chiefs 
     support the ratification of this treaty.

  Colin Powell and others in January 1998 said:

       We support Senate approval of the CTBT.

  Gen. Colin Powell supports the ratification of this treaty. We are 
told he wants the vote delayed. So that does not change the fact that 
he is on record saying he supports the ratification of the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
  What about monitoring? We hear all this noise about if we ratify this 
treaty, countries will cheat.
  Our military leaders--and certainly the scientists--but especially 
our military leaders say that if we ratify this treaty, we will have 
monitors all around the world.
  I show the situation on these charts: Here are the monitors without 
ratification; here are the monitors with ratification. The number of 
monitors is dramatically enhanced. The ability to detect nuclear tests, 
detect cheating will be dramatically enhanced. No one that I know of 
can credibly or thoughtfully argue that we are not enhancing our 
capability in this country by ratifying this treaty.
  What about the scientists? Thirty-two Nobel laureates in physics and 
chemistry, the most powerful intellects in this country were at the 
White House a couple of days ago. One who testified yesterday worked on 
developing the first nuclear bomb; one who testified the day before 
invented radar and then invented the laser--what do these scientists 
tell us about this treaty? They say: Ratify this treaty. This treaty is 
in the country's best interest.
  Scientifically, they tell us that we can safeguard our nuclear 
stockpile; we can more effectively monitor tests around the world. They 
say, without equivocation: Ratify this treaty. That is from scientists.
  What about the American people? Surveys show 80 percent of the 
American people say: Ratify this.
  It is interesting to me, military leaders do not count; scientists do 
not count; the American people do not count. There is this cold war 
mentality, I guess, that nothing has changed. Some who have never 
supported an arms control agreement are back here again today saying 
this will not work either.
  Other arms control agreements have worked, and we know it. We have 
seen the destruction of nuclear weapons by sawing wings off bombers, by 
destroying missiles and warheads, and not by hostility but by arms 
control agreements that call for reducing the numbers of nuclear 
weapons. That has happened. These arms control agreements have been 
successful. This treaty will be successful if this Senate will ratify 
it.
  The support of military leaders and scientists--and, for that matter, 
the American people--seems to matter little in this Chamber. The 
scientific opinion of the most respected scientists in the world are 
second-guessed by those who believe they can understand this issue in a 
matter of a day or two.
  Thirty-two Nobel Prize winners, two seismology organizations, three 
current weapons lab Directors, the Secretary of Energy, the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense all have a common 
position on this country's ability to solve the scientific and 
technical tasks required in this test ban treaty; and all of them say 
that this treaty is in the country's interests.
  The spread of nuclear weapons, that is what all this is about--
stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. India and Pakistan detonated 
nuclear weapons not too long ago under each other's chin. These are two 
countries that do not like each other. Ought that not send some fear 
all around the world about the proliferation of nuclear weapons?
  Or maybe some do not understand nuclear weapons. They think that they 
are just bombs. There is an Indian author named Arundahti Roy who is 
one of the most acclaimed young authors in the world right now. She 
writes about a nuclear attack and nuclear weapons. Let me read some of 
this for a moment. She talks about the sentiments of survivors of a 
nuclear attack:

       What shall we do then, those of us who are still alive? 
     Burned and blind and bald and ill, carrying the cancerous 
     carcasses of our children in our arms, where shall we go? 
     What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we 
     breathe?
       . . . There's nothing new or original left to be said about 
     nuclear weapons. . . . (But) under the circumstances, silence 
     would be indefensible. Let's not forget that the stakes we're 
     playing for are huge. Our fatigue and our shame could mean 
     the end of us.

  We have a responsibility as a country. Those who raise arguments I 
have heard today--I wonder how can they sleep at night, if they believe 
our nuclear weapons are unsafe.
  A physicist yesterday said: We have had them for 40 and 50 years. We 
know how they work. We know how to safeguard them. We know how to keep 
them over time. Yet we have people on the floor of the Senate talking 
about the fact that the stockpile may not be safe.
  One of my colleagues said: Drop some of them on your State. You think 
they'd work? Of course they would. You would not, in a million years, 
guess about whether it would detonate on your State if a nuclear weapon 
were aimed at your State. We know our stockpile works and is maintained 
at great cost.
  Cannot monitor? Nonsense. That does not even deserve much of a 
response. Everybody says our monitoring will be enhanced.
  Unilateral disarmament? Rubbish. There is nothing here that suggests 
that. This country already decided we were not going to test 7 years 
ago.
  The question now is, Will we give others a green light to test? We 
decide that we won't test, but we will refuse to ratify a treaty that 
says to others: We don't want you to test either.
  It is a curious set of circumstances by which this comes to the 
floor.
  Every other arms control issue has been dealt with seriously.
  The ABM Treaty: 8 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings, and 
18 days of Senate debate on the floor of the Senate.
  The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1988: 23 days of committee 
hearings in the Foreign Relations Committee; 2 days of Senate floor 
consideration.
  START I: 19 days of hearings; 5 days on the Senate floor.

[[Page 24598]]

  START II: 8 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings; 3 days on 
the Senate floor.
  Chemical weapons: 14 days of hearings; 3 days on the Senate floor.
  NATO enlargement: 7 days of hearings; 8 days on the floor.
  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: 2 years it was here. Not 1 day of 
hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during 2 years; and 
then we are told, 14 hours of debate.
  The New York Times today has the spectacle--welcomed from my 
standpoint, by the way--but the spectacle of the leaders of England, 
France, and Germany asking us to assume our role as a leader, asking us 
to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
  No one ought to ask us to do what we have a responsibility to do. We 
ought not to be in the position of having other countries have to ask 
us to assume leadership in trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons 
and reduce the risk of nuclear war. We ought to be leading on this 
issue, not following.
  Omar Bradley, that great general said some many years ago, and it 
applies especially today, it seems to me:

       The world has achieved a brilliance without conscience. 
     Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we 
     continue to develop our technology without wisdom or 
     prudence, our servants may prove to be our executioner.

  Everyone in this Chamber knows our responsibility. Our duty--as the 
nuclear superpower on this Earth--our duty is to lead. And we cannot 
and we must not shrink from that duty ever.
  There is great anxiety about what happens at the end of 14 hours, and 
what if, as some now speculate, many Senators, especially on the other 
side of the aisle, decide they cannot support this treaty. Some say 
that would be a chilling, chilling result, with devastating results 
around the rest of the world.
  I know this: This is a difficult, uncertain time, with many countries 
wishing to possess and acquire nuclear weapons. It is a difficult time, 
with India and Pakistan detonating nuclear weapons. It is a difficult 
time, with rogue nations and terrorist groups that want to threaten 
much of civilization.
  We have unloosed the nuclear genie, and we must assume responsibility 
in providing an opportunity for the entire world to stop the spread of 
nuclear weapons. One way to do that--an important and effective way to 
do that--is to decide as a Senate to ratify this treaty.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from 
Colorado, Mr. Allard.
  Mr. ALLARD. If the Chair will notify me when I have a minute left, I 
would appreciate it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the patient Senator from 
Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, there are three areas I will respond to, 
contained in previous comments made on the floor. One has to do with 
the number of hearings we have had in relation to this issue. Another 
is what previous Presidents have accepted. Another is our ability to 
monitor what has happened as far as nuclear testing is concerned.
  We have had hearings in the Armed Services Committee. I have served 
on that committee. I have been there personally. I know they have been 
there. We have had hearings in the Intelligence Committee. To make a 
statement that this has been brought to the floor without a hearing and 
discussion in committee is false. We have had those hearings. I believe 
I have been adequately briefed, as a Member of the Senate, on the pros 
and cons of moving ahead with the ratification of this particular 
treaty.
  As far as previous Presidents pushing for a nuclear test ban, none of 
the Presidents, except for this President, has worked for zero 
tolerance. That is unprecedented. Because of that zero tolerance, it 
creates special problems for this country when it comes to monitoring. 
We have shown, through our own scientific testing, that it is possible, 
with low-level nuclear testing, it can be camouflaged. One can let off 
a low-level test without any kind of detection. When we get to a zero-
tolerance level, this all becomes a problem, as far as monitoring. We 
do have real problems with monitoring.
  This week we have begun the very important debate regarding the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, better known as the CTBT, and whether 
its ratification is in the best interest of the United States. I 
believe this debate is timely. I have been studying the issue during 
the course of the last year; attended as many of the hearings as 
possible; carefully reviewed much of the record; and I listened closely 
to all my colleagues and the experts with their many varied opinions. 
After all this, I have come to the conclusion that the CTBT is not in 
the best interest of this country at this time.
  As we move into the 21st century, America is confronting new and 
improved threats. More countries have acquired and are attempting to 
acquire weapons of mass destruction. This despite all the treaties in 
place today. Unfortunately, the reality of this threat means that the 
United States needs not a weakened nuclear deterrent but a stronger and 
more reliable nuclear deterrent.
  During the cold war, we were in a bi-polar strategic stance. It was 
the U.S. versus the Soviet Union. When we signed up to treaties, we 
were really only negotiating with the USSR. However, with the fall of 
the USSR, we are in a completely different strategic situation. Our 
main threats are rogue states whose goals are completely different than 
the former Soviet Union. I do not believe that these rogue states--
Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and the like--really care if we ratify the 
CTBT. They will do what they believe is in their best interest.
  For example, what do we do if we ratify the treaty and Iraq conducts 
a nuclear test? Some would say that we can punish them or shame them. 
How? Are we going to bomb them? Are we going to place heavy economic 
sanctions on them? To me, this treaty will do nothing to stop the 
people we want to stop from testing. While we do not need to go ``mano 
y mano'' anymore with another state in numbers of warheads, we do need 
to have a strong nuclear deterrent and to do this we need the 
technology and industrial base capable of assuring that our weapons 
stay strong. I believe we use the deterrent approach until we have the 
technology available to destroy a nuclear threat over the country of 
origin at which time it becomes a liability to the rogue country.
  These requirements cannot be confidently met if the United States is 
obliged to adhere to a zero-yield and permanent CTBT. Despite what we 
have heard, no other administration has called for this treaty. 
President Eisenhower proposed a test ban but only for a limited 
duration. Neither President Kennedy nor President Johnson supported a 
zero yield test ban. President Nixon agreed to limit test above 150 
kilotons and President Carter sought only a ten year ban with tests up 
to two kilotons. Presidents Reagan and Bush did not pursue a test ban 
at all.
  The permanent zero-yield treaty has only been sought by President 
Clinton. And from my understanding, this has not been the position for 
the entirety of his administration. As recently as 1995, the Department 
of Defense position was that it could support a CTBT only if tests of 
up to 500 tons were permitted. However, the military chiefs were 
overruled by the civilian leadership after President Clinton agreed to 
a zero yield test ban.
  This treaty prohibits all underground nuclear tests, even those so 
low that they cannot be confidently detected. If this treaty is 
ratified, we would be permanently prohibited from conducting the sorts 
of tests we have relied upon in the past to assure the safety, 
reliability, and effectiveness of our nuclear people.
  Some of the CTBT proponents believe that the Stockpile Stewardship 
Program is the antidote to nuclear testing. This program supposes to be 
able to simulate nuclear explosions through the use of computer 
modeling. The estimate is that the program will cost at least $4.5 
billion a year over 10 years.

[[Page 24599]]

While Stockpile Stewardship may be the answer in the future, the 
problem is that with any scientific experiment you must have a 
comparable element, and in this case a nuclear test. The best way to 
ensure that the Stockpile Stewardship program is working is to ensure 
that the results of the model match the results of a test. We must be 
able to caliberate the model before we should end all testing. I 
believe this is the height of irresponsibility.
  With this being said, let me stress one major concern I have about 
the treaty, and regarding the 6 safeguards proposed by the President.
  First, as a member of the Intelligence Committee and the Armed 
Services Committee, I believe the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 
submitted to this Senate by President Clinton is not verifiable. This 
means that, despite the vast array of expensive sensors and detection 
technology being established under the treaty, it will be possible for 
other nations to conduct militarily significant nuclear testing with 
little or no risk of detection.
  What is militarily significant nuclear testing? The definitions of 
the term might vary, but I think we'd all agree that any nuclear test 
that gives a nation information to develop newer, more effective 
weaponry is military significant.
  In the case of the United States, nuclear tests will yields between 
between 1,000 tons and 10,000 tons are generally large enough to 
provide ``proof'' data on new weapons designs. Other nations might have 
weaponry that could be assessed at even lower yields. For the sake of 
argument, however, lets be conservative and assume that other nations 
would also need to conduct tests at a level above 1,000 tons to develop 
a new nuclear weapon design.
  The verification system of the CTBT is supposed to detect nuclear 
blasts above 1,000 tons, so it would seem at first glance that it will 
be likely that most cheaters would be caught. We need to look at the 
fine print, however. In reality, the CTBT system will be able to detect 
tests of 1,000 tons or more if they were nonevasive and take place at 
known test sites. This means that the cheater will be caught only if he 
does not try to hide his nuclear test. But, what if he does want to 
hide it? What if he conducts his test evasively?
  From the hearings I have attended, it seems that evasive testing may 
be a very simple task for Russia, China, or others. One of the best 
known means of evasion is detonating the nuclear device in a cavity 
such as a salt dome or a room mined below ground. This technique--
called decoupling--reduces the noise, or the seismic signal, of the 
nuclear detonation.
  The change in the signal of a decoupled test is so significant--it 
can be reduced by as much as a factor of 70-- that it will be 
impossible for any known technology to detect it. For example, a 1,000-
ton evasive test would have a signal of a 14-ton nonevasive test. This 
puts the signal of the illicit test well below the threshold of 
detection. Decoupling is a well-known technique and is technologically 
simple to achieve. In fact, it is quite likely that Russia and China 
have continued to conduct nuclear testing during the past 7 years, 
while the United States has refrained from doing so.
  If the CTBT were not going to affect U.S. capabilities, it would not 
be important whether the treaty were verified or not. The fact is, 
however, that the CTBT will freeze the U.S. nuclear weapons program and 
will make it impossible to assess with high confidence whether 
modifications made to the current stockpile will function as intended. 
And because there are limits to verifying compliance with the treaty, 
it will not effectively constrain other nations in the same way. That 
means they will ultimately be able to gain advantage, at the expense of 
the United States and our defensive posture.
  Second, I want to touch on an issue that does not regard the text of 
the treaty, but the so-called six safeguards. I will not be able to get 
into detail on all of them, but it seems these safeguards have been 
discussed as if they were part of the treaty itself. In reality, these 
safeguards are just promises made by President Clinton. Even if they 
are contained in the Resolution of Ratification, these safeguards are 
still subject to congressional and budgetary pressures.
  For instance, safeguard A states that the Stockpile Stewardship 
Program must be able to ensure a high level of confidence in the safety 
and reliability of nuclear weapons in the active stockpile. My concern 
is, what if the program runs into budgetary programs and a few 
Congressmen decide we are spending too much money on the program and 
attempt to kill the program?
  Also, I know there are special interest groups that support the CTBT 
but oppose the Stockpile Stewardship Program and will put domestic 
political pressure on all of us to reduce and end the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program and instead fund other programs.
  Another example of budgetary and political pressures can be 
associated with a safeguard E. This safeguard insists on the continuing 
development of a broad range of intelligence gathering and analytical 
capabilities. This safeguard is already being tested. This 
administration already attempted to cancel the WC-135 aircraft, citing 
funding considerations. The WC-135 is essential to U.S. monitoring of 
nuclear tests. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I fought for 
its continued funding. If safeguard E were taken seriously by this 
administration, they would not be attempting to cancel a program that 
is essential to monitoring, but would be fully funding these important 
programs.
  For these reasons and many others, I must oppose this treaty --not 
because I want testing, but for the fact that I cannot yet rely upon an 
untested future program for the safety of our nuclear deterrent. Maybe 
one day I can support a zero-yield plan. But now is not the time.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I would like to ask my friend one question 
on my time, if he is willing.
  Does the Senator believe that if we defeat this treaty and allow for 
continued testing, there will be the consensus in this Congress, or in 
any future Congress, to spend $4.5 billion a year for the next 10 years 
to fund the Stockpile Stewardship Program?
  Mr. ALLARD. I think that, right now, we have the desire within this 
Congress to continue to fund the stockpile program. I think many of us 
believe it is an option. It needs to be scientifically developed. We 
don't have the science there. I personally have that commitment. I also 
believe we are developing the technology where we can take our own 
defense systems--we can take our own rocket and meet it with another 
rocket that has a nuclear warhead on it, intercept it. Lately, we have 
begun to demonstrate our ability to do that.
  I think ultimately we will be able to stop nuclear proliferation when 
we eliminate the threat of the nuclear warhead going over any other 
country other than the country from which it was shot. So if we shoot 
it off over the country from which the missile was launched, then the 
only hazard is to the country that has the warhead. When we develop 
that technical capability, then I think we will have a real deterrence. 
And I don't believe that is far away, by the way.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, regarding that, I point out to my friend 
that the ability to do that is in direct proportion to the lack of a 
MIRV'd capability on the part of other countries--that is, other 
countries being able to put multi-reentry nuclear missiles on a vehicle 
to fire at us.
  All of the technology and testimony from all sources has indicated 
that for countries that don't have that capability now to be able to 
move to that capability, which requires them to have a much lighter 
physics package, or nuclear package on top of a missile--it must be 
lighter, and it must have a boost capacity--in order for them to 
develop that, they will have to have testing which is detectable beyond 
anybody's doubt.
  So I make the point that the ability to establish a credible missile 
defense is directly dependent upon the ability

[[Page 24600]]

of us to keep other nations from developing the ability to have MIRV'd 
reentry vehicles.
  I yield 10 minutes now to my friend from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my father, Leon Wellstone, was born in 
Odessa in the Ukraine. His family moved several times to stay ahead of 
the pogroms. Most of his earlier years he spent in Khabarovsk, Siberia, 
Far East Russia. He came to our country in 1914. He fled persecution. 
He never could go back home. In all likelihood, his parents were 
murdered by Stalin.
  Mr. President, my father spent most of his life in our country in 
Washington, DC, and during the night of August 7, 1945, he wrote this 
essay to himself:
  I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       On the day after Hiroshima, I endlessly wandered around 
     town, dazed, lost, adrift. Like a man who suddenly lost all 
     his earthly possessions, his family, his hopes; who is 
     completely and inconsolably bereft; who is stupefied with 
     misery of a depth and poignancy beyond words; who no longer 
     knows where he is going to or why; who can think of nothing 
     but appalling ruin, and nothing save the keenest anxiety and 
     travail and death.
       Then, too tired to walk any more, I headed for an old hotel 
     downtown and came in and sat down. Some months ago I had 
     discovered its lobby. It was shabby and ancient, full of old 
     and creaky furniture that spoke of in numerable years of 
     service bolstered by many fixings and patchings and new coats 
     of paint.
       Everywhere was evidence of age and wear and tear and 
     fatigue. And yet, for all that, the lobby radiated an air of 
     confidence and determined survival.
       Whatever else was in question--an endless list!--one thing 
     at least had appeared certain: that, though changing with the 
     years in manner and pace, life would go on. It was infinitely 
     comforting and appealing to think that it would.
       Now that thought was rudely and cruelly shaken by the blast 
     of a bomb. It was a thing we had only imagined in myths and 
     fables. A fiery augury of the world's end. A revelation, 
     stunning and merciless and naked, that this seemingly solid 
     and enduring world of iron, brick, concrete, flesh and bone 
     can vanish as quickly as a sizzling drop of moisture on a hot 
     stove.
       Try as I might I could not rid myself of direst 
     premonitions, nor halt my urgent questionings, nor feel a 
     measure of security any longer, nor imagine how the outlook 
     might brighten, nor decide how some peace of mind could be 
     recaptured.
       I sat there miles deep in searching thought, unaware of 
     time's passing, hating to return to normal duties. What was 
     the sense of hurrying now? Or the need or purpose to any 
     activity? Why was I, of all men, so shocked and grieved? A 
     life of doubt is possible. But a life of the keenest distress 
     is not. I had found life and the society of men greatly 
     wanting. I had been a pessimist. but now all this was 
     pointless, irrelevant, outlandish.
       Only he finds life wanting who also loves it. The idea that 
     this world might soon be no more was an outrage on all logic. 
     It made no sense that a thing of such scope and infinite 
     variety should be doomed to final erasure. I did not care 
     about my own life; I have lived most of it and might not live 
     much longer. But there were the children. And natural beauty. 
     And pictures in the galleries. And fine musical scores. And 
     great books.
       I thought of all this and looked about. Never had I felt 
     the lobby so quaint, dear, beguiling. Now I liked its 
     creaking chairs--music to my ears. I liked the shabby walls 
     that have watched so long people drift in and out. I liked 
     the ridiculous pictures on the walls with their flavor of 
     bygone days. I liked the wornout rugs.
       Why should I care if the world were turned to cinders? I, 
     who had in the past thought on occasion that it had 
     abundantly merited such a fate? Yet I cared--fiercely, 
     greatly, vehemently. And I could not still my indignation or 
     contain my bitter revulsion.
       Finally I left the lobby. I could see nothing ahead but 
     ruin. But outside, on the street, life was astir as ever. Oh, 
     the wonder, stimulation, the comfort of the living scene when 
     you had just thought of charred nullity!
       There were tears in my heart.

  Many people then were cheering after they dropped that bomb. I think 
my father was profound.
  Leon, your words are part of the official Congressional Record, part 
of the Senate deliberations, and I believe your words have a poignancy 
and a relevancy to this historic debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate 
today.
  Mr. President, three years ago, President Clinton became the first 
world leader to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. On that day, 
the President praised the treaty as the ``longest-sought, hardest-
fought prize in the history of arms control.''
  We as a nation cannot afford to lose this valuable prize. With the 
ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, we have a unique 
opportunity in the Senate to help end nuclear testing once and for all. 
Ratification is the single most important step we can take--here and 
now--to reduce the threat of nuclear war, which is what my father was 
talking about.
  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is in the interest of the American 
people and it has widespread public support. It will strengthen our 
nuclear nonproliferation efforts by reassuring non-nuclear weapon 
states that states with nuclear weapons will be unable to develop and 
deploy new types of nuclear weapons. It will keep non-nuclear countries 
from deploying advanced nuclear weapons systems even if they have the 
capability to design them. Further, it will improve our ability to 
detect any nuclear weapons test, with other countries paying 75 percent 
of the bill for the International Monitoring System.
  Ratification will help push India and Pakistan to sign and ratify the 
Test Ban Treaty. This may be one of the few steps taken to bring these 
two countries back from the brink of nuclear war, until there is a 
resolution of the terrible conflict in Kashmir. Further, ratification 
by the Senate will encourage Russia, China, and other states to follow 
suit, just as we witnessed when the United States first ratified the 
Chemical Weapons Convention.
  Some say ratification of the treaty is a bad idea because it would be 
too risky. They say the treaty is too risky because countries might 
cheat. As Secretary Albright said yesterday in the Foreign Relations 
Committee, ``By approving the treaty, what exactly would we be risking? 
With no treaty, other countries can test without cheating, and without 
limit.''
  In 1963, President Kennedy negotiated the landmark Limited Test Ban 
Treaty with the Soviet Union to ban tests in the atmosphere. That year, 
he spoke of his vision of a broader treaty in his commencement address 
at American University. As he said:

       The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, 
     would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most 
     dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a 
     position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest 
     hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of 
     nuclear arms. It would increase our security--it would 
     decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is 
     sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, 
     yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole 
     effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital 
     and responsible safeguards.

  These words are as true today as they were in 1963. Some of the 
geopolitical circumstances have changed, the Soviet empire has 
collapsed, as have the names and the faces of those on the floor 
debating today. But, in other very important ways, the debate today is 
quite similar:
  Then, as now, there were concerns about our ability to maintain a 
strong nuclear deterrent under the treaty;
  Then, as now, there were questions about whether Moscow would cheat; 
and,
  Then as now, there were concerns about the ability of the United 
States to effectively verify the Treaty.
  Fortunately, the forces in favor of nonproliferation won that battle. 
The story since 1963 has been one in which our deterrent posture did 
not suffer, even though we gave up certain types of testing. Further, 
we gained the respect of the world for reining in the nuclear arms 
race. That achievement led five years later to U.S. diplomatic success 
in negotiating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the treaty 
banning nuclear weapons in Latin America--treaties that have been 
profoundly successful in constraining the proliferation of nuclear 
weapons.
  Like our colleagues in the Senate in 1963, we must put away partisan 
politics and ratify the treaty before us. This Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty is a good treaty. It is not perfect, but no treaty produced by 
over a hundred

[[Page 24601]]

countries will ever be. The benefits outweigh the risk. We must act on 
it.
  I hope my colleagues who now oppose the CTBT, or who are undecided, 
will think hard about what the consequences would be if the treaty were 
not approved. I believe it is not an exaggeration to say that there 
will be jubilation among our foes and despair among our friends. North 
Korea, Iran, and Iraq will feel entirely without constraints in 
pursuing their nuclear aspirations. With China, we will have thrown 
away a valuable tool for slowing the modernization of its nuclear 
arsenal. We will have reduced our credibility on nonproliferation 
issues with Moscow when we have continually urged it to take 
proliferation seriously.
  No matter what some of my colleagues in this body might believe, we 
cannot do this alone. We need cooperation from our European allies in 
controlling exports if we are to prevent states from acquiring nuclear 
weapons. France, for instance, which has ratified the CTBT, will be 
even less inclined to listen to us, if we walk away from the treaty, 
when we implore them to contain Iraq and Iran.
  I urge each of my colleagues to think carefully before voting, put 
partisan politics aside, and to cast your vote on behalf of a safer 
world, and in favor of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a series of 
letters be printed at an appropriate place in the Record.
  These are letters from the six former secretaries of defense, former 
majority leader, Bob Dole, and Dr. Edward Teller, among others.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                September 8, 1999.
     Hon. Trent Lott,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Lott: We write to express the strong 
     opposition of our organizations and the millions of Americans 
     we represent to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
       As conservatives, we believe that the first responsibility 
     of government is to provide for the common defense. This 
     treaty will make it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain 
     the safety and reliability of our nuclear deterrent--a 
     military capability that has for fifty years been central to 
     our defense, and that is likely to continue to do so for the 
     foreseeable future.
       President Clinton has explicitly embraced a policy he and 
     former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary have called ``denucle-
     arization.'' In a 1996 report issued by the House National 
     Security Committee, its chairman, Rep. Floyd Spence, warned 
     that the effect of this policy is ``erosion [of our nuclear 
     deterrent] by design.''
       Were the United States to become party to a binding 
     prohibition on nuclear testing, this policy would be made 
     practically irreversible and its insidious effects 
     accelerated. Unfortunately, nations whose nuclear weapons 
     programs cause us concern (e.g., Russia, China, North Korea, 
     Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, etc.), however, would likely not be 
     similarly affected. They generally are less concerned than we 
     about the need for safety and effectiveness that has driven 
     America's nuclear arsenal to be comprised of the world's most 
     sophisticated weapons. Alternatively, they can always cheat 
     without fear of detection, thanks to the CTBT's 
     unverifiability.
       We are also troubled by the evidence that many proponents 
     of the CTBT seem to have more than unilateral American 
     disarmament in mind. In a manner all to reminiscent of the 
     nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s, left-wing activists and 
     their allies appear intent on using the effort to compel the 
     Senate to approve this Treaty as a device for energizing 
     their political base. The stakes associated with this 
     misbegotten accord are too great for it to be addressed in 
     such a cynical way.
       For all these reasons, we commend you for your strong 
     opposition to the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban 
     Treaty. We urge your colleagues to join you in taking the 
     steps necessary to ensure that a safe and reliable nuclear 
     deterrent remains a key ingredient in our common defense.
           Sincerely,
         Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President, Center for Security 
           Policy; David Horowitz, President, Center for the Study 
           of Popular Culture; David A. Keene, Chairman, American 
           Conservative Union; Grover Norquist, President, 
           Americans for Tax Reform; Paul Weyrich, President, Free 
           Congress Foundation; Morton C. Blackwell, Virginia 
           Republican National Committeeman; Felita Blowe, 
           Legislative Coordinator, Concerned Women for America; 
           James H. Broussard, Citizens Against Higher Taxes; 
           Kelly Anny Fitzpatrick, CEO & President, The Polling 
           Company; Mark Green, Editorial Writer, Daily Oklahoman; 
           Barbara Ledeen, Executive Director, Independent Women's 
           Forum; Telly Lovelace, Director, External Affairs, 
           Coalition on Renewal and Education; Martin Mawyer, 
           President, This Nation; Mayor F. Andy Messing, Jr., USA 
           (Ret.), Executive Director, National Defense Council 
           Foundation; William J. Murray, Chairman, Government Is 
           Not Good--PAC; C. Preston Noell III, President, 
           Tradition, Family, Property Inc.; Ronald W. Pearson, 
           President, Pearson & Pipkin, Inc.; Denesha Reid, 
           Director, Public Policy and Research, Concerned Women 
           for America; Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum; 
           Robert A. Schadler, President, Center for First 
           Principles; Dick Simms, Director, Cornerstone; Rev. 
           Louis P. Sheldon, Chairman, Traditional Values 
           Coalition; Ann Stone, CEO, The Stone Group, Inc.; Jeff 
           Taylor, Director, Government Relations, Christian 
           Coalition; Timothy Teepel, Executive Director, Madison 
           Project; Harry Valentine, President, Capitol Hill 
           Prayer Alert.
                                  ____

                                                  October 6, 1999.
     Hon. Trent Lott,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.

     Hon. Tom Daschle,
     Democratic Leader, U.S. Senate,
                                                    Washington, DC
       Dear Senators Lott and Daschle: As the Senate weighs 
     whether to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), 
     we believe Senators will be obliged to focus on one dominant, 
     inescapable result were it to be ratified: over the decades 
     ahead, confidence in the reliability of our nuclear weapons 
     stockpile would inevitably decline, thereby reducing the 
     credibility of America's nuclear deterrent. Unlike previous 
     efforts at a CTBT, this Treaty is intended to be of unlimited 
     duration, and though ``nuclear weapon test explosion'' is 
     undefined in the Treaty, by America's unilateral declaration 
     the accord is ``zero-yield,'' meaning that all nuclear tests, 
     even of the lowest yield, are permanently prohibited.
       The nuclear weapons in our nation's arsenal are 
     sophisticated devices, whose thousands of components must 
     function together with split-second timing and scant margin 
     for error. A nuclear weapon contains radioactive material, 
     which in itself decays, and also changes the properties of 
     other materials within the weapon. Over time, the components 
     of our weapons corrode and deteriorate, and we lack 
     experience predicting the effects of such aging on the safety 
     and reliability of the weapons. The shelf life of U.S. 
     nuclear weapons was expected to be some 20 years. In the 
     past, the constant process of replacement and testing of new 
     designs gave some assurance that weapons in the arsenal would 
     be both new and reliable. But under the CTBT, we would be 
     vulnerable to the effects of aging because we could not test 
     ``fixes'' of problems with existing warheads.
       Remanufacturing components of existing weapons that have 
     deteriorated also poses significant problems. Manufacturers 
     go out of business, materials and production processes 
     change, certain chemicals previously used in production are 
     now forbidden under new environmental regulations, and so on. 
     It is a certainty that new processes and materials--
     untested--will be used. Even more important, ultimately the 
     nuclear ``pits'' will need to be replaced--and we will not be 
     able to test those replacements. The upshot is that new 
     defects may be introduced into the stockpile through 
     remanufacture, and without testing we can never be certain 
     that these replacement components will work as their 
     predecessors did.
       Another implication of a CTBT of unlimited duration is that 
     over time we would gradually lose our pool of knowledgeable 
     people with experience in nuclear weapons design and testing. 
     Consider what would occur if the United States halted nuclear 
     testing for 30 years. We would then be dependent on the 
     judgment of personnel with no personal experience either in 
     designing or testing nuclear weapons. In place of a learning 
     curve, we would experience an extended unlearning curve.
       Furthermore, major gaps exist in our scientific 
     understanding of nuclear explosives. As President Bush noted 
     in a report to Congress in January 1993, ``Of all U.S. 
     nuclear weapons designs fielded since 1958, approximately 
     one-third have required nuclear testing to resolve problems 
     arising after deployment.'' We were discovering defects in 
     our arsenal up until the moment when the current moratorium 
     on U.S. testing was imposed in 1992. While we have uncovered 
     similar defects since 1992, which in the past would have led 
     to testing, in the absence of testing, we are not able to 
     test whether the ``fixes'' indeed work.
       Indeed, the history of maintaining complex military 
     hardware without testing demonstrates the pitfalls of such an 
     approach. Prior to World War II, the Navy's torpedoes had not 
     been adequately tested because of insufficient funds. It took 
     nearly two years of war before we fully solved the problems 
     that

[[Page 24602]]

     caused our torpedoes to routinely pass harmlessly under the 
     target or to fail to explode on contact. For example, at the 
     Battle of Midway, the U.S. launched 47 torpedo aircraft, 
     without damaging a single Japanese ship. If not for our dive 
     bombers, the U.S. would have lost the crucial naval battle of 
     the Pacific war.
       The Department of Energy has structured a program of 
     experiments and computer simulations called the Stockpile 
     Stewardship Program, that it hopes will allow our weapons to 
     be maintained without testing. This program, which will not 
     be mature for at least 10 years, will improve our scientific 
     understanding of nuclear weapons and would likely mitigate 
     the decline in our confidence in the safety and reliability 
     of our arsenal. We will never know whether we should trust 
     Stockpile Stewardship if we cannot conduct nuclear tests to 
     calibrate the unproven new techniques. Mitigation is, of 
     course, not the same as prevention. Over the decades, the 
     erosion of confidence inevitably would be substantial.
       The decline in confidence in our nuclear deterrent is 
     particularly troublesome in light of the unique geopolitical 
     role of the United States. The U.S. has a far-reaching 
     foreign policy agenda and our forces are stationed around the 
     globe. In addition, we have pledged to hold a nuclear 
     umbrella over our NATO allies and Japan. Though we have 
     abandoned chemical and biological weapons, we have threatened 
     to retaliate with nuclear weapons to such an attack. In the 
     Gulf War, such a threat was apparently sufficient to deter 
     Iraq from using chemical weapons against American troops.
       We also do not believe the CTBT will do much to prevent the 
     spread of nuclear weapons. The motivation of rogue nations 
     like North Korea and Iraq to acquire nuclear weapons will not 
     be affected by whether the U.S. tests. Similarly, the 
     possession of nuclear weapons by nations like India, 
     Pakistan, and Israel depends on the security environment in 
     their region, not by whether or not the U.S. tests. If 
     confidence in the U.S. nuclear deterrent were to decline, 
     countries that have relied on our protection could well feel 
     compelled to seek nuclear capabilities of their own. Thus, 
     ironically, the CTBT might cause additional nations to seek 
     nuclear weapons.
       Finally, it is impossible to verify a ban that extends to 
     very low yields. The likelihood of cheating is high. ``Trust 
     but verify'' should remain our guide. Tests with yields below 
     1 kiloton can both go undetected and be militarily useful to 
     the testing state. Furthermore, a significantly larger 
     explosion can go undetected--or be mistaken for a 
     conventional explosion used for mining or an earthquake--if 
     the test is ``decoupled.'' Decoupling involves conducting the 
     test in a large underground cavity and has been shown to 
     dampen an explosion's seismic signature by a factor of up to 
     70. The U.S. demonstrated this capability in 1966 in two 
     tests conducted in salt domes at Chilton, Mississippi.
       We believe that these considerations render a permanent, 
     zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty incompatible with 
     the Nation's international commitments and vital security 
     interests and believe it does not deserve the Senate's advice 
     and consent. Accordingly, we respectively urge you and your 
     colleagues to preserve the right of this nation to conduct 
     nuclear tests necessary to the future viability of our 
     nuclear deterrent by rejecting approval of the present CTBT.
           Respectfully,
     James R. Schlesinger.
     Frank C. Carlucci.
     Donald H. Rumsfeld.
     Richard B. Cheney.
     Caspar W. Weinberger.
     Melvin R. Laird.
                                  ____



                                               Washington, DC,

                                                  October 5, 1999.
     Hon. Trent Lott,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Trent: I am responding to your October 4 letter, in 
     which you ask for my views on the Comprehensive Test Ban 
     Treaty (CTBT).
       As you know, I believe that matters of foreign policy and 
     national security should be approached from a nonpartisan 
     perspective. As such, I have supported a number of Clinton 
     administration initiatives when I believed them to be in the 
     national interest--for example, NATO action in Kosova and 
     ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. 
     Unfortunately, in this substance, I cannot support President 
     Clinton's effect to secure Senate approval of the CTBT.
       In my view, ratifying the CTBT would endanger the national 
     security of the United States, primarily by preventing 
     nuclear testing essential to maintaining the safety and 
     reliability of our nuclear deterrent. It is through explosive 
     testing that the United States has maintained its confidence 
     in the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile 
     and, thus, the credibility of our nuclear arsenal. Without 
     explosive testing, the credibility of our arsenal will, with 
     time, erode. As credibility erodes, the deterrent effect of 
     our nuclear force erodes, leaving not only America 
     increasingly vulnerable, but also our allies who depend on 
     the American nuclear umbrella.
       While the Stockpile Stewardship program is worth pursuing, 
     it should be viewed as a complement to our nuclear testing 
     program--not a substitute for it. Explosive nuclear testing 
     is a proven method of identifying stockpile problems. The 
     Stockpile Stewardship Program is not yet in place and is 
     therefore unproved. Deciding in 1999 to forego testing and 
     instead to rely on a program that will be in place in 2010--
     it all goes well--is, in short, irresponsible.
       Furthermore, agreeing to the CTBT would most certainly lead 
     to a false sense of security. The Administration has argued 
     that by embracing the CTBT, the United States will persuade 
     other countries, including notable proliferators such as 
     North Korea, to halt their quest for nuclear weapons and the 
     means to deliver them. If a regime like Pyongyang has been 
     susceptible to moral suasion or felt bound by international 
     norms, it would never have violated the Nuclear 
     Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The idea that rogue regimes 
     are persuaded by American or broader international adherence 
     to legal obligations is wishful thinking. These regimes are 
     called rogue regimes for the very reason that they regularly 
     violate international law and refuse to be held accountable 
     to international norms. The only way to deal effectively with 
     threats from rogue states is to deter them.
       There should be no doubt that the best way to protect the 
     United States from the consequences of proliferation is to 
     develop and deploy effective missile defenses. There is no 
     arms control treaty that can protect American territory from 
     nuclear attack. And, with each day, America's enemies come 
     closer to acquiring the capabilities to attack the United 
     States with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. The 
     best deterrents are a credible nuclear stockpile and a 
     national missile defense system.
       Neither President Reagan nor President Bush pursued a zero-
     yield test ban treaty of unlimited duration, and for good 
     reason. The CTBT is an ill-conceived and misguided arms 
     control agreement, the ultimate result of which will be the 
     de-nuclearization by other means, of the United States. This 
     treaty is hardly the ``longest sought, hardest fought prize 
     in arms control history,'' as claimed by this Administration.
       I support arms controls that increase the security of the 
     United States, not ones that increase the vulnerability of 
     our nation to terrorists and regimes bent on nuclear 
     proliferation.
           Sincerely,
     Bob Dole.
                                  ____



                                                 Garrison, MN,

                                                  October 5, 1999.
     Hon. John W. Warner,
     Chairman, Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Warner: If the news reports are correct, the 
     Armed Services Committee will be addressing the proposed 
     Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the next few days. 
     Although I will not be able to be in Washington during the 
     hearings, I want you to have at least a synopsis of my views 
     on the matter.
       I believe that ratifying the treaty requiring a permanent, 
     zero-yield ban on all underground nuclear tests is not in the 
     security interest of the United States.
       From 1945 through the end of the Cold War, the United 
     States was clearly the preeminent nuclear power in the world. 
     During much of that time, the nuclear arsenal of the Soviet 
     Union surpassed ours in numbers, but friends and allies, as 
     well as potential enemies and other nations not necessarily 
     friendly to the United States, all understood that we were 
     the nation with the very modern, safe, secure, reliable, 
     nuclear deterrent force which provided the foundation for the 
     security of our nation and for the security of our friends 
     and allies, and much of the world. Periodic underground 
     nuclear tests were an essential part of insuring that our 
     nuclear deterrent force remained modern, safe, secure, 
     reliable and usable. The general knowledge that the United 
     States would do whatever was necessary to maintain that 
     condition certainly reduced the proliferation of nuclear 
     weapons during the period and added immeasurably to the 
     security cooperation with our friends and allies.
       Times have changed; the Soviet Union no longer exists; 
     however, much of its nuclear arsenal remains in the hands of 
     Russia. We have seen enormous political, economic, social and 
     technological changes in the world since the end of the Cold 
     War, and these changes have altered the security situation 
     and future security requirements for the United States. One 
     thing has not changed. Nuclear weapons continue to be with 
     us. I do not believe that God will permit us to ``uninvent'' 
     nuclear weapons. Some nation, or power, will be the 
     preeminent nuclear power in the world, and I, for one, 
     believe that at least under present and foreseeable 
     conditions, the world will be safer if that power is the 
     United States of America. We jeopardize maintaining that 
     condition by eschewing the development of new nuclear weapons 
     and by ruling out testing if and when it is needed.
       Supporters of the CTBT argue that it reduces the chances 
     for nuclear proliferation. I

[[Page 24603]]

     applaud efforts to reduce the proliferation of nuclear 
     weapons, but I do not believe that the test ban will reduce 
     the ability of rogue states to acquire nuclear weapons in 
     sufficient quantities to upset regional security in various 
     parts of the world. ``Gun type'' nuclear weapons can be built 
     with assurance they'll work without testing. The Indian and 
     Pakistani ``tests'' apparently show that there is adequate 
     knowledge available to build implosion type weapons with 
     reasonable assurance that they will work. The India/Pakistan 
     explosions have been called ``tests'', but I believe it be 
     more accurate to call them ``demonstrations'', more for 
     political purposes than for scientific testing.
       Technological advances of recent years, particularly the 
     great increases in computing power coupled with improvements 
     in modeling and simulation have undoubtedly reduced greatly 
     the need for active nuclear testing and probably the size of 
     any needed tests. Some would argue that this should be 
     support for the United States agreeing to ban testing. The 
     new technological advantages are available to everyone, and 
     they probably help the ``proliferator'' more than the United 
     States.
       We have embarked on a ``stockpile stewardship program'' 
     designed to use science, other than nuclear testing, to 
     ensure that the present weapons in our nuclear deterrent 
     remain safe, secure and reliable. The estimates I've seen are 
     that we will spend about $5 billion each year on that 
     program. Over twenty years, if the program is completely 
     successful, we will have spent about $100 billion, and we 
     will have replaced nearly every single part in each of those 
     complex weapons. At the end of that period, about the best 
     that we will be able to say is that we have a stockpile of 
     ``restored'' weapons of at least thirty-year-old design that 
     are probably safe and secure and whose reliability is the 
     best we can make without testing. We will not be able to say 
     that the stockpile is modern, nor will we be assured that it 
     is usable in the sense of fitting the security situation we 
     will face twenty years hence. To me that seems to foretell a 
     situation of increasing vulnerability for us and our friends 
     and allies to threats from those who will not be deterred by 
     the Nonproliferation Treaty or the CTBT, and there will 
     surely be such states.
       If the United States is to remain the preeminent nuclear 
     power, and maintain a modern safe, secure, reliable, and 
     usable nuclear deterrent force, I believe we need to continue 
     to develop new nuclear weapons designed to incorporate the 
     latest in technology and to meet the changing security 
     situation in the world. Changes in the threat, changes in 
     intelligence and targeting, and great improvements in 
     delivery precision and accuracy make the weapons we designed 
     thirty years ago less and less applicable to our current and 
     projected security situation. The United States, the one 
     nation most of the world looks to for securing peace in the 
     world, should not deny itself the opportunity to test the 
     bedrock building block of its security, its nuclear deterrent 
     force, if conditions require testing.
       To those who would see in my words advocacy for a nuclear 
     buildup or advocacy for large numbers of high-yield nuclear 
     tests, let me say that I believe we can have a modern, safe, 
     secure, reliable and usable nuclear deterrent force at much 
     lower numbers than we now maintain. I believe we can keep it 
     modern and reliable with very few actual nuclear tests and 
     that those tests can in all likelihood be relatively low-
     yield tests. I also believe that the more demonstrably modern 
     and usable is our nuclear deterrent force, the less likely 
     are we to need to use it, but we must have modern weapons, 
     and we ought not deny ourselves the opportunity to test if we 
     deem it necessary.
           Very respectfully yours,

                                               John W. Vessey,

                                              General, USA (Ret.),
     Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
                                  ____



                                               Washington, DC,

                                                  October 5, 1999.
     Hon. Trent Lott,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate

     Hon. Thomas A. Daschle,
     Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators Lott and Daschle: The Senate is beginning 
     hearings on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (``CTBT''), 
     looking to an October 12 vote on whether or not to ratify. We 
     believe, however, that it is not in the national interest to 
     vote on the Treaty, at least during the life of the present 
     Congress.
       The simple fact is that the Treaty will not enter into 
     force any time soon, whether or not the United States 
     ratifies it during the 106th Congress. This means that few, 
     if any, of the benefits envisaged by the Treaty's advocates 
     could be realized by Senate ratification now. At the same 
     time, there could be real costs and risks to a broad range of 
     national security interests--including our non-proliferation 
     objectives--if Senate acts prematurely.
       Ratification of the CTBT by the U.S. now will not result in 
     the Treaty coming into force this fall, as anticipated at its 
     signing. Given its objectives, the Treaty wisely requires 
     that each of 44 specific countries must sign and ratify the 
     document before it enters into force. Only 23 of those 
     countries have done so thus far. So the Treaty is not coming 
     into force any time soon, whether or not the U.S. ratifies. 
     The U.S. should take advantage of this situation to delay 
     consideration of ratification, without prejudice to eventual 
     action on the Treaty. This would provide the opportunity to 
     learn more about such issues as movement on the ratification 
     process, technical progress in the Department of Energy's 
     Stockpile Stewardship Program, the political consequences of 
     the India/Pakistan detonations, changing Russian doctrine 
     toward greater reliance on nuclear weapons, and continued 
     Chinese development of a nuclear arsenal.
       Supporters of the CTBT claim that it will make a major 
     contribution to limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. This 
     cannot be true if key countries of proliferation concern do 
     not agree to accede to the Treaty. To date, several of these 
     countries, including India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, 
     Iraq, and Syria, have not signed and ratified the Treaty. 
     Many of these countries may never join the CTBT regime, and 
     ratification by the United States, early or late, is unlikely 
     to have any impact on their decisions in this regard. For 
     example, no serious person should believe that rogue nations 
     like Iran or Iraq will give up their efforts to acquire 
     nuclear weapons if only the United States signs the CTBT.
       Our efforts to combat proliferation of weapons of mass 
     destruction not only deserve but are receiving the highest 
     national security priority. It is clear to any fair-minded 
     observer that the United States has substantially reduced its 
     reliance on nuclear weapons. The U.S. also has made or 
     committed to dramatic reductions in the level of deployed 
     nuclear forces. Nevertheless, for the foreseeable future, the 
     United States must continue to rely on nuclear weapons to 
     contribute to the deterrence of certain kinds of attacks on 
     the United States, its friends, and allies. In addition, 
     several countries depend on the U.S. nuclear deterrent for 
     their security. A lack of confidence in that deterrent might 
     itself result in the spread of nuclear weapons.
       As a consequence, the United States must continue to ensure 
     that its nuclear weapons remain safe, secure, and reliable. 
     But the fact is that the scientific case simply has not been 
     made that, over the long term, the United States can ensure 
     the nuclear stockpile without nuclear testing. The United 
     States is seeking to ensure the integrity of its nuclear 
     deterrent through an ambitious effort called the Stockpile 
     Stewardship Program. This program attempts to maintain 
     adequate knowledge of nuclear weapons physics indirectly by 
     computer modeling, simulation, and other experiments. We 
     support this kind of scientific and analytical effort. But 
     even with adequate funding--which is far from assured--the 
     Stockpile Stewardship Program is not sufficiently mature to 
     evaluate the extent to which it can be a suitable alternative 
     to testing.
       Given the absence of any pressing reason for early 
     ratification, it is unwise to take actions now that constrain 
     this or future Presidents' choices about how best to pursue 
     our non-proliferation and other national security goals while 
     maintaining the effectiveness and credibility of our nuclear 
     deterrent. Accordingly, we urge you to reach an understanding 
     with the President to suspend action on the CTBT, at least 
     for the duration of the 106th Congress.
           Sincerely,
     Brent Scowcroft.
     Henry A. Kissinger.
     John Deutch.
                                  ____

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I am going to take just a couple of minutes 
until Senator Coverdell arrives, at which point I will suspend my 
remarks so that he can make some comments.
  I want to talk a little bit about a common thread of the remarks of 
many of the people who are in opposition to the treaty; that is, that 
it is difficult for the United States to sustain our position as the 
world leader, that many in the international community would find it 
objectionable if the United States rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty, and that this would hurt our ability to lead with respect to 
proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world.
  Let me quote from a newspaper story today in the Washington Post, the 
headline of which is, ``U.S. Allies Urge Senate To Ratify Test Ban.''
  It is certainly true that they have done that. There are a variety of 
them that made comments hoping we would adopt the treaty, not defeat 
it. Let me quote a couple of things.

       International anxiety also has been compounded by new 
     worries over U.S. efforts to escape constraints imposed by 
     the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which limits the 
     ability of the United States to build systems to defend 
     against missile attack.
       Russia and China say it would destabilize the strategic 
     balance if the United States built a missile defense system, 
     because

[[Page 24604]]

     Washington could be tempted to attack others if it felt 
     invulnerable to retaliation.
       Jayantha Dhanapala, the U.N. under secretary for 
     disarmament affairs, said many countries agreed to a 
     permanent inspection regime four years ago only on the basis 
     of a written guarantee by the nuclear powers to negotiate and 
     ratify a worldwide test ban as one of several key steps 
     toward nuclear disarmament.

  I read two parts of the Washington Post story to suggest the world 
community, which does not want the United States to develop a ballistic 
missile defense, which doesn't want the United States to do anything 
that requires an amendment to the ABM Treaty, and some of which is very 
much in favor of total nuclear disarmament and has agreed to 
participate in this treaty only after leaders promised them this 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty would be one of several key steps toward 
nuclear disarmament, all of those people in the world, I submit, are 
not people who we want to make U.S. national defense policy. Their 
goals are not the same as our goals.
  We have an obligation as the leader of the free world to ensure our 
nuclear deterrent is safe and reliable; they don't. We may have to do 
things they could never dream of doing, including nuclear testing to 
ensure the safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpile. They don't 
have to worry about that, but we do. While they can lament the fact 
that the United States is not willing to sign onto the treaty, they 
don't have the same responsibility as we do, just as they can call for 
us not to amend the ABM Treaty or to build a national missile defense 
or even theater missile defenses without the obligations that The 
United States has.
  The United States has to defend our troops around the world--which 
most of these countries don't have to do--to defend allies around the 
world and, of course, even to defend the United States. I, frankly, 
don't care much if people around the world who don't want the United 
States to defend itself against ballistic missile attack are going to 
criticize the Senate for rejecting a flawed unverifiable ineffective 
CTBT.
  Finally, quoting from the last two paragraphs of this article:

       I don't like to talk about any country exercising world 
     leadership, but in this case we see that the United States 
     must play a special role, Sha Zukang, China's top arms 
     control official, said in an interview. Sha added that China 
     is even more alarmed by U.S. efforts to develop a regional 
     missile defense system than by the Senate's reluctance to 
     approve a test ban treaty.

  So I presume that next, in order to assuage the concerns of the 
Chinese, we will forego the development of a regional missile defense 
system because it would upset them if we proceeded with that. Why would 
it upset them? Because, of course, they wouldn't be able to threaten 
Taiwan. We have obligations that other countries don't have. If we are 
to be the great leader that people on this side of the aisle have urged 
the United States to be, then we have to exercise leadership. Sometimes 
that means doing things other people in the world are uncomfortable 
with.

       Boris Kvok, Russia's deputy chief of disarmament issues, 
     said the U.S. decision on the test ban treaty would not 
     affect the deliberations of Russia's parliament on the pact 
     or alter his country's test moratorium. ``But if the U.S. 
     moves ahead with ballistic missile defense, it would be a 
     disaster . . . and we would have to start developing new 
     weapons. . . .''

  He is saying we don't really care about the CTBT in terms of what we 
are going to do, but if the United States moves ahead with ballistic 
missiles, that would be a disaster. I presume next we hear people come 
to the Senate floor and say international opinion says we should not 
develop a missile defense to protect the people of the United States so 
we should not move forward with that.
  My point is this: The United States cannot be held hostage to world 
opinion. We have obligations they don't have, and if they don't care 
about building a defense for their people, we need to because we can be 
a target of rogue nations whereas other countries may not be. They are 
not making the decisions and actions in the world that may cause these 
terrorists or rogue states to want to retaliate against them. However, 
the United States, by taking a world leadership role, has put itself in 
that position.
  It is not a political issue; it is a physics issue. We have to have 
confidence in our nuclear stockpile.
  The whole world thought Ronald Reagan was wrong, that he had left his 
senses when he said no to Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik. They both 
talked about trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons. When Gorbachev 
said the price of that agreement was that the United States would have 
to forego the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Reagan 
said no. All of the world leaders gasped--except Margaret Thatcher. But 
the rest of the world leaders gasped and said: Mr. President, you 
should reconsider that.
  All of the arms control advocates said it was a bad mistake for 
President Reagan to have said no. Of course, it later transpires that 
George Shultz mentioned the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev told him that 
was the turning point of the cold war. That is when Gorbachev concluded 
that he could not win the cold war and called it the turning point.
  Ronald Reagan, in calling the Soviet Union the evil empire, upset a 
lot of the world leaders, but he stood his ground and history has 
proven him correct. I submit that history will prove us correct if we 
return this flawed treaty and say let's go back to the drawing board.
  We can do better. We can persuade world leaders it is in the best 
interest of long-term peace that we do better than this flawed treaty.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield myself a few minutes to respond. I 
will take no more than 3 minutes.
  I hope all Members have observed why my friend from Arizona is such a 
good lawyer. He did get your eye off the ball. He started off talking 
about England and France and our allies and Japan and then shifted to 
Sri Lanka, China, and Russia and talked about why we should not yield 
to international opinion. No one has suggested we yield to Sri Lanka, 
China, and Russia in international opinion.
  The suggestion made is exactly stated: Allies urge ratifying a test 
ban treaty. Why? Because they believe it is in their critical interest. 
They don't lack confidence in our ability to maintain our stockpile. 
They signed and ratified the treaty.
  This circular argumentation going on is we should not ratify because 
we won't be able to protect our allies; but our allies say you should 
ratify because we want you to ratify, we feel fully protected.
  Who do you believe? Our allies saying they want us? They signed; we 
want to sign.
  Second, I point out this missile defense rests upon our allies in 
Great Britain and in France and in Norway allowing us to be able to put 
sensors in their country in order to be able to have a missile defense. 
That is the way it will work.
  What will happen is, we turn down this treaty that they signed, that 
they think is in their interests, and now we go to them and say: By the 
way, we want you to help us with a missile defense for our country--not 
yours, a theater missile defense for our country. How about it, 
fellows, what do you think?
  The third point I would make is: China can only be a threat to our 
theater missile defense. They have about 18 weapons right now. They can 
only be a threat to us if they are able to MIRV their missiles, if they 
are able to get sophisticated. Under this agreement, the intelligence 
community uniformly concludes that we could detect anything they are 
doing to get to the point where they were MIRVing those missiles, 
taking any of the stolen data they have gotten from us and using it. So 
what are we going to do? We reject this treaty, thereby giving a green 
light to them to do what they want to do without violation of any 
international law, thereby putting in jeopardy the very missile defense 
system my friend from Arizona thinks is so critical for our security.
  I find it fascinating. Keep your eye on the ball.
  I yield the floor. I see the leader. Welcome, leader.

[[Page 24605]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I will have a full statement on Tuesday. But 
I did want to get into the Record today some of the facts I think are 
very important for Senators to have access to, some views of a number 
of important experts.
  I would entitle this statement with these words, a quote from 
Churchill: Facts are better than dreams. And the facts in this case 
argue against this treaty. The underlying premise of this treaty is 
flawed. The argument is, if we ratify this Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty, then the rest of the world will be nice and follow suit.
  Do you really believe that is applicable to North Korea, Iraq, Iran, 
India, Pakistan, China, Russia? We are going to act on faith? There are 
those who will say we must lead, we must show the way, but that is a 
very dangerous thing to do when you are dealing with something of this 
importance.
  Just in the last 2 days, in hearings before the Armed Services 
Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, it has become apparent 
that this treaty is flawed, should not be ratified now or in the 
foreseeable future. When you look at yesterday's testimony of the 
leaders of the country's three nuclear weapons laboratories, it makes 
it very clear that, as far as safety and reliability are concerned, 
without testing at this time we do not have the ability to make sure 
our weapons are safe and would be reliable if there were a need for 
them.
  The headline, even in the New York Times, says, ``Experts Say Test 
Ban May Impair Nuclear Arms Safety.'' That is a fact. That is a scary 
fact. Do the American people want us to have nuclear arms that are not 
tested, that are not safe? I do not think so. So I think we need to be 
very careful about going forward with a treaty that has the problems 
this treaty has now, in terms of what it would do and the fact that we 
do not have the ability to detect or verify what other countries may be 
doing. Just this past week, the CIA said they could not guarantee they 
could detect low-level testing in Russia. Then you add to that the 
testimony of the labs experts. We should defeat this treaty.
  Let me correct the record, or remind our colleagues and the country a 
little bit about why we are where we are. Why is this up? Why did we 
get a unanimous consent agreement to bring up this treaty, debate it, 
and have a vote? The President has been demanding it for 2 years. In 
his State of the Union Addresses and on other occasions, he has been 
saying: Call it up, have a debate, and vote. Quote after quote I have 
here with me. The President said in remarks on the 50th anniversary of 
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 9, 1999:

       I ask the Senate . . . to vote for ratification as soon as 
     possible.

  He has said:

       . . . give its advice and consent to the Comprehensive Test 
     Ban Treaty this year.

  In his State of the Union Address in 1998, he said:

       . . . approve the CTBT this year.

  That was last year.
  The Vice President, Mr. Gore has said:

       The U.S. Congress should act now to ratify the 
     Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

  ``Act now.'' That was July 23, 1998.
  Forty-five Democrats sent a letter to Senator Helms saying a number 
of things, but basically this is the upshot of it: Give the Senate the 
opportunity to consider ratification of the CTBT before the conference 
begins. That is a conference of ratifying states. That conference is 
underway now. They wanted to have it up. We got it up and started the 
debate today. They were demanding that it be called up and considered 
before then.
  The minority leader has said:

       [W]e are certainly willing to have a debate and have the 
     vote.

  Not call it up and pass it; he said have a debate, have a vote.
  On September 30, 1999, he said:

       I still think, one way or the other, we ought to get to 
     this treaty, get it to the floor, debate it, and vote on it.

  What I am saying is for 2 years there has been this agitation to get 
this treaty up and have a vote on it. So finally they got what they 
said they wanted, and then they didn't want what they said they wanted.
  Then they said: Wait a minute, wait a minute, no, we didn't mean 
``now.'' Like this thing was just sprung on us. For 2 years we have 
been hearing about it. Senators are not uninformed on this treaty. 
There are hearings underway right now, excellent hearings by the 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner, and the 
Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Helms. What happened was they 
found, when they actually got what they said they wanted--that is, the 
treaty was going to come up--that the treaty is flawed and it is going 
to be defeated. This treaty is not going to be ratified. It is not 
going to happen. They say: Wait, wait, wait; not now; it's too quick; 
we need more time; it is being given short shrift.
  I have some interesting facts on that, too. You talk about the amount 
of time. When we get through with this treaty and have a vote, we will 
have probably somewhere around 16 to 18 hours discussing it, debating 
it, listening to each other, excellent statements on both sides, men 
and women very serious about this, treating it the way it should be 
treated. Today, the problem has not been to get speakers. It is that we 
have so many people who want to speak. We are going to have a good 
debate today. But let's compare it to other treaties in the past.
  The CFE, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, we debated for 6 
hours and voted on. The START treaty, 9\1/2\ hours; START II, 6 hours; 
Chemical Weapons Convention--which I know a lot about and showed, 
during the debate on that issue and the vote, that I was willing to do 
what I thought was right for the country even under a lot of pressure 
opposing it. I still get criticized for that.
  But when you come to treaties of this magnitude of international 
import, you have to look at the substance and you have to do what is 
right for your country, for the world situation, and for your children. 
Actually, it should be in the reverse order: For your children and your 
grandchildren. We spent 18 hours on it, and we voted on it.
  The CFE flank agreement, 2 hours. As a matter of fact, we are going 
to have more time spent debating this issue, when it is over, than any 
recent treaty, with the exception of chemical weapons, which I presume 
would be about the same time.
  So that is how we got to where we are. Because it was demanded. 
Senators were threatening to hold up Senate floor action if we did not 
have a vote. Senators had resolutions they wanted to offer with regard 
to this treaty that were unrelated to other matters being considered on 
the floor, including the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill.
  So I really thought, in view of the demands and the discussion that 
had gone on and the overall best interests of the Senate and the 
country, that this treaty should come up. So we got a unanimous consent 
agreement. It was not one that was sprung on anybody. I suggested it on 
Wednesday. We did not get it finally agreed to and locked in until 
Friday. So the discussions went on for 2 days. Nobody was surprised. 
The White House knew full well what we were about to agree to. Now they 
say set it aside.
  I am very worried; should this issue not be voted on now, it might be 
set aside to be brought back next year and that it become much more of 
a political issue. And it should not be. We have for a long time worked 
together in this Senate on a bipartisan basis, and bicameral, and with 
administrations, on trying to do the right thing on arms control. We 
should continue to do that. This treaty should not come up next year 
during a Presidential campaign and be used for political purposes on 
either side. So I called this up, as was demanded. We got a reasonable 
time agreement, more than was usually granted for treaties.
  There have been hearings underway. The Senators are not uninformed. 
Senators know what is in this treaty as they get to know more and 
listen to experts, such as Senator Lugar yesterday

[[Page 24606]]

who had a six-page statement about how this treaty was wrong.
  To my colleagues I say, we have done what was requested by the 
President and by Senators. Let's have this debate and, as for myself, I 
am ready to vote.
  Mr. President, proponents and opponents of the Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty find themselves in agreement on the starting point for this 
debate: That nuclear deterrence is fundamental to the national security 
of the United States. In his May of 1997 report entitled ``A National 
Security Strategy for a New Century,'' President Clinton states, and I 
quote, ``The United States must continue to maintain a robust triad of 
strategic forces sufficient to deter any hostile foreign leadership 
with access to any nuclear forces and to convince it that seeking a 
nuclear advantage would be futile.'' While the United States must be 
prepared for the prospect that nuclear deterrence may not always work, 
in no way does the possibility of failure render deterrence valueless.
  Nuclear deterrence was crucial to U.S. security in the past, and will 
continue to be in the future.
  It was, for example, nuclear deterrence which helped guarantee the 
security of Western Europe from the late 1940s until the Soviet Union 
collapsed and the cold war ended peacefully. President Eisenhower 
called on the U.S. nuclear deterrent to stop Chinese attacks against 
the islands of Quemoy and Matsu in 1958. In 1962 it was the U.S. 
nuclear deterrent that enabled President Kennedy to demand that the 
Soviet Union peacefully withdraw its nuclear missiles from Cuba. Again, 
President Nixon called on the U.S. nuclear deterrent to stop Soviet 
armed intervention into the Middle East during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. 
And, most recently, the U.S. nuclear deterrent was essential in 
persuading Saddam Hussein not to use chemical or biological weapons 
during the 1991 gulf war, undoubtedly saving thousands of lives. Time 
and again nuclear deterrence has effectively protected U.S. security 
without a shot being fired, and, along with the President and many 
others, I expect our deterrent to continue to be vital for the 
indefinite future.
  Credibility is the key to deterrence. Our nuclear deterrent must be 
credible not only to would-be aggressors, but also to America's 
leaders. To contemplate the use of nuclear weapons, our leaders must be 
confident in the safety and reliability of our nuclear arsenal. Our 
adversaries must believe that U.S. leaders possess the will to use the 
nuclear force if need be, and must also believe that our nuclear 
weapons can be used--that they are safe and reliable enough for U.S. 
leaders to consider seriously the possibility of their use. Without 
these conditions American threats of retaliation become less than 
credible, and the contribution of nuclear deterrence to the national 
security strategy of the United States would be unacceptably eroded.
  It is the paradox of the nuclear age that ensuring nuclear weapons 
are never used depends on ensuring they can be used.
  It is through testing of the U.S. nuclear stockpile that the United 
States has maintained its confidence in the safety and reliability of 
our nuclear weapons. In 1987 the Lawrence Livermore Lab produced a 
reported entitled Report to Congress on Stockpile Reliability, Weapon 
Remanufacture, and the Role of Nuclear Testing. This report, though 12 
years old, remains the single best explanation of the need for nuclear 
testing.
  According to the Livermore report, and I quote, ``. . . there is no 
such thing as a `thoroughly tested' nuclear weapon.'' The report gives 
several reasons for testing, to include, and I quote, ``. . . testing 
is done to maintain the proper functioning of the current stockpile of 
weapons,'' and, ``testing is done to modernize the existing stockpile 
for enhanced safety, security, or effectiveness. . . .''
  Moreover, on many occasions the Labs have discovered problems with 
weapons only because of testing. According to the Livermore report,
  Nuclear weapons are fabricated from chemically and radiologically 
active materials. Much as a piece of plastic becomes brittle when it is 
left in the sunlight, nuclear weapons age and their characteristics 
change in subtle, often unpredictable ways. Testing is sometimes 
required to find problems and to assess the adequacy of the fixes that 
are implemented. Experience has shown that testing is essential. One-
third of all the weapon designs introduced into the stockpile since 
1958 have required and received post-deployment nuclear tests to 
resolve problems related to deterioration or aging or to correct a 
design that is found not to work properly under various conditions. In 
three-fourths of these cases, the problems were discovered only because 
of the ongoing nuclear testing. Because we frequently have difficulty 
understanding fully the effects of changes, particularly seemingly 
small changes on the unclear performance, nuclear testing has been 
required to maintain the proper functioning of our nation's deterrent.
  Accordingly to Dr. John Nuckolls, Director Emeritus of the Lawrence 
Livermore Lab, in a September 2, 1999, letter to Senator Jon Kyl, 
``Nuclear testing has been essential to the discovery and resolution of 
many problems in the stockpile.'' Testing has been important in 
ensuring that our weapons work and are safe. It has been important in 
finding problems in our weapons. It has been important in certifying 
the solutions to the problems that have been found.
  It is because of this testing that the United States has been able to 
maintain its confidence in the safety and reliability of the nuclear 
stockpile, which is a fundamental requirement of nuclear deterrence.
  In promoting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Clinton 
administration asserts it can assure the requisite level of confidence 
in the safety and reliability of America's nuclear stockpile--that is, 
of the weapons comprising our deterrent, upon which nuclear deterrence 
is based--without testing.
  To do this the administration has embarked upon the ``Stockpile 
Stewardship Program.'' According to the Fiscal Year 2000 Stockpile 
Stewardship Plan Executive Overview, released by the Department of 
Energy in March of 1999, and I quote, ``The overall goal of the 
Stockpile Stewardship program is to have in place by 2010 * * * the 
capabilities that are necessary to provide continuing high confidence 
in the annual certification of the stockpile without the necessity for 
nuclear testing.''
  The Stockpile Stewardship Program is an excellent program, and my 
comments should not be misunderstood as criticism of the program, per 
se. In fact, the United States has always had some form of stockpile 
stewardship even while testing. The fundamental question with respect 
to this program, however, is whether and when it will provide the 
requisite confidence in the safety and reliability of the stockpile 
even if it meets all of its design goals. As stated by the Department 
of Energy in the FY 2000 Stockpile Stewardship Plan Executive Overview, 
``At the heart of the Stockpile Stewardship Program is the issue of 
confidence.''
  To their credit, senior officials at the Department of Energy and the 
nuclear labs are generally careful in how they couch their remarks 
about the Stockpile Stewardship Program. The usual formulation is to 
state the belief in Stockpile Stewardship as the ``best approach'' in 
the absence of testing. That is a responsible reply, as it would be 
unreasonable to argue that the Department of Energy or our labs should 
be able to guarantee the success of the Stockpile Stewardship Program. 
The scientists and engineers at the heart of stockpile stewardship are, 
in many cases, engaged in activities that are at the cutting edge of 
the science and technology of nuclear weapons. They can't guarantee 
success.
  According to the administration's estimates, it won't even be 
completely in place until the year 2010. But proponents of the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty are willing to put the Stockpile 
Stewardship cart before the nuclear horse, willing to gamble that the 
United States can give up nuclear testing now in the hope that 
Stockpile Stewardship will work in the future.

[[Page 24607]]

Proponents try to reassure us by saying that if the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program ends up being insufficient, the United States can 
exercise the ``supreme national interest'' clause in the treaty to 
resume testing. Given the unwillingness of administrations to make use 
of this standard clause in other arms control agreements even when 
compelling facts exist, there is little reason to believe it would be 
used with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
  It may surprise some that we cannot be certain of the future success 
of the Stockpile Stewardship Program. But we should all understand that 
this lack of certainty comes from a lack of detailed knowledge of many 
of the key processes in our nuclear weapons, even after all these years 
of studying, designing, building, and testing nuclear weapons. 
Accordingly to the FY 2000 Stockpile Stewardship Plan Executive 
Overview, ``The science and engineering of nuclear weapons are 
extremely complex, requiring the integration of over 6,000 components. 
There are many parameters and unknowns that greatly influence the 
performance of nuclear warheads.'' This report goes on to state, 
``There are many areas of warhead operation that cannot be adequately 
addressed with existing tools and the current knowledge base of the 
weapons scientists and engineers.'' Thus the need for the several 
components of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, each of which is, in 
its own right, a major program.
  The importance of major components of Stockpile Stewardship being on 
schedule and on budget is made clear in the administration's FY 2000 
Stockpile Stewardship Plan Executive Overview. This report states that 
the success of the Stockpile Stewardship plan is, ``dependent on a 
highly integrated and interdependent program of experimentation, 
simulation, and modeling. . . .'' The report also states, ``The success 
of this strategy depends on the effective integration of every major 
activity described in this Executive Overview . . .'' and, ``Full 
implementation of the Stockpile Stewardship Program is required to 
sustain a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent. . . .'' Simply put, this 
means that each of the major parts of the Stockpile Stewardship Program 
must work if, as stated by the administration, our country can do 
without nuclear testing while ensuring the safety and reliability of 
our nuclear deterrent.
  I will not go through each part of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, 
but I will take a moment to discuss the National Ignition Facility, 
which has been described by senior Department of Energy officials as 
one of the key elements of Stockpile Stewardship. In fact, a senior 
Energy Department official has briefed Senate staff that the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program cannon succeed if the National Ignition Facility 
does not succeed.
  The purpose of the National Ignition Facility, being built by the 
Lawrence Livermore National Lab, is to achieve a better understanding 
of the part of the nuclear weapon known as the ``primary.'' The primary 
is the first and most critical stage in a nuclear explosion, and also 
happens to be the least understood part of our nuclear weapons. While 
other problems can affect the reliability of our nuclear weapons, we 
know that a nonfunctioning or deficient primary means that the weapon 
will either not work or not work as planned. In either case, this would 
be a major problem for our nuclear deterrent, and, hence, for our 
strategy of nuclear deterrence.
  Senate staff were briefed at length on the National Ignition Facility 
during a visit to the Livermore Lab last January. During this briefing 
they were told explicitly that the National Ignition Facility was on 
schedule for completion in October of 2003 and on budget. This program 
at that time was estimated to cost $1.2 billion.
  We have recently learned that the National Ignition Facility is not 
on schedule and budget, contrary to the representations that were made 
last January to staff. The same representation was made in testimony in 
March of 1999 to the Senate Armed Services Committee by Dr. C. Bruce 
Tarter, Director of the Lawrence Livermore Lab, when he stated, ``I am 
pleased to report that NIF [National Ignition Facility] construction is 
on budget and on schedule.'' In fact, however, the Washington Post 
reported on September 6, 1999, that, ``Energy Department officials said 
mismanagement may cause the project's cost to soar as much as $350 
million above the originally projected $.2 billion and delay completion 
by as much as two years,'' Dr. Tarter's statement demonstrates that 
each part of the Stockpile Stewardship Program is a complex 
undertaking, the success of which cannot be assured, whether for 
reasons of technological or managerial deficiencies.
  It shouldn't be a surprise that the Stockpile Stewardship Program is 
having difficulties. After all, nearly every aspect of this program is 
attempting to push the borders of our scientific and engineering 
knowledge of nuclear weapons. Additionally, the Department of Energy's 
record of successful completion of major programs leaves much to be 
desired. According to the General Accounting Office, ``From 1980 
through 1996, DOE terminated 9 of 18 major Defense Program projects 
after spending $1.9 billion and completed only 2 projects--one behind 
schedule and over budget with the other behind schedule but under 
budget. `Schedule slippages' and cost overruns had occurred on many of 
the remaining 7 projects ongoing in 1996.'' In the FY 2000 Stockpile 
Stewardship Plan Executive Overview Dr. Vic Reis states, ``Maintaining 
the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing will 
continue to challenge DOE's best capabilities.''
  Mr. President, there are many other reasons to be concerned about 
whether the Stockpile Stewardship Program is a sufficient alternative 
to testing. I will not address these questions in detail, but hope 
other Senators will.
  First, even if Stockpile Stewardship works as planned, and on time, 
and is affordable, is it good enough?
  Second, will Stockpile Stewardship accurately tell us about the 
effects of aging on nuclear weapons, which is one of the key challenges 
in stockpile whose weapons are being extended far beyond their design 
life? Will it tell us for example, what happens to plutonium as it 
ages? The issue of aging and its effects on the nuclear stockpile is 
particularly important, and is recognized as such in the FY 2000 
Stockpile Stewardship Plan Executive Overview, which makes the 
following important statements about aging,
  1. ``The DOE has never before had large numbers of 30 to 50 year-old 
warheads in the stockpile. Until last year, the average age of a 
stockpile warhead had always been less than 13 years. As a result, new 
types of aging-related changes and problems in these older warheads are 
expected to be encountered.''
  2. ``Some changes may have little or no effect, whereas others could 
make a major difference.''
  3. ``Nuclear warheads are not static objects. Materials change over 
time (e.g., radioactive decay, embrittlement, corrosion). Some of these 
changes do not adversely affect warhead safety or reliability, but 
others may. In addition, not all changes have reached current detection 
thresholds, but nonetheless may potentially impact safety or 
reliability.''
  4. ``* * * warheads will remain in the stockpile well beyond their 
anticipated design life and beyond DOE's base of experience.''
  Third, will Stockpile Stewardship be good enough to certify the many 
new manufacturing processes, to include those for new plutonium pit 
production? And how will we know that the Stockpile Stewardship 
certifications of new manufacturing processes are accurate?
  Fourth, will Stockpile Stewardship enable the United States to make 
its weapons as safe as the technology allows, which used to be the 
standard against which nuclear weapons safety was measured? We have 
already received testimony, for example, that insensitive high 
explosives--an important safety measure--cannot be put in all of our 
deployed nuclear weapons without testing.
  Fifth, how will we know the answers to any of these questions without 
calibrating the finished Stockpile Stewardship product, if or whenever 
we get

[[Page 24608]]

to that point, against actual tests of aged weapons currently in the 
stockpile? Though the United States performed 1,030 nuclear tests, much 
of the data is of such low quality or on weapons no longer in the 
stockpile that it can't be used in Stockpile Stewardship.
  The Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative, one of the major parts 
of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, has made impressive advances in 
supercomputing capability. But it still must improve the capabilities 
of its supercomputers by many orders of magnitude above what it has 
already attained. If this can be affordably accomplished--something 
that has not yet been determined--the United States will still be in 
the position of then having to rely upon computer simulations to 
integrate all the data being produced out of the other pieces of 
Stockpile Stewardship. As we all know, computer simulations can always 
be made to work; the question is whether they faithfully model reality. 
And without calibrating these models against actual tests of weapons 
currently in the stockpile, the United States will be forced into the 
position of hoping its models and simulations are accurate.
  Sixth, will Stockpile Stewardship incorporate and replace the 
experience base in Department of Energy and Lab personnel as most of 
the scientists and engineers with design, manufacturing, and test 
experience retire in the next 10 years? According to the FY 2000 
Stockpile Stewardship Plan Executive Overview, ``Many of the scientists 
and engineers with actual weapons design, production, and test 
experience have already retired, and most of those remaining will 
likely retire within the next decade. A new generation of weapons 
scientists and engineers must be trained and their competence validated 
before the current generation leaves the workforce.''
  Seventh, is Stockpile Stewardship's funding sufficient and 
sustainable? This question is asked because the lab directors 
originally told the administration they needed $4.8 billion per year, 
but were told to design a $4.5 billion per year program. After doing so 
they were then told the $4.5 billion per year would be in current 
dollars, and would therefore not be adjusted over time for inflation. 
And most recently, the labs were told that the cost of producing 
tritium would have to be accommodated within the $4.5 billion per year, 
though it was not included by the labs in their $4.5 billion per year 
budget. In testimony before the Senate Assistant Secretary of Energy 
Vic Reis stated, ``A production source of tritium would be in addition 
to'' the $4.5 billion per year for Stockpile Stewardship. Dr. Reis, 
however, is directly contradicted by the FY 2000 Stockpile Stewardship 
Plan Executive Overview, which states, ``FY '00 funding for the tritium 
source is included within this level'' of $4.5 billion. Thus, the labs 
are getting less than they said they needed for the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program; they're sustaining funding reductions because of 
inflation; and, their program is being further reduced by having 
additional requirements levied upon Stockpile Stewardship without the 
provision of additional resources.
  Finally, and most important, since Stockpile Stewardship is supposed 
to tell us about problems, many of which we've never seen before--such 
as those caused by aging--how will we know if Stockpile Stewardship 
``works''? How will we know we're finding problems that we've never 
seen before?
  According to the President's statement of August 11, 1995, ``I am 
assured by the Secretary of Energy and directors of our nuclear labs 
that we can meet the challenge of maintaining our nuclear deterrent 
under a CTB through a science-based stockpile stewardship program 
without nuclear testing.''
  The directors of the labs have not ``assured'' the President that the 
Stockpile Stewardship Program will maintain the U.S. nuclear deterrent, 
in the President's words, ``without nuclear testing.'' What the lab 
directors actually have said in quite different: that Stockpile 
Stewardship represents the best chance to maintain the deterrent 
without testing. But there was absolutely no assurance given the 
President by the lab directors concerning Stockpile Stewardship. They 
have never said, individually or collectively, ``we can maintain the 
safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons without testing.'' In a 
letter to Senator Jon Kyl of September 24, 1997, the director of the 
Los Alamos Lab, Dr. Sigfried Hecker, stated, ``We agreed with the 
Department of Energy that without nuclear testing, the SSMP [Stockpile 
Stewardship and Management Program] provides the most logical approach 
for certifying the stockpile today and decades from now. We said that 
we could not guarantee that the SSMP would work, although we had 
reasonable confidence that it would * * *.'' That certainly doesn't 
sound like an ``assurance'' to me.
  Recognizing that the eventual success of the Stockpile Stewardship 
Program is not a self-evident fact, during a visit to the Los Alamos 
National Lab on February 3rd, 1998, President Clinton said, ``* * * I 
don't think we can get the Treaty ratified unless we can convince the 
Senate that the Stockpile Stewardship Program works * * *.'' As good as 
this program is, we do not know if Stockpile Stewardship will be good 
enough. We do not know when, if ever, the Stockpile Stewardship Program 
will be good enough, particularly as its promised completion is still 
over a decade away. And until we know, it would be irresponsible to 
foreswear nuclear testing. Stockpile Stewardship is simply not a proven 
alternative to nuclear testing. Nuclear deterrence is too important to 
the security of the United States for our nuclear deterrent to be 
propped up by hopes instead of set in a foundation of facts.
  The CTBT purports to ban an activity it does not define.
  My opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is not derived 
solely from the questions emanating from the unfinished Stockpile 
Stewardship Program, though these uncertainties constitute more than 
sufficient grounds to object to the treaty. The CTBT is itself 
seriously flawed in many ways, four of which I will discuss.
  First, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty purports to ban an activity 
it does not define. Nowhere in the treaty can the definition of 
``test'' be found. That is not to say that negotiators didn't spend a 
significant amount of time trying to define this most fundamental of 
terms. They did, but left the word undefined purposely because they 
simply found it too difficult to reach consensus on its meaning.
  So, the Senate is being asked to render advice and consent to 
ratification of a treaty that not only bans an activity, but does so 
comprehensively. We just don't quite know what activity is being 
banned.
  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty does state in Article I, ``Each 
State Party undertakes not to carry out any nuclear weapon test 
explosion or any other nuclear explosion * * *.'' The Clinton 
administration has interpreted this to mean the CTBT is a ``zero-
yield'' treaty, so one could expect that the treaty bans nuclear 
explosions from which a nuclear yield is derived. Unfortunately, the 
truth is not that simple, which is why the word ``test'' in the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is undefined.
  In fact, for the first two-and-a-half years of the Clinton 
administration, negotiators pursued a comprehensive test ban treaty 
that would allow some level of yield from tests; that is, the Clinton 
administration's position was to negotiate a comprehensive test ban 
that would allow low-yield testing. Until August 11, 1995, when 
President Clinton decided to pursue a zero-yield CTBT, the Defense 
Department position was that it could agree to a comprehensive test ban 
treaty only if it permitted tests with nuclear yields of up to 500 
tons. Other parts of the administration resisted a zero-yield treaty 
because they knew such a treaty couldn't be verified. But the nuclear 
weapon states couldn't agree on how much yield should be allowed, and 
the non-nuclear weapon states viewed this approach as an attempt by 
members of the nuclear club to enjoy the rhetorical benefits of being 
part of a nuclear test ban treaty while continuing to have the ability 
to improve their nuclear arsenals. So ultimately, in large part because 
some believed the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Nonproliferation

[[Page 24609]]

Treaty hung in the balance, the United States endorsed a zero-yield 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty while leaving the meaning of ``test'' 
undefined and ``zero-yield'' ambiguous. In fact, the phrase ``zero-
yield'' is not even in the treaty.
  Hydro nuclear testing is a perfect example of this problem. 
Hydronuclear testing is very low-yield testing, and is particularly 
useful in assessing nuclear weapon safety issues. Until the Clinton 
administration adopted its ``zero-yield'' position, it held that 
hydronuclear tests would be permissible under a comprehensive test ban 
treaty. After the administration adopted zero-yield as its position, 
though, American representatives declared hydronuclear testing to be 
contrary to this standard. Other countries, such as Russia, however, 
have declared hydronuclear testing to be consistent with its 
understanding of the treaty. Victor Mikhailov, formerly the Russian 
Minister of Atomic Energy and currently the First Deputy Minister at 
that ministry, stated on April 23, 1999, that the Russian nuclear 
program has to focus on, in his words, ``three basic directions'' in a 
CTBT environment: ``new computer equipment, non-test-site `simulation' 
experiments, and so-called test-site hydronuclear experiments, where 
there is practically no release of nuclear energy.'' Neither Russia 
nor, for that matter, China, has agreed even to the U.S. definition of 
what constitutes a hydronuclear test.
  After Russia signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, 
Arzamas-16, one of Russia's two nuclear weapons labs, published a book 
in 1997 entitled Nuclear Tests of the USSR. According to this book, 
``Explosive experiments with nuclear charges in which the amount of 
nuclear energy released is comparable to energy of the HE [high 
explosive] charge, belong to the category of hydronuclear tests, and 
they also are not nuclear tests * * *.'' In plain English this means 
that one of Russia's two nuclear design labs does not consider low-
yield testing to be a violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
  The Russian position is not without merit, as the treaty's failure to 
define the meaning of the word ``test'' or even to include the phrase 
``zero-yield'' gives rise to these kinds of fundamental ambiguities. 
Indeed, in testimony to the Senate, Mr. Spurgeon Keeny, President of 
the Arms Control Association, stated that during President Eisenhower's 
nuclear testing moratorium of 1958-1961, the President authorized a 
number of hydronuclear tests, ``. . . related to some very specific 
safety problems that existed at the time.'' So during President 
Eisenhower's zero-yield nuclear testing moratorium he authorized the 
conduct of tests which this administration says would violate today's 
zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It's not hard to see why 
other nations could think hydronuclear tests are permissible.
  This ambiguity will lead to greater tensions as some accuse others of 
violating the treaty. It will enable some countries to improve their 
weapons and cloak the activities of other nations as they pursue 
acquisition of nuclear weapons, while the United States abides strictly 
by the treaty. While arms control proponents suggest that arms control 
treaties enhance relations between nations, the failure to define the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty's most fundamental term can hardly be 
expected to build confidence between nations; instead, it's likely to 
create discord.
  There is no evidence that the CTBT will reduce proliferation.
  The second key problem with the treaty is that, contrary to 
assertions by treaty proponents, there is no evidence that the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will reduce proliferation.
  Nations acquire nuclear weapons to enhance their national security. 
Will America's failure to test change that? The evidence indicates not. 
Indeed, though the United States hasn't tested since 1992--and didn't 
resume testing even after France and China conducted their tests in the 
mid-1990s--India and Pakistan chose to conduct nuclear tests in the 
spring of 1998. Each country did this for the simple reason that they 
found such conduct to be consistent with their national security 
interests.
  The idea that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will be an effective 
nonproliferation barrier should be examined in the context of the 
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT. Except for the United States, 
Britain, France, Russia and China--the so-called ``P-5''--the NPT 
establishes a norm against the development or acquisition of nuclear 
weapons. Yet, despite the establishment of this norm more than 30 years 
ago, nations other than the P-5 have continued to seek and acquire 
nuclear weapons. This pursuit and acquisition of nuclear weapons has 
occurred by both members and non-members of the NPT. Thus, while some 
of these nations, by virtue of their NPT membership, have explicitly 
violated the terms of that treaty--North Korea and Iraq immediately 
come to mind--the rest, though not NPT members, have flouted the NPT-
established international norm.
  So, the CTBT-established ``norm'' against testing is essentially 
superfluous. To violate this norm, nations, except for the P-5, must 
first violate the NPT-established norm against acquiring nuclear 
weapons. And if they are willing to violate the first norm, why not the 
second, and lesser, CTBT-established norm? Nations willing to violate 
the NPT norm to acquire the weapon in the first place can hardly be 
expected not to violate the CTBT norm of testing their ill-gotten 
weapon. Mr. Spurgeon Kenny, President of the Arms Control Association, 
even testified to the Senate that the NPT, ``is the principal 
constraint on testing by non-nuclear weapon states.'' Which would seem 
to make the CTBT extraneous.
  Nonetheless, CTBT proponents contend the treaty will be an effective 
tool against ``horizontal proliferation''--that is, against the 
acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that don't already have 
them--and also against ``vertical proliferation,'' or the improvement 
of nuclear arsenals by those nations already possessing these weapons.
  According to Dr. Kathleen Bailey, the former Assistant Director of 
the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and now retired from the 
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, in testimony before the Senate, ``It is 
quite feasible for a nation to develop a device that will work as long 
as it does not matter if the yield is exactly known and there are no 
exacting specifications which must be met.'' Nations that do not now 
have nuclear weapons can build relatively unsophisticated nuclear 
weapons. The knowledge necessary to build these weapons is readily 
available, in textbooks, classrooms, libraries, and on the Internet. 
Treaty proponents do not dispute this; in testimony before the Senate, 
Mr. Keeny of the Arms Control Association, said, ``. . . a rogue state 
could develop a first generation nuclear weapon without testing.''
  For proliferating nations seeking a nuclear weapon capability, first 
generation nuclear weapons need not be tested for the user to have 
adequate confidence in their utility. The United States would not have 
sufficient confidence in an untested or marginally tested weapon 
because of its requirements for weapon safety and reliability, but 
other nations will not necessarily have the same stringent 
requirements. Even if a country has low confidence that its relatively 
unsophisticated nuclear weapon will work if used militarily, in a 
crisis the United States cannot take the chance that another country's 
weapon, however unsophisticated, won't work. In this respect, mere 
possession of a nuclear weapon could be enough to dissuade the United 
States from acting. As a minimum, this possession will be enough to 
constrain America's options in time of crisis.
  With respect to ``vertical'' proliferation, were the CTBT to receive 
consent to ratification by the Senate I am confident it would constrain 
the ability of the United States to modernize its nuclear arsenal. But 
other nations that already possess nuclear weapons will improve their 
arsenals--by exploiting the ambiguity inherent in the treaty's

[[Page 24610]]

failure to define ``test,'' or embarking upon testing which we can't 
detect though it provides militarily useful data, or by espionage, as 
we have already seen in the case of China. China's acquisition of 
information on our most modern nuclear warhead, the W-88, demonstrates 
that some nuclear powers can improve their arsenals without extensive 
testing.
  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty could also have the perverse effect 
of engendering proliferation. There are several advanced nations, most 
of which are U.S. allies, that decided to forego their own nuclear 
arsenals for the explicit reason that their safety would be guaranteed 
under the American nuclear umbrella. If these allies lose their 
confidence in the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, 
then they could also lose faith in the idea of finding their own 
protections within America's extended deterrent. These nations could 
then decide it to be in their own national security interests to 
acquire nuclear weapons; at a minimum, U.S. participation in the CTBT 
would require them to examine the question of whether they need their 
own nuclear deterrent.
  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty's supposed nonproliferation 
benefits are based on hope, not fact. The CTBT adds nothing to the NPT. 
The evidence simply does not support the assertion that the CTBT would 
be an effective nonproliferation tool.
  The CTBT verification scheme will have little effect.
  The third significant deficiency of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 
is its verification provisions. As the treaty is supposed to be a 
``zero yield'' test ban, this is particularly troubling. While it is 
reasonable to hope that a nation's assumption of treaty obligations is 
sufficient to bind it by the treaty's terms and conditions, it is an 
unfortunate fact that some nations violate arms control treaties when 
convenient. The Senate recognized this problem, for example, when it 
provided advice and consent to ratification of the START II agreement, 
declaring its concern about, ``. . . the clear past pattern of Soviet 
noncompliance with arms control agreements and continued cases of 
noncompliance by the Russian Federation. . . .'' This is why effective 
verification of arms control treaties is so important, and I will 
explain three of the ways the CTBT's verification regime is deficient.
  First, treaty supporters hope that the International Monitoring 
System set up under the CTBT will enable detection with high confidence 
of very low yield nuclear tests. We know, however, that it is possible 
to conduct a nuclear test with the intention of evading systems 
designed to detect the explosion's telltale seismic signature. This can 
be done through a technique known as ``decoupling,'' whereby a nuclear 
test is conducted in a large underground cavity, thus muffling the 
test's seismic evidence. In a speech to the Council on Foreign 
Relations last year, Dr. Larry Turnbull, Chief Scientist of the 
Intelligence Community's Arms Control Intelligence Staff, said,

       The decoupling scenario is credible for many countries for 
     at least two reasons: First, the worldwide mining and 
     petroleum literature indicates that construction of large 
     cavities in both hard rock and salt is feasible, with costs 
     that would be relatively small compared to those required for 
     the production of materials for a nuclear device; second, 
     literature and symposia indicate that containment of 
     particulate and gaseous debris is feasible in both salt and 
     hard rock.

  So not only is this ``decoupling'' judged to be ``credible'' by the 
Intelligence Community, but, according to Dr. Turnbull, the technique 
can reduce a nuclear test's seismic signature by up to a factor of 70. 
This means a 70-kiloton test can be made to look like a 1-kiloton test, 
which the CTBT monitoring system will not be able to detect. And a 70-
kiloton test, even much less than a 70-kiloton test, can be 
extraordinarily useful both to nations with nuclear weapons and to 
nations seeking nuclear weapons. Bear in mind that the first atomic 
bomb used in combat had a yield of only 15 kilotons.
  The final verification problems I will discuss is one that is present 
in, though not particular to, this treaty, and has to do with the 
ability of proliferators to utilize information gained from the 
verification system. In short, the verifications regime could serve as 
a training ground for those who wish to use the treaty to mask their 
continued pursuit of new or improved nuclear weapons. We have seen this 
problem in the past, and the aftermath of the Gulf War provides an 
excellent example.
  Mr. David Kay, the first head of the UNSCOM inspection team in Iraq, 
has recounted on various occasions his experiences in searching for the 
Iraqi missile and weapons of mass destruction programs. One such 
experience involves UNSCOM's search for Iraq's nuclear weapons program. 
The UNSCOM inspectors searched long and hard, knowing the evidence was 
well hidden, and over many months, despite the best efforts of Iraq to 
frustrate UNSCOM's efforts, gradually uncovered much information about 
the broad scope of the Iraqi nuclear program.
  The UNSCOM inspectors were particularly interested in learning how 
Iraq had managed to fool the International Atomic Energy Agency for so 
long. According to Dr. Kay, the response they received from the 
director of Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission ``Nuclear Safeguards 
Department''--someone who had repeatedly lied to UNSCOM inspectors 
until he was confronted with incontrovertible evidence--was that he had 
learned how to beat the IAEA system of inspections from his experience 
as an IAEA inspector. After all, Iraq is a member of the NPT, and 
Iraqis therefore have every right to work at the IAEA.
  Mr. President, we must expect that the same will happen under the 
CTBT. The treaty's own implementation mechanisms could teach some 
countries how to appear to be adhering to this treaty while actually 
using it to shield the advancement of their clandestine nuclear 
programs.
  It is important to understand that our ability to verify a treaty is 
confined to the limits and fallibility of intelligence collection and 
analysis. In a 1998 speech to the National Defense University 
Foundation, Dr. Kay, stated, ``We ought to remember in the case of 
Iraq, we [UNSCOM] found in the nuclear area a program that had sucked 
up $10 billion in the 1980s; 15,000 people working on it; 25 sites of 
production of various components, 12 really major ones; elaborate 
deception and denial operations . . . Can you imagine, if you had the 
DCI in here and asked him, `Is there a country that can engage over ten 
years in a program to build nuclear weapons, spend $10 billion, have 
15,000 people working in it, five major avenues of enriching uranium, 
and get within 18 months of building the program and you will not have 
detected it?' '' Sometimes, unfortunately, our Intelligence Community 
will miss even very large clandestine programs.
  The CTBT verification problem is compounded by the fact that it is 
supposed to be a ``zero-yield'' treaty. Commenting on this in testimony 
this year before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, James Woolsey, 
President Clinton's first Director of Central Intelligence, stated, ``I 
do not believe that the zero level is verifiable. Not only because it 
is so low, but partially because of the capability a country has that 
is willing to cheat on such a treaty, of decoupling its nuclear tests 
by setting them off in caverns or caves and the like. . . . And to my 
mind, that makes it a worse than a weak reed on which to rely.'' Mr. 
Woolsey is correct; the false assurance of the CTBT's verification 
system is in many ways worse than no assurance at all. The treaty's 
verification flaws alone are sufficient reason to vote against the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
  The CTBT prevents the United States from making our weapons safer and 
from adapting our nuclear stockpile to new threats.
  The fourth major deficiency of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is 
that it will prevent the United States from both improving its current 
arsenal and building new types of weapons, should the need arise. 
Though treaty proponents view this as a positive development, I will 
briefly explain why it is in fact a problem.
  Dr. Robert Barker recently retired from the Lawrence Livermore 
National Lab after spending his entire professional life as part of the 
U.S. nuclear

[[Page 24611]]

complex, as a weapon designer, tester, and as the Assistant to the 
Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy for three different secretaries. 
According to Dr. Barker, the safety standard for U.S. nuclear weapons 
has always been to make these weapons as safe as our technology will 
permit. This means that as technology improves, so too should the 
safety features of our nuclear weapons.
  But some safety features, such as insensitive high explosives, cannot 
be added to some of the weapons in our stockpile without testing. 
Therefore, the effect of the CTBT on the U.S. nuclear stockpile is to 
make it less safe than it otherwise would be. According to Dr. Barker 
in testimony to the Senate, ``The history of U.S. nuclear weapon 
development is that with the design of each new weapon, efforts were 
made to incorporate the latest safety features in a steadily evolving 
technology of safety. When weapons remained in the stockpile so long 
that their safety features were too deficient with respect to then 
current standards, these systems were retired solely because of this 
deficiency.''
  So because the CTBT does not allow testing for safety or for any 
other reason, the United States will face the dilemma of fielding 
weapons that aren't as safe as they should be or doing without the 
weapons. For those whose ultimate objective is the denuclearization of 
the United States, this is a good reason to support the treaty. But it 
is not a good reason for those of us who understand the continuing 
necessity of nuclear deterrence to the national security of the United 
States.
  It is also risky to insist that the United States will not have a 
future need for new types of nuclear weapons. Our nuclear deterrent 
must be configured such that it contains weapons to meet all 
conceivable needs. Over the years, in fact, one of the reasons the 
United States has continued to produce new types of weapons has been to 
respond to new requirements. Assuming the immutability of the current 
U.S. nuclear weapon requirements is, in my view, an unacceptable 
gamble. According to an unclassified March 1999 report by the Los 
Alamos Nuclear Laboratory entitled The U.S. Nuclear Stockpile: Looking 
Ahead, ``[The] CTBT has reduced our flexibility and options to meet 
future nuclear deterrent requirements.''
  The major problem with an outmoded nuclear stockpile is that it 
reduces the credibility of the U.S. nuclear deterrent and, hence, 
undermines America's strategy of nuclear deterrence. As new threats 
develop for which the United States has no weapon that can be used, our 
adversaries will grow to view U.S. deterrent threats as less than 
credible. Obviously no one wants to use our nuclear weapons; but 
ensuring nuclear weapons are never used depends on ensuring they can be 
used. When they become unusable, or when we are faced with a situation 
for which we don't have the proper weapon, the American nuclear 
deterrent will have lost its relevance. This is good news for those who 
view the CTBT as an important step on the path to denuclearization, but 
bad news for everyone who understands the continuing importance of 
nuclear deterrence to America's national security.
  The four deficiencies I have just discussed are by no means the only 
faults of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but I will leave it to 
others to examine additional treaty shortcomings. While I'm sure some 
will take issue with my characterization of the CTBT as replete with 
problems, the simple fact of the matter is that even President Clinton 
recognizes that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is brimming with 
serious deficiencies. This is why the President announced that the 
United States would sign the CTBT subject to the establishment of so-
called ``safeguards,'' and this is why the administration and treaty 
supporters are asking that these safeguards be made part of the 
resolution of ratification. What these safeguards tell us is that the 
administration does not want the Senate to consider the Comprehensive 
Test Ban Treaty on its own; that the administration does not believe 
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to be capable of standing on its own 
merits.
  These so-called ``safeguards'' are themselves deficient.
  On August 11, 1995, President Clinton released a statement which 
said, ``The United States will now insist on a test ban that prohibits 
any nuclear weapons test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion. I 
am convinced this decision will speed the negotiations so that we can 
achieve our goal of signing a comprehensive test ban next year. As a 
central part of this decision, I am establishing concrete, specific 
safeguards that define the conditions under which the United States 
will enter into a comprehensive test ban.''
  This announcement marked President Clinton's decision to seek a zero-
yield test ban treaty, and part of what the President said is worth 
repeating, ``As a central part of this decision, I am establishing 
concrete, specific safeguards that define the conditions under which 
the United States will enter into a comprehensive test ban.''
  The six conditions that President Clinton announced are not part of 
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but entirely separate from the 
treaty. The safeguards were announced for the simple reason that the 
treaty is itself inadequate, or there would have been no need for the 
so-called safeguards. Indeed, the support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is conditioned on these 
safeguards. As stated in their Posture Statement of February 2, 1999, 
``The Joint Chiefs of Staff support the ratification of this Treaty, 
with the safeguards package, that establishes conditions under which 
the United States would adhere to the Treaty,'' So the Joint Chiefs 
support the ratification of the treaty only with the safeguards 
package. And the President supports U.S. entry into the CTBT with the 
safeguards package. But the fact of the matter is that the safeguards 
package, upon which the President and the Joint Chiefs have invested so 
much importance, is not part of the treaty.
  The secret of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is that it does not 
stand on its own merits, but is propped up by this ``safeguards 
package'' which has been accepted by no other nation that has signed or 
ratified the CTBT. So the Senate is being asked, essentially, to 
provide advice and consent to ratification of this treaty because of 
words that are not in the treaty. The Senate is being asked to provide 
its consent to something that no other nation understands to be the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Even worse, the so-called ``safeguards 
package'' is itself inadequate in several ways, three of which I will 
now describe.
  Safeguard A calls for, ``The conduct of a Science Based Stockpile 
Stewardship Program to insure a high level of confidence in the safety 
and reliability of nuclear weapons in the active stockpile. . . .'' I 
have already explained why this safeguard is inadequate.
  Safeguard C calls for, ``The maintenance of the basic capability to 
resume nuclear test activities prohibited by the CTBT should the United 
States cease to be bound to adhere to this treaty.'' But when Senate 
staff visited the Nevada Test Site earlier this year they found funding 
and personnel problems which call into question the sincerity of this 
safeguard.
  Safeguard F calls for,

       The understanding that if the President of the United 
     States is informed by the Secretary of Defense and the 
     Secretary of Energy (DOE)--advised by the Nuclear Weapons 
     Council, the Directors of DOE's nuclear weapons laboratories 
     and the Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command--that a high 
     level of confidence in the safety or reliability of a nuclear 
     weapon type which the two Secretaries consider to be critical 
     to our nuclear deterrent could no longer be certified, the 
     President, in consultation with Congress, would be prepared 
     to withdraw from the CTBT under the standard ``supreme 
     national interests'' clause in order to conduct whatever 
     testing might be required.

  This safeguard is particularly important. Each of the nuclear weapons 
lab directors has testified that this safeguard is of critical 
importance to them because it reassured them that President Clinton was 
not eliminating the possibility of resuming testing despite agreeing to 
a comprehensive, and in his interpretation zero-yield, test ban treaty. 
According to Dr. C. Bruce Tarter,

[[Page 24612]]

the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, in a letter to 
Senator Jon Kyl of September 29, 1997, ``I regard of utmost importance 
the ability to exercise the `supreme national interest' clause of the 
CTBT to address concerns that I have outlined here in my answers. This 
option mitigates the risks in pursuing a no-nuclear-testing strategy. 
We must be prepared for the possibility that a significant problem 
could arise in the stockpile that we will be unable to resolve. The 
fact that the President's Safeguard F specifically cites this provision 
reinforces its importance.''
  In essence, the lab directors rendered their technical judgment on 
entering into the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty based upon a political 
commitment. But the fact is that Safeguard F isn't even a commitment; 
it doesn't say the United States will resume testing if the lab 
directors can't certify a high level of confidence in the safety or 
reliability of a weapon in our nuclear stockpile. It doesn't say the 
``supreme national interest'' clause will be invoked to resume testing 
if a problem is found which requires testing. Rather, it says that 
several different levels of interested parties all have to agree that 
there is a problem, and that they have to agree that the problem is in 
a weapon that the United States can't do without. So this opens the 
door for responding to a problem in our nuclear stockpile by deciding 
to eliminate from our stockpile entire types of our nuclear weapons. 
Removing weapons types with problems is a convenient way, after all, of 
eliminating problems from the stockpile. But it ignores the fact that 
we have these weapons in the stockpile because we need them.
  Furthermore, Safeguard F is of little, if any, value because it 
doesn't commit to resume testing even if a problem is found in a weapon 
that it is determined the United States cannot do without. Safeguard F 
only makes this commitment: That, ``. . . the President, in 
consultation with Congress, would be prepared to withdraw from the CTBT 
under the standard `supreme national interests' clause in order to 
conduct whatever testing might be required.''
  To my knowledge, the United States has never made use of this clause 
in any treaty. But more importantly, we must recognize that neither the 
lab directors nor the United States Senate has received a commitment 
under this safeguard that testing will be resume if necessary. The only 
commitment here is that the President will consult with Congress and be 
prepared to leave the treaty to test. This safeguard should reassure no 
one.
  It is a falsehood to say that this CTBT is ``The longest sought, 
hardest fought prize in arms control history.''
  President Clinton has said that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is, 
``The longest sought, hardest fought prize in arms control history.'' 
The phrase has a nice ring to it; unfortunately, it is not true.
  President Eisenhower, who imposed a testing moratorium from 1958 to 
1961, supported the idea of a comprehensive test ban treaty. Except 
that the test ban he proposed was of limited duration (four to five 
years), and would have allowed low-yield testing. And during the 1958-
1961 moratorium President Eisenhower authorized Hydro nuclear low-yield 
tests for safety reasons, which the Clinton administration maintains 
would violate the CTBT now before the Senate.
  During the Kennedy administration the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which 
banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere, space, or underwater, was 
negotiated. No serious attempt was made to negotiate a comprehensive 
test ban treaty; this was also the case during the Johnson 
administration.
  President Nixon's administration negotiated the Threshold Test Ban 
Treaty, but also didn't make any serious attempt to negotiate a 
comprehensive test ban treaty. There was no activity on this subject 
during the Ford administration.
  During the Carter administration, the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion 
Treaty was signed. Serious consideration was given to a comprehensive 
test ban treaty, though, in Senate testimony in 1997, Dr. James 
Schlesinger, President Carter's Secretary of Energy, stated, ``[when] 
President Carter dealt with the issue of the CTBT, it was at a time 
when we were seeking a 10-year treaty and the yields of up to two 
kilotons would be permissible.'' In other words, President Carter 
favored a limited-term treaty that allowed for low-yield testing.
  Neither President Reagan nor President Bush pursued a comprehensive 
test ban treaty. In fact, responding to the Hatfield-Exon-Mitchell 
amendment on testing in the Fiscal Year 1993 Energy and Water 
Appropriations Act, President Bush stated in a report to Congress,

       . . . the administration has concluded that it is not 
     possible to develop a test program within the constraints of 
     Public Law 102-377 [the FY '93 Energy and Water 
     Appropriations Act] that would be fiscally, militarily, and 
     technically responsible. The requirement to maintain and 
     improve the safety of our nuclear stockpile and to evaluate 
     and maintain the reliability of U.S. forces necessitates 
     continued nuclear testing for those purposes, albeit at a 
     modest level, for the foreseeable future. The administration 
     strongly urges the Congress to modify this legislation 
     urgently in order to permit the minimum number and kind of 
     underground nuclear tests that the United States requires, 
     regardless of the action of other States, to retain safe, 
     reliable, although dramatically reduced deterrent forces.

  Only the Clinton administration has actively sought an unlimited 
duration comprehensive test ban treaty. And only the Clinton 
administration has sought a zero-yield test ban treaty, though until 
August of 1995--two and a half years into President Clinton's first 
term--even his administration's proposals in the Conference on 
Disarmament allowed for low-yield testing.
  President Clinton's statement that ``The CTBT is the longest sought, 
hardest fought prize in arms control history'' is false. I hope my 
colleagues will not be misled by the administration's transparent 
attempt to imbue this treaty with historical legitimacy it does not 
deserve.
  Mr. President, we all agree that nuclear deterrence continues to be 
essential to the national security strategy of the United States. Where 
proponents and opponents of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty begin to 
diverge is over the question of whether nuclear testing continues to be 
vital to ensure the safety and reliability of America's nuclear 
deterrent.
  The administration says that Stockpile Stewardship will provide us 
with the requisite confidence in our nuclear deterrent, and that this 
confidence will therefore be sufficient for our deterrent to continue 
to form the foundation of deterrence. It is my judgement that the 
Stockpile Stewardship is a well conceived and an important program, but 
we don't yet know whether it will become an adequate replacement for 
testing. And until we know this, it would be dangerous to bind our 
nation to a treaty that prohibits testings.
  I have pointed out some of the more significant shortcomings in the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to explain that the Stockpile Stewardship 
Program's uncertainty, while itself sufficient justification to oppose 
the treaty, is not the only reason for such opposition. In failing to 
define the word ``test'' the treaty leaves ambiguous its most 
fundamental terms. There is no factual basis upon which to determine 
that the CTBT will be an effective nonproliferation tool. The CTBT is 
not verifiable. And it constrains the United States from maintaining 
high safety standards for the nuclear stockpile and from ensuring that 
our stockpile, in its configuration, is credible, a necessary condition 
for nuclear deterrence.
  Furthermore, the so-called ``safeguards'' announced by the President 
are nothing but a crutch, demonstrating that the Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty cannot stand on its own merits.
  Finally, I have taken the time to dispel the myth that this treaty 
before us is the ``longest sought, hardest fought prize in arms control 
history.'' This zero-yield test ban treaty is unlike any treaty 
attempted by any previous administration. While a few sporadic and 
mostly half-hearted attempts have been made to attain some form of a 
comprehensive test ban treaty in the past none of these efforts was in 
pursuit of a zero-yield, indefinite duration

[[Page 24613]]

treaty. There is not an unbroken lineage, extending back some 40 years, 
for this treaty, and it is factually incorrect to suggest otherwise.
  Mr. President, arms control treaties must be judged by the 
straightforward standard of whether or not they enhance the national 
security of the United States. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty fails 
to attain this standard.
  Given the limitations of current technology, it is simply not 
possible to be simultaneously for nuclear deterrence and for this 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The two positions are mutually 
exclusive.
  In his book The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill observed, ``Facts 
are better than dreams.'' ``Facts are better than dreams.'' Applying 
this observation to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty leaves one no 
choice but to oppose this treaty.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I find the leader's comment extremely 
fascinating. I want to set the record straight on a couple of minor 
details, as they are.
  No. 1: The letter we sent was on July 20. The opening paragraph said:

       We urge you to hold hearings on the Comprehensive Nuclear 
     Test-Ban Treaty and report it to the full Senate for debate. 
     Most importantly, we ask this be done in sufficient time to 
     allow the United States to actively participate in the 
     treaty's inaugural conference of ratifying states to be held 
     in early September.

  We wrote that in July. The assumption, anyone in good faith would 
assume, was we have hearings now--July, August, and September. We had 
none. We did not have any. Zip. None.
  The majority leader said, ``Hearings are underway now.'' That is his 
quote. They are not underway now. The day before the treaty, the 
Foreign Relations Committee held its first hearing, on the day after we 
are discharged of responsibility. With all due respect to my friend 
from the great State of Virginia, chairman of the powerful Armed 
Services Committee, the only committee of jurisdiction under the rules 
is the Foreign Relations Committee. Their input is important. We love 
to hear their opinion, as we do the Intelligence Committee. They have 
no jurisdiction. It gets sent to our committee, not to theirs. And we 
have 1 day of hearings after we are discharged? Give me a break.
  Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator----
  Mr. BIDEN. I will not yield now. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty 
had 8 days; SALT I, 8 days of Foreign Relations Committee hearings, 18 
days on the floor of the Senate; the INF Treaty in 1988, 23 days of 
Foreign Relations Committee hearings, 9 days on the Senate floor; 
Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, 1991, 5 days of Foreign Relations 
Committee hearings, 2 days on the floor; START I, 19 days of hearings 
in the Foreign Relations Committee, 5 days on the floor; START II, 
1996, 8 days in the committee, 3 days on the floor; chemical weapons, 
14 days in committee, 3 days on the floor; NATO enlargement, 7 days in 
committee, 8 days on the floor; Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 1 day of 
hearings after we are discharged. No committee report.
  Look on your desks, I say to my colleagues. Find the report. Find me 
a report that makes any recommendation. Come on. Come on, this is a 
stacked deck. The idea that we are going to vote on a treaty that 
everyone acknowledges, opponents and proponents, is maybe the single 
most significant treaty we will vote on to determine the direction of 
this country in terms of strategic rationale, and we do not even have a 
committee report?
  If you want to go down the list, the number of months between the 
time the treaty was sent to us and the time it got to the floor, we are 
talking over 2 years. In the case of ABM, 2 months; INF, 4 months; CFE, 
8 months; START I, 13; START II, 32; chemical weapons, 37. We keep 
going higher and higher. Look at who is in charge when we have these.
  But, my Lord, the idea we have had hearings, we have had sufficient 
time to consider it, don't get me wrong; in each of these other 
treaties, an incredible, valuable contribution and report was filed by 
the Armed Services Committee and an incredible, valuable position was 
taken and a report by the Intelligence Committee. They were absolutely 
necessary and needed, neither of which are available now. That is why 
Senators are arguing about the determinations.
  For example, I just spoke to General Powell, as my friend from 
Virginia spoke to General Powell. I wrote down exactly what he said. I 
just got off the phone with him.
  He said the most important reason why he wants this delay is so it 
does not get defeated. That is an important little point.
  The second point he said was: I still support this treaty.
  The third point was: But in light of the way this is being taken up 
and the confusion raised, it is better for the country and everybody to 
have all this sorted out in an orderly fashion so we all know what we 
are talking about.
  He knows what he is talking about. He still supports the treaty, but 
he made a central point, the point Senator Hagel made, and that was: We 
have not had sufficient debate. Therefore, we can have the kinds of 
comments made, honest disagreements, my friends from Virginia can say: 
This is not verifiable. And the Senator from Delaware says: It is 
verifiable.
  For example, my friend from the Intelligence Committee, the 
distinguished Senator from Arizona, quoted in his opening statement the 
Washington Times with regard to verifiability. I will discuss this in 
detail later. He is on the Intelligence Committee. He knows nobody in 
the intelligence community came in and said they have evidence that 
Russia has, in fact, detonated a nuclear weapon. He knows that.
  Mr. KYL. Since the Senator says I know certain things, may I simply 
interject to make this point: As Senator Biden is well aware, it is 
important for Senators to quote only open-source material, such as 
newspapers, and never to refer to matters in the Intelligence Committee 
which are classified. So this Senator will refrain from quoting 
classified material and will be bound by our rules only to refer to 
articles and newspapers, such as the Washington Times.
  Mr. BIDEN. I respectfully suggest if you quote newspaper articles and 
you have some reason to believe a newspaper article is not consistent 
with what you know, then maybe we should not quote the newspaper 
articles.
  The point I am making is a very simple one: Nobody in here has enough 
evidence, based upon a record, other than the probably 10 or 12 of us 
to whom responsibility is assigned to know this material; I doubt 
whether if you poll this Senate, intelligent women and men, that their 
degree of confidence--and I will be devil's advocate--for or against 
the treaty is as high as it has been in the past with other treaties 
because we have had extensive debate before.
  When we talk about this notion that we are, in fact, in a position 
where what we asked for--and I wish the majority leader was still here. 
It was the Biden resolution that was going to be attached to an 
education bill that called for a sense of the Senate that we, in fact, 
hold hearings. Standing in this well, the leader--and he has 
acknowledged this and he made a point of this--walked up to me and 
said: If you will withhold that resolution, we can work out giving you 
a vote on this. He did say that, and I said fine.
  The point is, we were not asking for a vote without hearings, ever. 
The point is also, accurately stated by many, in retrospect, in 
hindsight, should some of us have objected to the unanimous consent 
agreement? The answer is yes. Yes.
  Here is where we are, and it is true, it is totally within the power 
of any single Senator to insist we vote. If that is the case, so be it. 
I am ready to debate the last few hours we have, and we vote. But I 
defy anyone to suggest this is the way in which they want the Senate in 
the future on other treaties of any nature, arms control or not, to 
proceed, which is to wait 2 years, do nothing, have no hearings in the 
committee of jurisdiction, wait until the

[[Page 24614]]

committee of jurisdiction is discharged, hold 1 day of hearings, leave 
14 hours of debate with one amendment available to each leader. I do 
not ever remember any treaty on which we restricted amendments or 
covenants. I do not remember that.
  On the chemical weapons treaty, we had a whole range of amendments, 
all developed in the Foreign Relations Committee after extensive 
hearings.
  So, folks, this is not the way to do business. But if we are going to 
do business this way, so be it. I cannot do anything about it except 
agree with the Senator from Virginia that we should not go forward. I 
agree with former General Powell. I agree; we should not go forward. If 
we do, we do. But it is going to be upon those who conclude that this 
is the way we should conduct business.
  I think we are setting bad precedent after bad precedent after bad 
precedent by the way in which we are proceeding. Again, it is true, 
tactically those who oppose the treaty are in a very strong position 
now. I give them credit for their tactic. But I hope they will put 
tactical advantage beneath substantive responsibility.
  If their case is as strong as they say, I would assume they would 
feel even better to have it debated at length, have the committees 
thoroughly explore it, and have it made clear to the American people so 
that when they vote it down, the American people--on average, 80 
percent of whom support the treaty, based on all the polling data 
anybody has read--will not have to wonder why they went against the 
public will. They will be able to make their case, even if it is for no 
other reason than that.
  So, Mr. President----
  Mr. WARNER. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. BIDEN. On his time, I am happy to yield. Again, I apologize to my 
friend from Georgia. I told him he could come and speak. I will yield 
to him. I did not anticipate the majority leader coming to characterize 
the circumstances different than--he is entitled to do that; I am not 
criticizing him--the views of the Senator from Delaware of the 
characterization.
  Mr. WARNER. On our time, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, this is the time for cool heads, sound 
minds, to make most difficult decisions. I listened very carefully to 
our distinguished majority leader. And I have listened to my colleague 
and friend from Delaware.
  My colleague from Delaware dwells on the process. This situation 
today is solely the result of the unanimous consent agreement, proposed 
at first by the majority leader of the Senate, and studied for a period 
of 3 days. Our majority leader has a right to believe that 3-day period 
of study enabled my good friend from Delaware and all others to examine 
this situation and determine, on the fairness, the propriety and, 
indeed, the national interest of bringing this treaty up today and 
Tuesday for floor debate.
  And for having hearings in the Senate Armed Services Committee--I am 
sorry that my friend somewhat disparages the jurisdiction of this 
committee. But we have the jurisdiction. And I can point to the rules 
over the critical part of this debate, and that is the stockpile of 
nuclear weapons; that is the exclusive province of our committee. It is 
an integral part.
  In that vein, we held 3 days of hearings. One was behind closed 
doors, when the intelligence community, to the extent I can reveal it, 
on their own initiative brought up the need to start a total new survey 
about the ability of this country, and indeed others, to monitor the 
terms of this treaty. We did not ask for it. They did it on their own 
initiative. They brought it up. That survey and study will take a 
period of some months and go into next year.
  But the point is, I say to my distinguished friend from Delaware, 
this institution operates on the basis of rules. It was total comity 
between the distinguished majority leader and the distinguished 
minority leader for a period of 3 days; and finally the Senate--all 100 
Senators--participated either by being on the floor or consultation 
with their respective leaders in the unanimous consent agreement. So 
process is behind us.
  To me, to constantly bring up, as the Senator from Delaware did, the 
issue of the process, it has been covered by our distinguished leader 
today. It has been covered by the Senator from Delaware. We should move 
forward at this moment with this serious debate on the fundamental 
issue; and that is whether or not this treaty is in America's national 
security interest.
  I think the press is accurately reporting the facts of the hearing 
held yesterday, again in the Armed Services Committee, when the 
Directors of the laboratories--these are not politicians, these 
individuals who have served in their capacity as top scientists for our 
country for 10, 12, 15 years--came before the Senate Armed Services 
Committee and told us, with the Secretary of Energy, their boss, 
sitting right there, their own opinions.
  Any reasonable individual, in examining their statements in their 
totality, must come to the conclusions which are accurately reported in 
the very article that appeared today in the New York Times: They cannot 
give that degree of opinion that is needed to move forward on this 
treaty. They simply cannot do that.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield on my time?
  Mr. WARNER. Yes, of course.
  Mr. BIDEN. I want to make two points.
  What I said about the lack of an intelligence community, CIA 
conclusion that Russia has exploded a nuclear device was cleared by the 
CIA to be able to be said. The operative word is ``conclusion.'' They 
reached no such conclusion, and that was cleared. I did not speak out 
of turn.
  No. 2, with regard to yesterday's--and through the kindness of my 
friend from Virginia, he has allowed a lowly member of the Foreign 
Relations Committee to sit in on his hearings. Yesterday, in front of 
the Armed Services Committee, all three lab Directors testified that 
our stockpile today is safe and reliable.
  Let me read what Dr. Browne said. Dr. Browne said:

       I am confident that a fully supported and sustained program 
     will enable us to continue to maintain America's nuclear 
     deterrent without nuclear testing.

  Let me further lay out for you that each Director--all three--
answered this when Senator Levin asked the following question. Senator 
Levin asked the following question to all three Directors:

       Are you on board with this treaty?

  Every single one of the lab Directors said, ``Yes.''
  People will say: How can the honorable Senator from Virginia--and he 
is--say what he said and the Senator from Delaware say what he said? 
How can they be in disagreement? I will answer the question for you.
  Remember, I said at the beginning ``keep your eye on the ball here.'' 
It is true, if we do not fully fund the stockpile at $4.5 billion per 
year for 10 years, that all three of them lose confidence in the 
ability to do that.
  It is kind of ironic. The main reason why we fear that we will fund 
this--and I challenge anyone to show me this is wrong--is because a 
Republican-controlled House of Representatives is balking at funding 
it, not because we have not; we have funded it. The distinguished 
ranking member of the Appropriations Committee is sitting behind me. We 
did our part.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Virginia has 
the floor for the purposes of a question. But the distinguished Senator 
from Georgia--it had been indicated he could speak.
  Mr. BIDEN. If we will all yield, I will yield. I just wanted to set 
the record straight.
  Mr. WARNER. We will resume our colloquy thereafter. I think it is 
important that we have our colleague's remarks.
  Mr. BIDEN. I do, too. I think it is very important we have the 
benefit of precision--precision--precision.
  Mr. WARNER. Following that, we could resume our colloquy.

[[Page 24615]]


  Mr. BIDEN. Following that, I will yield to my friend from New Mexico.
  Mr. WARNER. Having had the floor, I have to reply to the assertions 
you made about yesterday's hearings over which I presided and sat there 
for 5 hours and 10 minutes.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I challenge my friend between now and the 
time----
  Mr. WARNER. I will reply to that challenge, Mr. President.
  Mr. BIDEN. Let me say it another way. I respectfully request my 
friend answer two questions while he is getting ready to respond: Did 
or did not Dr. Browne say: ``I am confident that a fully supported and 
sustained program will enable us to continue to maintain America's 
nuclear deterrent without nuclear testing''? I will give him that. 
Secondly, would he be able to respond and tell me how I am wrong, that 
when all three Directors were asked, ``Are you on board with this 
treaty?'' and every single one answered: ``Yes.''
  Mr. WARNER. I will provide that. We have to extend Senatorial 
courtesy to our colleague.
  Mr. BIDEN. I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. I will be here throughout the entire day, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator. The debate is 
now beginning to occur on this very important subject. I associate 
myself with the remarks of the Senator from Virginia, as he explained 
to the Senate and to the public the nature of the procedure by which we 
have arrived at this event and this process that the leadership of both 
sides of the aisle, over a 3-day period, concluded, which was agreed to 
by unanimous consent, would be the process for discussing the treaty. 
It is very important, in light of certain debates that had more to do 
with the process than the treaty. That was decided by the leadership. 
We are now debating the treaty, not the number of hearings, et cetera.
  In the modern Senate, in my judgment, individual Senators come to 
decisions on monumental issues, such as this treaty, far more from 
their personal and internal counsel than they do whether or not there 
have been a series of hearings. Not very many Senators are able to 
attend those hearings, but they are gathering the information unto 
themselves, and they have been weighing the facts about this treaty for 
a long, long time. That is where the personal decision is likely to be 
made. I know that is the case in my case.
  Therefore, I rise in strong opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty. Despite what we are hearing from the other end of Pennsylvania 
Avenue and the other side of the aisle, ratification of this treaty is 
dangerous and would jeopardize the national security of the United 
States. President Clinton, the strongest proponent of this treaty, 
claims it would ``constrain the development of nuclear weapons, 
contribute to preventing nuclear proliferation, and enhance the ability 
of the United States to monitor suspicious nuclear activities in other 
countries.''
  I believe the President and those advocates of that point of view are 
wrong on every count. The treaty will not prevent countries from 
obtaining or developing nuclear weapons. Take the 1970 Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, a treaty designed to stop the proliferation of 
nuclear weapons. Despite its good intentions, which, of course, this 
treaty also embraces, nuclear proliferation continues today for one 
simple reason--nations act in accordance with their own national 
security interests.
  The 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty did not prevent countries 
such as China, Iran, and Pakistan from acquiring or transferring 
nuclear technology. We cannot be so naive as to believe that such 
countries will behave differently if we pass this treaty. We must also 
take into account that our own conventional arms superiority will 
encourage other nations to cheat on the treaty.
  My point is this: As the world understands that the United States 
cannot be challenged in conventional warfare--we are clearly the most 
powerful Nation in the world on any conventional act of warfare--that 
means other nations which may be adversaries will be pushed toward the 
need to have nuclear capacity as a quid pro quo to the United States. 
Strangely enough, even the administration admits that the treaty does 
not represent an effective deterrent for nuclear proliferation or 
modernization. In testimony before the Senate in 1998, the Acting Under 
Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs 
said he could not identify a single nation that wouldn't seek nuclear 
weapons, if the treaty were to enter into force.
  Second, the treaty is not verifiable. Former Director of Central 
Intelligence, James Woolsey, testified before the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee last year that ``a zero yield Comprehensive Test 
Ban Treaty is extraordinarily difficult to the point of impossibility 
to verify from afar.''
  The distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee 
recently brought to this body's attention a Washington Post article 
which reported that the CIA cannot monitor low-level nuclear tests by 
Russia. So while our Central Intelligence Agency is telling us it can't 
verify compliance with the treaty, our administration persists in its 
misguided efforts to ratify the treaty. In effect, this administration 
is proposing that the United States adhere scrupulously to such a 
treaty while other nations will not be verifiably doing so by 
continuing to develop and acquire nuclear weapons. Ratification, then, 
means that the rogue and other nations would be gaining militarily over 
the United States.
  Third, despite what the administration would have us believe, nuclear 
testing is essential to maintaining a strong and credible U.S. nuclear 
arsenal and deterrent. Most experts agree that nuclear tests are 
necessary to maintain the proper functioning of nuclear weapons and 
warheads and to modernize the existing stockpile for enhanced safety 
and effectiveness.
  I want to digress a moment. If the world ever begins to believe that 
our arsenal is less than effective, it encourages bad behavior. If we 
ever come to believe we are not certain about our nuclear arsenal and 
its capacity, we become destabilized as a nation.
  Many weapons believed to be reliable and thoroughly tested 
nevertheless developed problems which were only discovered and could 
only be fixed through nuclear testing. One-third of all the weapon 
designs placed in the stockpile since 1958 have required and received 
postdeployment nuclear tests to resolve problems. In three-quarters of 
these cases, the problems were only identified and assessed as a result 
of nuclear testing and could only be fixed by nuclear testing.
  The proponents of the treaty think we can do this through computer 
modeling, but most experts will quickly tell us that we don't know 
whether the computer modeling will work and probably won't know for 
another 10 years.
  In short, only by testing will the United States be able to maintain 
a nuclear stockpile that is able to defend against threats from abroad, 
rogue nations, to provide a credible deterrent to hostile nations and 
maintain confidence in the safety and reliability of our nuclear 
weapons, and to make sure those other nations understand we have a 
reliable, effective nuclear deterrent.
  It is important to note that the value of America's nuclear arsenal 
diminishes dramatically if nations, rogue or otherwise, come to believe 
our deterrent is not safe and not reliable. The nuclear umbrella 
extended for decades to cover allies such as Germany and Japan has been 
an important factor in convincing these technologically proficient 
nations not to acquire their own weapons, precisely because of the 
safety and reliability of our weapons. So what kind of decisions do 
they begin to make if they ever believe they cannot count on the U.S. 
nuclear deterrent?
  Mr. President, I want to make a couple of closing comments.
  The other day, Senator Biden of Delaware, in his earlier remarks 
about the treaty, said something to the effect that this decision would 
``hang over the heads'' of each of us who will be called upon to vote. 
The inference was,

[[Page 24616]]

well, if those of us who oppose the treaty make an error, that will 
hang over all of our heads. I point out to the Senator from Delaware 
that this decision will live with each of us, no matter what decision 
we make.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield on my time?
  Mr. COVERDELL. Yes.
  Mr. BIDEN. The inference was not that those who voted no were the 
only ones who would be taking a chance; the inference was that whomever 
among us turned out to be wrong is going to, in fact, have a long time 
to pay.
  These are big stakes. If, in fact, you vote no, and if proliferation 
accelerates, whether or not because of this, mark my words, those who 
voted no will pay. Conversely, if you vote yes and we find out a year 
or 2 or 3 from now that all those horrible concerns about the treaty 
turned out to be true and the Soviets have a superiority and the 
Chinese are doing this, then those of us who voted for the treaty will 
be held accountable, as we should. I wasn't applying it to one side.
  Mr. COVERDELL. He has clarified and made the very point I was going 
to make--that, clearly, if somehow proliferation accelerated, those who 
have voted no would have to feel they made an error in judgment. On the 
other hand, if those who voted for it found themselves in a situation 
where the U.S. deterrent had diminished, that the new testing 
procedures were not as effective, and that world rogues had suddenly 
become very weighty in the world, much would hang over their heads.
  My closing point is this: Which mistake is worse? In other words, if 
the mistake is another nation has a weapon that it didn't today, that 
would not be good. I personally don't think this treaty is going to 
stop those nations. But, on the other hand, if the conclusion of the 
error is that we are unable to defend ourselves, first--or secondarily, 
we have somehow destabilized our allies and have made the world less 
safe, which is a worse error? I think of a poster I have seen in the 
office of Senator Gramm of Texas. It says: When the day comes, if the 
lion lies down with the lamb, we better be darn sure we are the lion.
  The emotion the Senator has expressed today is laudable. It is a 
weighty decision. I think the Senator gives more to the reports and the 
process than I would, from my limited experience. He has been here a 
lot longer. As I said, while he was off the floor, I think personal 
counsel has a weightier importance on these kinds of issues. In the 
limited time I have been here, we have been through three of them now 
in the process. But if I were to have to pick between where we would be 
on the balance of mistakes, I would pick the safer one, where we have 
the capacity to defend ourselves.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, on my time, in response, I think the 
Senator from Georgia has narrowed it precisely. Let me tell you why I 
think the side on which he errs is the biggest chance. There is a 
safeguard F in this treaty which says that if at any time those 
laboratory Directors certify that they cannot certify the reliability 
of our stockpile--and they must do it once a year--and communicate that 
to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy, and they 
concur with that judgment, which most assuredly they would, barring 
their place in history being besmirched in a significant way, then we 
have in this treaty the absolute authority, under safeguard F, to 
withdraw.
  So the reason I believe we should err on the side of not testing 
nuclearly--knowing that if, in fact, it becomes necessary to safeguard 
us, we can get out legally in a moment's notice--is that failing to 
take that very small chance, we open up a door that cannot be closed, 
or is difficult to close. If, as a consequence of no treaty, China 
begins significant testing and MIRVs ICBMs and moves them from 18 to 
800, or 8,000, or 5,000, if in fact Pakistan and India test further so 
they can deploy their weapons on the nose cones of missiles that can be 
fired, it is incredibly more difficult to turn that clock back, to put 
that genie back in the bottle, than it is for a President of the United 
States, upon the recommendation of the Secretaries of Defense and 
Energy, saying, Mr. President, get out, get out.
  The last point I will make is this: I know of no program--and I stand 
to be corrected--where there has been a quantum leap in the capacity of 
a country that has taken us by total surprise, where we have had less 
than a year's notice. The likelihood of any fundamental change in the 
strategic balance during the year period, during the last certification 
and the next certification, is not reasonable. We are the only Nation 
in the world with the sophisticated capability to even approach that 
possibility. So that is why I respect my friend from Georgia, and he 
knows I do. That is why I decided we are taking very little chance 
relative to a gigantic chance if we turn the treaty down.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, the Senator from Delaware knows the 
respect is mutual. I just point out that people of honor and good faith 
can come down on very different sides of these questions, as we have 
seen among experts.
  Ultimately, each of us will have to personally balance this equation. 
The political process that has already developed this treaty is the 
very thing that worries me about the escape clause you talk about. I 
don't have any confidence in it. I just don't believe, as you do, that 
this treaty will put any genie in the bottle. I will close with that. I 
admire the Senator from Delaware for his work. We simply have come to 
two different conclusions in this matter.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. Again, as usual, my friend from Georgia goes to the heart 
of the issue. If you put everything else aside, you take all the detail 
away, you will find at its root--I am not suggesting that everybody who 
opposes this treaty doesn't believe everything they are saying; they 
do. But at its root, it comes down to a belief that has been the case 
in almost all the debates on treaties--and I am not suggesting that 
everybody has opposed every treaty. But they have argued one final 
piece, and that is simply that they lack faith in the political will of 
this country to do whatever is required. That has been the closing and 
legitimate argument raised. It was raised in START I, START II, SALT I, 
and SALT II.
  The issue was whether or not we would so change the political climate 
that we lull ourselves to sleep. My friend from New Mexico remembers 
the argument that we would not have the political will to reengage. It 
is a legitimate argument. I do not give it short shrift. I think it is 
the single most serious argument against this treaty.
  I will close by saying, as the kids say, I will put my experts up 
against your experts. I have more of them, numerically.
  Mr. President, I think it is our turn. I yield 10 minutes to Senator 
Bingaman.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware, Mr. 
Biden, for yielding time and also for his eloquent statements in 
opposition to going to a vote on this treaty.
  First, I know everyone says we shouldn't talk about the process, that 
the process is history. But I think we should talk about the process 
and talk about the fact that next Tuesday is not the time this Senate 
should dispose of this issue. The reality is that there is a lot of 
uncertainty and a lot of confusion.
  I learned early in my career that when you are uncertain, the best 
thing to do is sleep on it, take a little time, and let the issue 
resolve itself in your mind before you move ahead. And clearly there 
are a lot of unknowns out there that we need to know before we finally 
vote on this issue.
  I hope that leadership--particularly the majority leader--will find a 
way to step back from this vote and give the Senate time to get the 
newest estimate from the intelligence community about what the 
capabilities of Russia are with regard to low-yield weapons development 
and also to get other expert advice.
  Clearly, this is an issue of monumental importance. As we start a new 
century, we should not rush to judgment before we have given every 
Senator an opportunity to learn the issue

[[Page 24617]]

and to understand the implications of it.
  Our nuclear arsenal was developed, and has been maintained, because 
we believe having a safe and credible and reliable nuclear arsenal has 
improved and continues to improve U.S. security. I believe that. I am 
sure we will continue to maintain that nuclear arsenal as long as we 
still have that judgment.
  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is the issue now before us, 
raises the question of whether we can continue to maintain our nuclear 
deterrent and maintain our national security through having that 
nuclear deterrent under a regime of no additional nuclear testing. I 
believe we can.
  I believe the benefits we derive from going ahead with this treaty 
and in slowing the spread, and the improvement, of nuclear weapons 
around the world by others make this treaty very much in our national 
interest.
  Some have argued that without the ability to test nuclear weapons, we 
cannot have 100-percent confidence that those weapons will work as 
intended. I agree with that. I think it is undoubtedly true that an 
unlimited testing regime will give us a higher degree of confidence in 
our own nuclear weapons than no testing at all. Clearly, that is true 
for all of our potential adversaries as well. They will do better at 
developing weapons, and they will have a more capable, reliable nuclear 
arsenal to point at us--potential adversaries will--if we go ahead and 
have them pursue unconstrained testing.
  But we can, in my view, have sufficient confidence in the reliability 
of our weapons through the work we have labeled the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program. This is a program that has been discussed 
frequently on the Senate floor. It is one I have spent many hours 
studying and trying to understand in the nuclear weapons laboratories 
in my State--Los Alamos and Sandia.
  I think we need to balance against this concern about lack of 100-
percent confidence. We need to balance against that the consequences 
that would result from a rejection of this treaty by the Senate.
  Senator Moynihan spoke about the likely reaction of a rejection of 
this treaty in India and Pakistan, both countries which have 
demonstrated their nuclear capability already and are on the way toward 
developing a real nuclear arsenal that can be used against each other 
or other countries.
  Other Senators have talked on the floor about the likely effect of a 
rejection of this treaty on China or on Russia. The simple fact is that 
the United States is far ahead of any other country in the world in our 
ability to maintain our nuclear deterrent under a no-testing regime.
  Our allies--and that includes our allies who have nuclear weapons--
believe it is in their interest and in the interest of the world for us 
to go forward with this treaty and believe that, on balance, their 
security will be enhanced if we go forward with this treaty. If that is 
their judgment--those nuclear-capable countries depend much more on 
testing than we do--that a no-testing regime will, on balance, improve 
their national security, then I have trouble seeing how entry into a 
test ban treaty can put us at a comparative disadvantage when we have 
tremendous capability to determine the reliability and safety of our 
weapons without testing--not 100-percent capability, but we have great 
capability and capability that far exceeds that of any other potential 
adversary.
  Let me say, in closing, I would like to go back to this issue of 
procedure and where we go. Since it is clear to me, and I think to all 
Senators and all observers of the Senate, that the two-thirds votes 
necessary under our Constitution to ratify this treaty are not present 
today in the Senate and are not likely to be on Tuesday, I think it 
would be a tragic mistake for us to go ahead with that vote next week. 
I hope very much that cooler heads prevail, as the Senator from 
Virginia said earlier in the discussion. I hope cooler heads prevail 
and we find a way to put this off to a time when we can approach it 
with more knowledge and better judgment.
  In the final analysis, the question we must decide is whether this 
treaty will reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons, reduce the 
number of states with nuclear arsenals, and lessen the likelihood of 
nuclear weapons being used in the next century. That is the issue 
before us. I believe it will accomplish each of those end results. I 
believe the treaty will have that effect. When it does come to a vote, 
I hope very much that two-thirds of the Members of this Senate have the 
good judgment to support the treaty.
  Mr. President, I see there is another Senator wishing to speak. I 
yield the floor, and I yield the remainder of our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am excited and optimistic about our 
next century and about the next millennium. We made great human 
technical progress in the 19th century. A lot of things happened in 
that century that were good. We continued that technological progress 
in the 20th century. Unfortunately, the forces of totalitarianism, war, 
fascism, and communism have run loose in the 20th century to an 
unprecedented degree. Millions died as a result. I do believe, though, 
the next century, the 21st century, can be the greatest in the history 
of mankind.
  Hitler and his forces of national socialism were crushed in this 
century. Communism and the ``Evil Soviet Empire'' collapsed. The world 
is a better place with even greater possibilities. We can work together 
and promote peace, order, stability, and ensure economic, 
technological, and medical progress to an unprecedented degree. This, I 
believe, can and will happen.
  Yes, there will be problems. Ambition, ignorance, greed, and hatred 
will not be eliminated from the face of this Earth. These will abide. 
But from a global perspective, they can be contained, and peace and 
progress can be expanded in the next century to an unprecedented 
degree. For this to happen, however, the United States must lead. It 
cannot be Russia. They have deep economic and political problems. It 
can't be China. They are driven by the Communist chimeras and old 
ambitions. It can't be Europe, for they have not achieved the political 
unity or the military strength to act quickly and decisively. The 
United States has the burden to lead for peace. And not just peace--we 
need peace with justice, a much harder goal.
  We are a nation composed of immigrants from all the nations of the 
Earth. People from all over the world came here to live in freedom. We 
have also been blessed with the economic, technological, and military 
strength in addition to the cultural diversity that enables America to 
be a unique world leader.
  Yes, many criticize the United States, but they all fundamentally 
recognize our critical role in a stable and healthy world order. This 
doesn't mean we are to be the world's policeman for every little 
matter, but we must lead with confidence and strength. It is necessary, 
therefore, for our country to have credibility when we speak, to be 
respected by all, to be feared by expansionist and dangerous forces, 
and to continue, with even more skill, our self-confident world 
leadership that we have shown in recent years.
  That is why I have decided it is necessary for me to oppose the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. I am of the firm opinion this treaty 
will do at least two things. It will certainly cause our current 
nuclear stockpiles to be degraded. Simulated tests, all agree, can 
never be as good as actual tests. Secondly, it will reduce our capacity 
and, more importantly, perhaps, our will to improve our weapons 
systems--to keep up with scientific advancements. The result, 
therefore, will be that the United States will see its nuclear power 
degraded and its capacity for world leadership eroded. This means less 
stability in the world. Our allies will have less confidence in our 
nuclear umbrella. Our adversaries will be more confident, more active, 
more willing to be aggressive and to push the limits. In addition, our 
confidence in our own ability to act and lead will be diminished. Our 
President and Congress must be certain of our ability to act.

[[Page 24618]]

  Senator Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, a 
tremendous patriot with extraordinary experience in matters military, a 
man who loves his country, who supports our President when he can and 
believes he should, who opposes this treaty steadfastly, recently said 
there can be no doubt in the credibility of that stockpile. That is it, 
fundamentally. We can't have doubts, our adversaries can't have doubts, 
and our allies can't have doubts.
  There have been a lot of discussions about verification. This treaty 
cannot be adequately verified. We have talked about a lot of other 
issues today. Safety--how can we be sure of safety if we are not 
testing our weapons?
  I will discuss for a few minutes specifically what I believe is a 
fundamental danger or effect of a complete ban of all testing forever, 
which this treaty does. In effect, the goal of this treaty will be and 
is to cap, to freeze, to stop improvements in weapons systems. It will 
include our weapons systems.
  Some say: Jeff, we can still do research and they don't have to do 
all this testing.
  That is not entirely accurate. Yesterday, as the Director of the 
Sandia Laboratory testified, they have design data at this time that 
could be used to produce a new weapon, but they cannot test it to bring 
it online. That is a significant statement, I believe. We have that 
capability now, and we are not going to use it.
  Of course, basic weapons, the Hiroshima-type bomb, do not need to be 
tested. Everybody who is of scientific sophistication in the world--and 
there are 44 countries today that are either estimated to be or are 
actually nuclear-capable--all over the world people have the capability 
of building a basic nuclear bomb. We ought to know this ban would have 
no impact on that. This treaty would have no impact on buying and 
selling of nuclear weapons from a country that has already produced.
  What this treaty is doing--and I want Members to think about this--is 
attempting an act that is extraordinary. We will attempt to stop 
research and testing on new materials and new weapons. If the United 
States signs such a treaty, we know we will comply with it; we will 
comply with the spirit and we will not continue to research and develop 
through testing. Such a decision, I believe, would be unwise and would 
be contrary to human nature and our tendency to progress, improve, and 
advance --characteristics of humanity.
  To pass a treaty such as this will certainly slow our interest in 
modernization, but it is not likely to slow the research of other 
capable nuclear nations. They are behind. They--many, at least--will be 
determined to catch up. They will use this treaty to catch up, similar 
to the yellow caution flag when there is an accident on a race course--
allowing those off the lead lap to catch up to the leaders. CTBT will 
allow other states that opportunity.
  Secondly, in their efforts to catch up, our adversaries may well even 
achieve a breakthrough, a technological advancement that could leapfrog 
them even beyond the United States into nuclear leadership in this 
world. That will not only be bad for America, it will be a setback for 
stability and peace and justice for the whole world. We have an 
obligation to work to promote peace and stability.
  The goal of this Nation, I so strongly believe, is to be a preeminent 
world power. We have to understand what comes with that: The 
responsibility to be strong.
  President Reagan said a number of years ago:

       Our policy is simple: We are not going to betray our 
     friends, reward the enemies of freedom, or permit fear and 
     retreat to become American policies, especially in this 
     hemisphere. None of the four wars in my lifetime came about 
     because we were too strong. It is weakness--weakness that 
     invites adventurous adversaries to make mistaken judgments.

  I think that is the history of mankind. Winston Churchill warned 
England about that when Nazi Germany was on the early march and they 
could have been stopped earlier at much less cost.
  I have seen it argued by some that the passage of this treaty will 
freeze our nuclear leadership in place. I believe that is not sound 
reasoning. That is a foolhardy concept. It will stop America from 
improving our arsenal. It will stop America from improving our 
technology. It will allow, I submit, our adversaries to catch up and, 
God forbid, pass us.
  Some may believe all the world powers are the same. They used to say 
we are just a bunch of scorpions in a bottle. I disagree. The United 
States has a unique role in the world, a unique ability to lead for 
good. Our leadership has been good for the world. I defy anyone to 
dispute it. When historians write of our role in the next century, I 
want them to write that we used our power to lead the world in great 
progress toward peace, with justice and economic and technological and 
medical prosperity.
  This goal is not going to be furthered by fuzzy thinking. It will not 
be achieved if we just sign away, by this treaty, capabilities we have 
that enable America to lead. That is why we are able to lead--because 
we have superiority. If there are two football teams--and in Alabama we 
have a lot of them--some of them like to throw a pass and some maybe 
cannot throw a pass so well. It would be nice to have a treaty 
beforehand that the one with the ability to pass would sign away that 
ability. That doesn't happen on a football field, and it won't happen 
in the world.
  Our leadership is important, and our military power is crucial to it. 
That is the solid foundation on which we have to build. We benefited 
from a certain number of treaties with the Soviet Union that dealt with 
nuclear weapons in the past. I believe we can continue our efforts to 
reduce the number of weapons in our arsenal. I believe we can perhaps 
reduce by 50 percent the nuclear stockpile we have. Yes, we can do 
that. There are a lot of things we can do that promote peace. But to 
ban all testing of all nuclear weapons? That is a mistake. I do not 
believe that will promote peace.
  I do not believe so. I favor our doing all we can do to stop 
proliferation, the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. The 
truth is, this will probably be done best on a nation-by-nation basis. 
When Pakistan and India had their fuss earlier last year and one 
tested, then the other one tested. Why? Because they felt their 
existence at stake, and no piece of paper is going to stop any nation 
from developing what it believes it has to develop to maintain its 
freedom, to maintain its autonomy, its independence as a nation. That 
will not happen.
  What we have done, as the United States, is provide a nuclear 
umbrella. We have been able to say to nations: We are not going to let 
other nuclear powers do you in. Don't develop weapons, we will be 
there, we will stand firm. We have the capability to destroy anyone who 
attempts to destroy you.
  People have relied on that. Many nations have. Germany and Japan 
could easily develop nuclear weapons. They have declined to do so based 
on our assurances.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.
  Mr. BIDEN. Why did they ratify the treaty, then, and why did they 
directly contact us in an extraordinary way through their leadership 
and say: Please, U.S. Senate, ratify it?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I appreciate that question. It is my view--sometimes it 
is internal politics. Sometimes, though, it is a lack of being able to 
walk in our shoes.
  This is a very significant time for us. We need to ask ourselves who 
we are as a nation. We are in a class of one. A treaty such as this 
would be good for Japan. It would be good for Germany, perhaps. But it 
would constrain us and, in the long run--they may not realize it--it 
could jeopardize our ability to guarantee their freedom.
  So on the proliferation question, 44 nations have this ability to 
develop nuclear weapons and have them. It is already out there. Others 
are going to continue to get it. It will not stop.
  I say to America: Please listen. We are a unique world power. We must 
use

[[Page 24619]]

that power for good. We must maintain nuclear leadership in the world, 
and we cannot forfeit our power by signing it away for a treaty at the 
urging of politically correct and fuzzy thinkers.
  I have a vision in my mind about treaties. We have to watch them, I 
think. It is Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians, stretched out, 
unable to move because he has been tied down by a whole host of 
threads. Powerful Gulliver, unable to move, tied down by strings and 
threads of multiple numbers.
  We are not one of equals. The United States is in a category of its 
own at this point in history. This treaty might be good for Japan, 
England, France. It will not be good for us, and in the long term, the 
long run, I am convinced for world peace.
  I remember--I wasn't in this body--a number of years ago in Europe 
there was a fuss--Senator Warner remembers it, and Senator Biden--about 
whether or not to put Pershing nuclear missiles and intermediate-range 
missiles into Germany. The Germans, despite the most intense anti-nuke 
Greens and so forth who were there, agreed with President Reagan to do 
so. Critics said it would cause war and could lead to nuclear war. But 
the truth is, it led to peace. That strength, that commitment 
unequivocally made, saying we will not allow Germany, we will not allow 
Europe--we are willing to put our necks on the line, our nuclear power 
on the line, to guarantee the independence and freedom of Western 
Europe. It was a blow for peace. It helped lead to the collapse of the 
Soviet Union.
  I recall a few years ago a discussion on Firing Line between William 
Buckley, Jr. and a liberal editor. At the end of the wonderful 
discussion, the editor poured forth his hopes and dreams for a more 
peaceful world.
  Mr. Buckley paused respectfully for a while and then he said:

       Well, friend, I hope you won't mind if I work to defend the 
     Republic while you are working on these grand plans.

  That is where we are today. I believe we have a burden. I believe we 
ought not to sign away the unique capacity that we have as a nation to 
improve our nuclear arsenal. One of the things we do so well, and most 
people may not know, is that we have produced sophisticated, highly 
targetable weapons--weapons capable of being very accurately targeted 
to attack military targets, hardened defensive targets, not just aiming 
them at population centers. So the extent to which we can improve our 
arsenal may give us the ability to be stronger militarily and actually 
avoid any more loss of life than would be necessary in such a conflict.
  I think we are at an important time. The President asked for and 
wanted this debate. It is not as if anybody did not know it was out 
there. It had been discussed for quite a number of years. The truth is, 
there are not votes to pass this treaty. Some say maybe we ought to 
pass on it and not vote on it this time and keep it alive. I thought 
about that. Some good people think that may be the right idea. But I 
have my doubts.
  I think it might be a good thing for the world to see the Senate vote 
this treaty down. It is not a good treaty. I think it would send the 
world the word, and I think around the capitals of the globe we would 
have some hard-headed world leaders saying: Wow, we thought the United 
States could be moved by all this anguish and talk and pleas and 
political correctness. This is odd. They are able to act in their own 
self-interest and show leadership. I am impressed.
  I think that might be the long-term result of this, instead of some 
of the calamities our friends would say will happen. I just do not 
think the world is so fragile that the United States, acting in its own 
rational self-interest that this treaty is not good, turns it down, 
that we are going to head for a nuclear holocaust. I think, indeed, it 
could cause us to go back once again to perhaps craft a treaty that is 
justifiable, that will work, that will allow us to modernize and 
innovate and at the same time promote security and peace in the world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  Mr. WARNER. I think I have recognition.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator withhold for a moment? We were going back 
and forth. I assured the Senator from New Jersey that he would be able 
to go next. He is not going to take all that long. Since you and I are 
going to be here, is it appropriate?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we are going to be here. But as a matter 
of courtesy, I just wanted to thank my colleague for his very valuable 
contribution.
  He is a member of our committee. He attended the hearings that we 
have had in the course of this week, and he referred, with great 
accuracy, to the testimony that was given to our committee.
  But clearly, good, sound, public servants, nonpoliticians, having 
spent anywhere from a decade to three decades of their lives working in 
their respective fields--whether it was the technical field, with the 
laboratory directors, or the military field, they had honest 
differences of opinion. There was no consensus, no strong consensus 
except the case, the weight of the case against the treaty grew day, by 
day, by day from that testimony, culminating, as you know, in this 
article in the New York Times this morning, which addresses the very 
heart of this treaty in which these lab directors--I don't know whether 
they are Republicans or Democrats or what they are; they are not 
wrapped up in this process of the Senate; they are not arguing a 
unanimous consent--are simply telling their fellow scientists the world 
over, the citizens of this country, the scientists in charge of 
maintaining the safety and reliability of the Nation's nuclear 
arsenals, they might not be able to do their job without nuclear tests. 
That is actual firing of weapons that would be outlawed--outlawed, they 
used the word--under this treaty.
  I thank the Senator. I want to come back to the laboratory, the 
testimony my colleague from Delaware and I were in colloquy about. We 
intermittently yield to other Senators. I yield at this time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Will the chairman yield? I would like to say how much I 
enjoyed serving with Senator Warner, the chairman of the Armed Services 
Committee. He has had full hearings on this matter. I have seen his 
conviction grow as day, after day, testimony in hearings has indicated 
this is not a good treaty.
  I know the Senator from Virginia would support it if he believed it 
was the right thing. I know he has developed a firm view that it is not 
the right thing. I certainly respect that. It certainly has impacted my 
view of it, and I agree with him.
  My instincts are that this is not good for America, and when we say 
no, it is not going to hurt us in the world. People are going to 
respect us because we are acting in our legitimate, just interests. We 
are acting for peace and stability, as a great leader of the world 
ought to act, and we ought not to be pushed around by some polling data 
to pass some treaty that is going to undermine our strength as a 
nation. I thank the chairman for his leadership.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the Senator, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. I yield to my friend from New Jersey--how much time would 
he like?
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Seven minutes.
  Mr. BIDEN. I yield 10 minutes to my friend from New Jersey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The Senator from New Jersey is 
recognized for 10 minutes.
  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I first note my appreciation, and I 
suspect all Senators, for the manner in which Senator Warner and 
Senator Biden have conducted a debate of profound national importance. 
It speaks well of the quality and tone of debate in the Senate.
  There are always moments in our lives we suspect we will always 
remember, those times that punctuate our activities and our 
experiences. Several nights ago, on the eve of the Senate's 
consideration of this treaty, President Clinton, sitting in the 
residence, reminded some of us that the last time

[[Page 24620]]

the Senate rejected a treaty was in 1920, the Treaty of Versailles. The 
Treaty called for the establishment of a League of Nations. The United 
States, as reflected by the Senate, was so traumatized by the First 
World War, so anxious for the creation of a time that it would never 
visit again, that it drew all the wrong lessons from the First World 
War. As a consequence, it defeated the Treaty. A Treaty that was, in 
Woodrow Wilson's words, ``the last hope of mankind.''
  We now find ourselves in this debate 80 years later. Yet having 
emerged from the cold war, the trauma and sacrifices of generations in 
dealing with that enormous national struggle, I fear that, once again, 
we are drawing all the wrong lessons. Essentially, it is the belief of 
many of my colleagues that the arms control regimes of the last 40 
years were successful; that the bipartisan foreign policy from 
Eisenhower to Clinton, based on a concept of nonproliferation and arms 
control regimes, could provide real security for the United States; 
and, that seeking security in arms races and technological military 
dominance was illusory.
  It is extraordinary that, during this debate, we demonstrate a lack 
of confidence in arms control regimes or believe the United States is 
better defended outside of these treaties because that is such a 
contradiction with national experience.
  In the last 40 years, the United States, from Eisenhower to Nixon, 
Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Bush, and Reagan have ratified START I and 
II, SALT I and II, the ABM Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, 
Biological Weapons Convention, the Nonproliferation Treaty, the Limited 
Test Ban Treaty, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, Partial Test 
Ban Treaty, the Open Skies Agreement, the Outer Space Agreement, and 
signed the Missile Technology Control Regime. The nation is profoundly 
more secure because of each and every one of those treaties and 
regimes.
  Every Senate and each President at a moment in history faced the same 
judgment we face today. Are we better off by allowing other nations and 
ourselves to develop weapons outside of these regimes or should we have 
confidence in our ability to verify and be more secure within their 
limits?
  It appears the Senate may, for the first time in a generation and for 
the second time in this century, believe that it is better to reject a 
treaty negotiated by an American President and operate outside of its 
regime. It is a profound decision with enormous consequences. The 
simple truth is, arms control regimes have enhanced the security of the 
United States; indeed, they have enhanced the security of all nations.
  Since 1945, despite their development, possession, and deployment by 
a variety of nations, nuclear weapons have never been used in a hostile 
environment. It may be the first or certainly the longest period in 
human history that weapons were developed and not used. Indeed, nations 
have even gone to war with each other or been in severe conflict and 
not used these weapons. It is the ultimate testament that arms control 
works to protect national security.
  I would understand if the leader of the Iranian Parliament or the 
North Korean Supreme People's Assembly were to rise in their respective 
chambers and argue passionately against this treaty. They would have 
their reasons. The treaty will allow the United States to maintain the 
preeminent nuclear stockpile in the world, having the only effective 
means of continuing to test its weapons by simulation, while the treaty 
would make it difficult for those nations to continue to develop and 
modernize their nuclear arsenal. Their opposition would be rational. 
Our opposition is irrational.
  It would be understandable if members of the National People's 
Congress in Beijing would rise in indignation against China becoming a 
signatory to the treaty. The thought that China, a great power, 
possessing 18 missiles capable of delivering a weapon, now on the verge 
of developing important new and dangerous technology both to deliver 
these weapons and to miniaturize them to threaten a potential adversary 
in the United States or Russia or Europe, would join this treaty would 
be troubling to them.
  The Chinese, by entering into this treaty, would be unable to test 
those weapons, making it difficult to know their effectiveness or their 
reliability. Their opposition would be understandable; it would be 
rational. Ours is not.
  This treaty is an endorsement of the international military status 
quo, and at this snapshot in time in the life of this planet, the 
military status quo is that the United States is the preeminent 
military power with an abundance of weapons, sophistication of weapons, 
delivery of weapons. If this current arrangement and distribution of 
power is to be preserved for a generation, it means that every nation 
is accepting American preeminence. By their endorsement of this treaty 
and their signature of this treaty, extraordinarily, every other nation 
seems to be willing to accept that preeminence, ironically except us. 
We would reject the treaty and allow other nations at a relative 
disadvantage to test, develop, or deploy effective weapons.
  There are several important consequences in the defeat of this treaty 
the Senate needs to consider: first, the damage, not necessarily 
militarily, but diplomatically to the leadership of the United States. 
This country has recognized for more than 50 years the only real 
security of this country is an alliance based principally on the 
foundation of NATO rested on the credibility of American political 
leadership.
  The defeat of this treaty will put us at variance with the leaders of 
Germany, France, and Britain, who even on this day have appealed to the 
Senate to endorse this treaty. France and Britain have communicated 
their strong desire. They have reminded us that they have made changes 
in their own doctrine, and their own weapons choices, based on this 
treaty. They have also reminded us that if we defeat this treaty, we 
are in some measure separating not simply our judgments but our future 
planning and security from our traditional allies--the foundation of 
our international alliance system of our security. It will cause damage 
to our credibility and our leadership that will not be easily repaired.
  Second, defeat of this treaty, for all practical purposes, is an end 
to our efforts, undertaken on a bipartisan basis for a generation, on 
nonproliferation. It is a practical end to our nonproliferation efforts 
because it sends a message to each rogue regime, every nation that 
possesses the capability to develop nuclear weapons, that there is this 
new sense of legitimacy in them doing so, because the United States has 
rejected a treaty that would have contained this threat. The United 
States will lose credibility with nations, like India and Pakistan, 
when we argue that they should not test again or deploy weapons.
  Third--perhaps most profoundly and immediately--it will lead to the 
possibility of the testing and the development of the technologies that 
China has obtained from the United States, through espionage or other 
means, and allow them to develop a full capability.
  There is a final factor. The Senate has convened to debate the 
question of a treaty on a comprehensive test ban. But it is not the 
only treaty that is at issue. The defeat of this Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty will certainly mean that the START agreement pending before the 
Russian Duma will never be adopted.
  Our chance, with a stroke of a pen, to destroy thousands of Russian 
nuclear warheads, potentially aimed at the United States--the greatest 
single threat to the security of this Nation under changed political 
circumstances--will never be destroyed. We debate one treaty, but we 
are deciding the future of two.
  Earlier in this day debates centered on procedures and hearings, 
whether or not the treaty was fully considered. I serve as a member of 
the Foreign Relations Committee. I, too, must express my profound 
disappointment, as a representative of the State of New Jersey, and as 
a member of that committee, of not being given the opportunity to fully 
debate, to consider, to hear witnesses on what potentially could be the

[[Page 24621]]

most important vote I will ever cast as a Senator.
  People of good judgment might be able to differ on the merits of this 
treaty, but no one can defend that an issue of this profound importance 
to the life of this country did not receive the consideration it 
deserved or Senators within the comity of this institution were not 
given the due consideration to learn, debate, and be heard.
  Because I believe, however, this issue is so important--while I am 
convinced of its merits and the need for immediate ratification--I end 
much as I began with that memory of 1920.
  Most of us are probably convinced the Senate made the wrong judgment 
on the League of Nations, setting the world on a dangerous downward 
spiral of confrontation, having come to the false conclusion that 
America would be secure alone behind her oceans, that in isolation 
somehow we would find peace. It was wrong.
  But in truth, if the moment could be revisited, President Wilson, 
while right on the issue, should have been less proud, more willing to 
meet his adversaries, and given them extra consideration on the treaty. 
While I profoundly believe President Clinton was right to endorse this 
treaty and to urge its adoption, I urge him to do the same today.
  Let us make it unequivocally clear that the President of the United 
States, upon being told by the Director of the CIA that he cannot 
provide complete assurances that any unexplainable explosions of any 
source within Russia or China--by our national technical means--that it 
cannot be identified, it will cause the United States, unless 
explanations and inspections are made immediately available, to 
abrogate the treaty.
  Second, the President make abundantly clear that any refusal to allow 
inspections, even if not absolutely required by the treaty, because it 
is in the national interest, would cause us to abrogate the treaty.
  Third, the President commit the United States immediately to develop 
a national technical means to distinguish between different forms of 
explosions and small-level nuclear testing, and a program begin 
immediately.
  And fourth, that if, indeed, as I believe is provided in the treaty, 
this President is informed by lab Directors that they can no longer 
assure the safety or the operational capability of our weapons, we will 
abrogate the treaty.
  Let that be clear to the Senate and to the American people, let there 
be no question. And if there is no question on those issues, then there 
is no argument against this treaty.
  I can remember as a boy asking a history teacher why it was, if 
history occurred as a continuum, from generation to generation through 
the centuries, history was written in chapters and in volumes, which 
both began and ended? And I remember she told me: Because that is how 
it occurs.
  We are between the volumes of history. If this Senate is to decide 
that the bipartisan commitment to arms control as an element of 
national security for the last 40 years has been an error, we are 
ending not only a chapter but a volume of the military and diplomatic 
history of this country, we are entering into a very uncertain future, 
for our security is dictated only by what weapons are designed, 
deployed, and used--a lawless time that is not safer than the 20th 
century, but where the 21st century will be profoundly less safe.
  It will be a time in which, I believe, Members of this Senate will 
have difficulty looking in the eyes of their children and their 
children's children explaining how there was a brief moment when we 
could commit all the nations of the world not to test these nuclear 
weapons and therefore as a practical matter to be unable, by many 
nations, to deploy them or ever to use them--and we lost the moment.
  You may feel confident in your vote today; it may make political 
sense. You may be convinced of your own rhetoric, but you will never 
ever--if one of these weapons is ever used in a hostile environment; if 
one of these rogue regimes, from North Korea to Iran, ever tests one of 
these weapons--you will never look your own children in the eye with 
confidence in your judgment or feeling that you served them or your 
country. I have not been in this institution long, but long enough to 
know this treaty does not have enough votes to be ratified.
  The President of the United States, recognizing the enormous 
potential diplomatic damage of its defeat and the consequences 
militarily of sending a message to other nations that there will be no 
further proliferation efforts or control on testing, has asked, as the 
Commander in Chief, the elected representative of the American people, 
that this vote not occur. What have we come to as a Senate, if the 
President of the United States makes such a request in the interest of 
our national security and our diplomatic position in the world and we 
turn a deaf ear? If you cannot do good by voting for this treaty, do 
not do harm by defeating it. Allow the moment to pass. At least allow 
the world to live with an ambiguous result rather than a definitive 
conclusion to our national commitment to arms control.
  We vote on this treaty, but, indeed, we vote on whether to ratify or 
reject a national strategy of a generation and whether arms control 
will continue to be part of the security of the United States and our 
strategy of dealing with potentially hostile nations. It is not a 
judgment I would have had to mark the beginning of the 21st century. It 
shows a profound failure to learn the lessons of the 20th century, but 
it is what it is. At least we should be able to lose this moment and go 
on to debate and make judgments another day. I beseech of other Members 
of the Senate, do not hold this vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I don't see my Republican colleague on the 
floor. If there is no Republican wishing to speak, with the permission 
of my friend from Arizona, I yield to Senator Byrd.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, may I inquire about the time remaining on 
both sides. I think we are roughly equal at this point.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority has 4 hours 11 minutes; the 
minority, 4 hours 20 minutes.
  Mr. BIDEN. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia. If 
he needs more, I am happy to yield as well.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank Senator Biden. He is certainly one of the most 
knowledgeable of all Senators on this particular subject. I appreciate 
the fact that he has sat in on the hearings that the Armed Services 
Committee has held in the past 2 to 3 days.
  Mr. President, the debate on which we embark today is of far-reaching 
consequence. We are deliberating a major treaty, the Comprehensive 
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Unfortunately, we embark on this debate 
effectively shackled, gagged, and, to a considerable extent, 
blindfolded.
  I have had the privilege of hearing three days of extremely detailed 
and complex testimony on this Treaty--three days! And I am one of a 
select few Senators, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 
together with Senator Biden, ranking member of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, who were exposed to that information. In a similar vein, the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted one full scale hearing on 
the Treaty this week. But the fact remains that many, if not most, of 
my colleagues have had little opportunity to hear from the experts 
testimony on the pros and cons of this Treaty.
  To be sure, there are a number of Senators who are well versed in the 
details of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but they are few in 
number. Senator Levin is one of those. Senator Warner is one of those 
Senators. The rest of us are flying virtually blind. I wonder how many 
Senators have taken the time to read the Treaty? I wonder how many 
Senators have consulted with foreign leaders, those who will have to 
join the United States in ratifying this Treaty if it is to go into 
force, to get their opinions of the Treaty?
  Mr. President, when I was majority leader, I visited other capitals 
and took

[[Page 24622]]

Senators with me to talk with the leaders in foreign capitals about a 
treaty.
  The Washington Post reported this morning that envoys from nearly 100 
nations have implored the United States not to reject the CTBT. I 
wonder how many Senators fully understand the concerns of those 
nations? I wonder how many Senators fully understand our concerns?
  Those who have read the text of the Treaty may be familiar with the 
broad brush strokes of the Treaty. But for even those Senators, the 
details--the implications of the Articles, the Annexes, and the 
Protocols to the Treaty--may be murky at best.
  Mr. President, the hearings that the Chairman and Ranking Member of 
the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner and Senator Levin, 
organized this week were extremely informative. So informative that I 
am overwhelmed by the amount of detail that I have heard.
  I have often said that the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin, is a 
Senator who is exact. He scrupulously and agonizingly, it seems, peers 
through a microscope at every bit of minutia when it comes to details. 
That is the kind of study we need to give a treaty of this nature.
  The President may sign a bill into law today. If, per chance, both 
Houses suddenly realized that that bill had to be repealed, we can do 
it. We could pass a repealer in one day in both Houses. We could do it, 
if the emergency existed. But not a treaty; it isn't that way with a 
treaty. We cannot approve the resolution of ratification today, send it 
to the President, the President cannot enter into the treaty formally 
tomorrow, and then on the second day or third day of next week, we 
adopt a new treaty or we take action to negate the treaty we have 
entered into. So a treaty is much different from a bill.
  From Secretary William Cohen and General Shelton, Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs, I heard that this treaty is in the national security 
interests of the United States. I respect their judgments. But from 
former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, whom I also respect, and 
whose judgment I also respect, I heard that the treaty is flawed in 
terms of its duration--a permanent ban on nuclear weapons testing--and 
in its premise that only testing that can meet a so-called zero yield 
threshold is acceptable. I do respect Dr. Schlesinger's judgment. I 
heard confidence in the Stockpile Security Program expressed by Energy 
Secretary Bill Richardson, and I heard some caution expressed by the 
directors of the Energy Department's nuclear laboratories. Some caution 
there. Some caution. In short, I have heard some complex and 
conflicting testimony in a short period of time.
  I must ask, why on earth is the United States Senate allowing a 
treaty of this magnitude and complexity to be rammed through the body 
with a maximum of 14 hours of debate, and with a limit of two 
leadership amendments? Have we totally lost all sense of 
responsibility? What would be wrong with having the vote next year 
after we have seen the new assessment, which we were told is on its way 
and will be completed somewhere around the first of the year, as I 
remember. What would be wrong? Or even, as some would prefer, what 
would be wrong with putting it off until the following year? Why do we 
have to do it now? Why do we have to do it next week? I am not one of 
those who have been saying we have to have a vote on the treaty. I 
don't cast any aspersions on anybody by that statement. But lest there 
be some here who think I am one of those who have been clamoring for a 
vote, I am not; and lest there be some who think that I have been 
prevailed upon by the administration to express opposition to our 
voting next week. I have not been contacted by the administration.
  I am concerned about my country. I have heard various Senators say, 
well, if I am wrong, this will happen, or if he is wrong, that will 
happen; or which would you want to bet on, or some such. I am not 
interested in who is right or who is wrong, for the sake of this 
Senator or that Senator. I am interested from the standpoint of my 
country if we make the wrong decision. It is my country. And then, 
being one who is dedicated to this institution, having served in it for 
41 years, I am also concerned that this institution is not doing its 
duty in connection with the approval of the ratification of a treaty. I 
said something to the effect that we are talking about the separation 
of powers here. And we are, because the constitutional framers did not 
feel it wise to leave in the hands of a chief executive alone the 
making and the carrying into effect of a treaty. And so the framers 
formulated this great system that we have of the separation of powers.
  Hence, the approval of the ratification of treaties by the U.S. 
Senate is a facet of the separation of powers, in the great scheme of 
things. Now, are we, as Members of the Senate--we who have taken an 
oath to support and defend that Constitution of the United States--are 
we, who are the trusted legatees of those framers who met in 
Philadelphia in 1787, to put aside our portion, our responsibility in 
that system of separation of powers and say, oh, well, the President is 
right, the administration is right, give it to them, and wash our hands 
of it, let's not spend anymore time on it? I don't think it is my 
proper responsibility to say I am ready to vote on it just because an 
administration--whether it be my party or somebody else's party--says I 
should vote on it.
  We Senators have a responsibility under our separation of powers to 
do our share of the work. The Senate is supposed to have that 
responsibility by virtue of the Constitution. I say that we are 
shirking our duty if we fail to uphold our end of the separation of 
powers doctrine, if we don't take the time to know what we are doing 
here. There have been questions raised.
  Are we seriously going to cede, without a murmur, our duty to advise 
and consent to the ratification of treaties? Are we seriously going to 
allow this travesty of the separation of powers to occur? It would be 
nobody's fault but ours if we do. I am not saying reject the treaty nor 
am I saying we should approve it. I have to hold my hand up before my 
Creator and say I don't honestly know how I shall vote on this treaty. 
I will not be pressured by anybody. And politics has nothing to do with 
it, in my view; in this instance, certainly.
  Mr. President, I bring before the Senate two issues that were raised 
by Dr. Schlesinger that I believe merit consideration. The first is the 
duration of the treaty. It imposes a permanent ban on the testing of 
nuclear weapons. Now, we are all for nonproliferation. That is not the 
argument here. We are all for nonproliferation, but there are other 
things involved here.
  First is the duration of the treaty. It imposes a permanent ban on 
the testing of nuclear weapons. Frankly, I would be delighted to see a 
permanent ban on the testing of nuclear weapons--if we could be sure 
that the United States could maintain the reliability of its nuclear 
weapons stockpile without testing. But what I have heard this week from 
some people is that the Stockpile Stewardship Program is not far enough 
along in development to be absolutely certain, or even almost certain, 
that it will be an effective substitute for testing.
  Our weapons are aging, and the nuclear scientists who developed and 
tested those weapons are aging also. For every year that the weapon 
ages, the scientist who tested that weapon ages a year. We can replace 
components of the weapons, but as Dr. Schlesinger and Dr. Paul 
Robinson, Director of Sandia National Laboratories, pointed out in 
their testimony, it is not so easy to replace the knowledge, the skill, 
and the judgment of the scientists who built those weapons. Can we 
really replace seasoned physicists with computer scientists? That is a 
question that I have, and an answer that I do not yet have.
  Dr. Schlesinger also questions the advisability of the zero-yield 
threshold for nuclear weapons testing. Now, I am fairly certain that 
most American families will not be discussing over the dinner table 
this evening the relative merits of zero-yield versus low-yield 
testing. I doubt that many of my colleagues in the Senate will be 
discussing such matters over this Columbus Day

[[Page 24623]]

holiday. But it is a vital issue in the deliberation of this treaty. I 
don't know enough about it, and I have read, I have listened, and I 
have researched, to a limited degree, the issue. I still have 
questions. I have doubts. It may be that my doubts are unfounded. It 
may be that my questions can be satisfactorily answered. But not in the 
time constraints and under the procedural constraints with which we are 
faced.
  Mr. President, the Senate has a solemn duty to offer its advice and 
consent in the matter of treaties.
  We are not only not offering our advice, but we may be offering the 
wrong consent if we vote next week. We may be going the wrong way. We 
may be ill advised in the consent that we give.
  Not just consent, as I say, but advice as well. Advice comes in the 
form of understandings, reservations, amendments, conditions, and the 
like. But not on this treaty under these circumstances. On this treaty 
under these circumstances, amendments, understandings, reservations, 
motions, or any other binding expression of opinion are out of bounds. 
They are off limits, save for one amendment each to be offered by the 
two leaders of the Senate. On a treaty binding the United States of 
America to a permanent ban on the testing of the very weapons that form 
the core of our national security; on a treaty of such incredible 
importance, the Senate is proceeding to a vote under a self-imposed--a 
self-imposed--gag order.
  Has this body lost all sense of proportion? Has the Senate become so 
absolutely blind to its constitutional duties and so dedicated to its 
partisan political objectives that it is willing to abdicate to the 
executive branch the Senate's responsibility to give both its advice 
and consent on the ratification of treaties? Is the Senate truly 
willing to limit its role in the consideration of treaties to that of 
either rubber-stamping whatever the executive branch chooses to send 
us, or, alternatively, jettisoning it out of hand? That is no way to 
deliberate on a treaty, particularly one such as the Comprehensive Test 
Ban Treaty, which holds such promise, and likewise, perhaps, such peril 
for the future of America's national security.
  I respect the passion with which many of my colleagues view this 
treaty. They can state with absolute certitude that it is in the best 
interests of this country to approve the ratification of this treaty. 
And I respect that view. If I thought like they do, I would also 
express with absolute certitude that I was confident in the treaty. But 
they have spent more time--far more time--than I have spent on it. And 
I admire them for that and compliment them for it. Conversely, others 
with equal certitude say that the treaty should be rejected.
  I compliment Senator Levin, I compliment Senator Warner, and others 
on the leadership they have demonstrated. I compliment my great friend 
from New York, the Senior Senator from New York, before whom I bow with 
great reverence. But think of the experience the Senator from New York 
has had in the field of foreign affairs. I don't know what his position 
on the treaty is. But I daresay that he, too, would say we need more 
time.
  What is the driving force that says we absolutely cannot wait for a 
few more months, or even another year? I am not bound on having a vote 
next year. But this treaty is permanent. This is for keeps.
  I respect the strongly held views of others. I wish I could share 
their certainty either in the merits or dangers of this treaty. If we 
wait 6 months, I might still be uncertain. But I would have had my 
chance. I would have had my day in court. The Senate would have 
fulfilled its duty under the Constitution. To me that is important.
  I have spent 41 years of my 82 years right here in this Senate, and I 
have respected its rulings, its precedents, its rules, its history, and 
its customs. And I have to say to Senators that I often bow my head in 
sorrow at the way this Senate has changed since I came here.
  I cannot imagine that Senator Russell, Senator Dirksen, Senator 
Fulbright, Senator McClellan--I cannot imagine that those Senators 
would have been happy, would have been satisfied. They would have been 
restless. They would have been very uncomfortable with saying that we 
have to go through with this unanimous consent request which was sent 
around on the telephone to all Senators' offices--on a Friday--I 
believe it was Friday. All Senators are busy. It is all right with an 
ordinary bill, an ordinary matter, that comes before the Senate. But 
when it comes to a major treaty, everybody recognizes a major treaty.
  That is not a simple treaty with one or two other nations--which can 
be very important, however. But this is a major treaty, a far-reaching 
treaty. It involves the security interests of our country. It involves 
our children, and our grandchildren.
  Why shouldn't we take a little more time to be sure that Senators 
know that this is what we are about to do? We are about to take from 
every Senator his normal right to offer a reservation or an 
understanding or an amendment on a major treaty. But, as Shakespeare 
says, ``What's done 'tis done.'' Yet can we not rectify this horrible 
mistake and give this Senate a few more months so that we can have some 
hearings, so that we can have more experts, so that we can take time to 
read the treaty and to understand it and to talk with foreign leaders? 
I cannot understand why we have thrown away our rights so cavalierly.
  Mr. President, I come not to bury Caesar nor do I come here to call 
Lazarus from the tomb. I do not come here today to make a case for or 
against this treaty. I am here only to plead that we have more time so 
we can study it and be better prepared to render a proper and right 
judgment. That is why I am here on this floor today.
  I joined with other Senators in a letter some time ago urging the 
chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to hold hearings. That is 
the extent of the efforts that I have put forth in either direction.
  I want to state for the Record, I am only here to urge that this 
Constitution requires this Senate to advise and consent to treaties 
that have been made by the President of the United States. That is all 
I am urging--and that we be given sufficient additional the time. We 
are moving toward what appears to be a sure rejection of the treaty 
next week for all the wrong reasons.
  It may be that this treaty is not in the best interests of the United 
States. It may be that it is in the best interests of the United 
States. Only one thing is sure: It is not in the best interests of the 
United States or the Senate to be driven by little more than political 
gamesmanship--and all sides, I suppose, to some extent, have been 
tarnished by that.
  This is not necessarily leveling an arrow from my bow toward any 
particular side--political gamesmanship, I say, to an all-or-nothing 
vote on the treaty next week with 3 days' worth of hearings, less than 
2 full days' worth of debate, and virtually no opportunity to improve 
or to modify the Resolution of Ratification.
  I close by urging the Senate to put off what promises to be a fatal 
vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and proceed, instead, with 
educating the Senate and the American people, so we can deliberate and 
decide the fate of this treaty and, who knows, this country and perhaps 
the world, with a better understanding of the consequences of our 
action.
  I thank all Senators for their indulgence.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, could I ask my dear colleague and friend a 
question in the friendliest of veins?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. WARNER. We serve together on the Armed Services Committee. The 
Senator from West Virginia came to every hearing and listened. And he 
asked the question that elicited a critical answer which indicated that 
the intelligence community needed time within which to complete this 
analysis regarding the ability of our country tomorrow or in the future 
to monitor another nation's testing if that testing constituted 
cheating under the treaty. The Senator was there yesterday throughout 
the laboratory hearing, and he had the courage to stand on this

[[Page 24624]]

floor and say that he listened to those Directors, and, indeed, those 
raised the legitimate concerns.
  Mr. BYRD. They did in my mind.
  Mr. WARNER. They did in my mind also. The Senator from West Virginia 
knows in private conversations I have had with him and other colleagues 
that this Senator on this side of the aisle is doing what I can, 
although I will vote against that treaty today, and tomorrow, and the 
next day, as it is currently written. I recognize its importance.
  I stayed here until 9:30 last night working with others to see what 
we can do to adopt a framework. I just left the Press Gallery. They 
asked me, Senator, what are the components? I said the essential 
component is for the President to share equally the responsibility of 
the very serious decision that our two leaders, Democrat and 
Republican, are faced with about vitiating this time agreement. The 
Senator from West Virginia recognizes that as a former majority leader 
himself.
  I have just been handed this document.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield? Is he speaking on his own time?
  Mr. WARNER. Absolutely. Do not worry about small matters. Worry about 
what I am about to tell my dear friend.
  We are all making the best of efforts. I am listening to Senator 
Byrd, in a very clear and precise way, an evenhanded way, state his 
case. Then I am handed the President's speech in Ottawa.
  A Reuters report states:

       It is clear now that the level of opposition to the treaty 
     and the time it would take to craft the necessary safeguard 
     to get the necessary votes are simply not there. So I hope 
     the Senate will reach an agreement to delay that vote.

  That expresses our common purpose.
  All I have called upon the President to do is to share the burden the 
leaders would bear should this decision go forward.
  I turn the page. Again, quoting:

       Establish an orderly process, a nonpolitical orderly 
     process to systematically deal with all the issues that are 
     out there and take whatever time is necessary to do it.

  As I told the press a few minutes ago, the President, each day, is 
taking a step in realization of what has to be done. His National 
Security Adviser is quoted this morning saying the President asked the 
vote be delayed. The day before, the Secretary of State said for 
another day this treaty should be decided by the Senate.
  I say to my good friend, Senator Byrd, the last quote of the 
President: ``The whole thing is about politics.''
  Is everything you are saying today about politics?
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator read the whole letter?
  Mr. WARNER. I am reading a press report.
  Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will yield, the remainder of that comment 
was:

       . . . and to systematically deal with all the issues that 
     are out there and to take whatever time is necessary to do 
     it. With this treaty other nations will find it hard to 
     acquire and to modernize nuclear weapons and we will gain the 
     means to detect and deter. If we don't have the treaty for 
     the United States, we will continue to refrain from testing 
     and giving a green light to every other country in the world 
     to develop and modernize nuclear weapons. I think it is clear 
     what we ought to do but it is also clear we ought not rush to 
     this vote until there has been an appropriate process in the 
     Senate.

  Mr. WARNER. Put it in context; is the Senator reading from the Ottawa 
speech?
  Mr. BIDEN. I am reading from the President's statement on CTBT, 
October 8, 1999, in Ottawa as reported, a copy of which was made and 
given to me.
  Mr. WARNER. I add to it this phrase in which he concluded: ``The 
whole thing is about politics.''
  I have been here since 9 o'clock this morning, and the Senator has 
been here the same period; we are working throughout the day. We will 
be the last Senators to leave this floor tonight and return on Tuesday.
  This is not about politics. This is about trying to help our 
colleagues reach a correct decision on the security interests of this 
country, I say to Senator Byrd.
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. WARNER. Yes.
  Mr. BIDEN. He was at the same dinner as I was with the President of 
the United States when two present colleagues said: ``Mr. President, 
I'm sad to say the political process has taken this over. This is about 
politics.''
  The truth of the matter is, politics is implicated in this. No one is 
suggesting the politics is good or bad on either side, that one side is 
better than the other. But two of our Republican colleagues at that 
dinner--the Senator heard them--said the same thing the President said.
  We are acknowledging reality. We can all pretend here, with all the 
niceties, that politics has no part in this. Let's be real simple: The 
honest-to-God truth is, this is similar to the guy who says the emperor 
has no clothes on who usually gets shot after he acknowledges that.
  Mr. BYRD. That was a child.
  Mr. BIDEN. I am no child, but I may get shot politically for saying 
this.
  Mr. WARNER. I say to my colleague from Delaware, I will not comment 
on the comments made at the dinner. I was there, but I think what was 
said there was confidential. I have always, as a policy when dealing 
with Presidents, not commented.
  I am not criticizing the Senator.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed remarks by President Clinton 
from October 8, 1999.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       So they want me to give them a letter to cover the 
     political decision they have made that does severe damage to 
     the interest of the United States and the interest of 
     nonproliferation in the world? I don't think so. That's not 
     what this is about. They have to take responsibility for 
     whether they want to reverse 50 years of American leadership 
     in nonproliferation that the Republicans have been just as 
     involved in as the Democrats, to their everlasting credit.
       Now, they have to make that decision. I cannot bring this 
     treaty up again unless they want to. I have asked them to put 
     it off because we don't have the votes. I have talked to 
     enough Republicans to know that some of them have honest, 
     genuine reservations about this treaty, and they ought to 
     have the opportunity to have them resolved, instead of being 
     told that they owe it to their party to vote against the 
     treaty and that the leadership of their party will do 
     everything they can to keep us from writing safeguards into 
     the treaty which answer their reservations, which is what we 
     do on every other thing.
       So I don't want to get into making this political. But they 
     shouldn't tie the Senate up or themselves up in knots 
     thinking that some letter from me will somehow obscure from 
     the American people next year the reality that they have run 
     the risk of putting America on the wrong side of the 
     proliferation issue for the first time in 50 years. And they 
     want to do it and then they don't want to get up and defend 
     it before the American people in an election year. That's 
     what this whole thing is about. That is the wrong thing to 
     do.
       We don't have the votes. I'm not going to try to bring it 
     up without the votes. Let them take it down, but also agree 
     on a legitimate process to take this out of politics. I will 
     not criticize them as long as they are genuinely working 
     through the issues, the way we did in the Chemical Weapons 
     Treaty.

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent a letter dated 
October 6 to the majority and minority leaders signed by two former 
Secretaries of Energy, John Herrington and James Watkins, be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                  October 6, 1999.
     Hon. Trent Lott,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

     Hon. Tom Daschle,
     Democratic Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators Lott and Daschle: We are writing to urge the 
     Senate to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). We 
     were each formerly responsible for managing the United 
     States' nuclear weapons programs in our role as Secretary of 
     Energy. We believe that unless and until the United States 
     can ensure and prove the safety and reliability of its 
     nuclear stockpile without testing, it should refrain from 
     ratifying the current ``zero-yield'' CTBT, which is intended 
     to be of unlimited duration.
       Over the course of our history with nuclear weapons, 
     testing has been essential for maintaining the performance of 
     the stockpile, as well as the key to designing and certifying 
     new weapons. As President Bush noted in a report to Congress 
     in January 1993, ``Of all

[[Page 24625]]

     U.S. nuclear weapons designs fielded since 1958, 
     approximately one-third have required nuclear testing to 
     resolve problems arising after deployment.''
       A modern nuclear weapon has about the same number of parts 
     as an automobile, but it is much more complex. Some materials 
     in our weapons, such as plutonium, are radioactive. Over 
     time, these materials radioactively decay, altering both 
     their own properties and contributing to changes age makes in 
     the properties of other materials in the weapon. Even today, 
     major gaps exist in our scientific understanding of nuclear 
     explosives and how these weapons change as they age. These 
     gaps in our knowledge increase the risk of undetected 
     problems that could make our weapons unsafe or unreliable.
       In 1992, the United States adopted a self-imposed 
     moratorium on nuclear testing. The following year, the 
     Administration and Congress initiated the Stockpile 
     Stewardship Program. According to the FY 2000 Stockpile 
     Stewardship Plan Executive Overview released by the 
     Department of Energy (DOE) in March 1999, ``The overall goal 
     of the Stockpile Stewardship program is to have in place by 
     2010 . . . the capabilities that are necessary to provide 
     continuing high confidence in the annual certification of the 
     stockpile without the necessity for nuclear testing.'' This 
     report also states that the success of the program is 
     ``dependent on a highly integrated and interdependent program 
     of experimentation, simulation, and modeling.''
       We support the Stockpile Stewardship Program and the 
     important research and development work that is being 
     conducted at American weapons laboratories. But no one can 
     state with a high degree of certainty that this program of 
     experiments and computer simulations will be able to provide 
     the same level of confidence in the safety and reliability of 
     our nuclear weapons as we have historically achieved through 
     testing. Therefore, the United States must retain the option 
     of testing; not only to be able to verify the safety and 
     reliability of our nuclear deterrent, but also to validate 
     the Stockpile Stewardship Program itself. In 1987, the 
     Congress required the Energy Department to craft a program 
     that would ``. . . prepare the stockpile to be less 
     susceptible to unreliability during long periods of 
     substantially limited testing.'' DOE was also required to ``. 
     . . describe ways in which existing and/or new types of 
     calculations, non-nuclear testing, and permissible but 
     infrequent low yield nuclear testing might be used to move 
     toward these objectives.'' DOE responded to this requirement 
     by designing a test-ban readiness program which anticipated a 
     10 year, 10 nuclear test per year program, which included 
     comparing the results from new calculational tools and non-
     nuclear testing facilities to the results of nuclear tests. 
     This program was never pursued because, throughout the Reagan 
     and Bush Administrations, further limitations on nuclear 
     testing were not viewed as necessary or desirable.
       The Stockpile Stewardship Program is already falling short 
     of its goal. For example, the National Ignition Facility, the 
     flagship of the stewardship program, faces a key technical 
     uncertainty: will it be able to reach thermonuclear ignition, 
     a major goal for which it was designed? Furthermore, this 
     important facility has recently fallen behind schedule and 
     over budget. And, there may be new security risks because 
     classified information under the Stockpile Stewardship 
     Program will be concentrated in consumer systems, and much of 
     the new computer code required for the program will be 
     written by hundreds of people at participating colleges and 
     universities.
       Besides replacing testing, the Stockpile Stewardship 
     Program is aimed at ensuring effective production capability. 
     Even with the end of the Cold War, many production tasks 
     remain essential for weapons maintenance. These include 
     disassembly for inspection or repair, and the fabrication of 
     components to replace those that have decayed or corroded. 
     Some remanufactured components may be significantly different 
     from the original parts due to the use of new manufacturing 
     processes and materials. We risk introducing new defects into 
     the stockpile if we are not permitted to conduct nuclear 
     tests, when analysis clearly so demands, in order to verify 
     that these remanufactured components do not affect the safety 
     or reliability of the original design.
       Responsible stewardship of the nuclear weapons stockpile 
     has provided the foundation for U.S. deterrent strategy for 
     the past half-century and, despite dramatic transformations 
     in the geopolitical and international security environment, 
     the stockpile will continue to make a critical contribution 
     to U.S. security for the foreseeable future. Although we 
     ascribe to the existing moratorium, the jury is still out as 
     to whether nuclear testing should be eliminated by treaty. We 
     consider it premature to make such a move at this time.
       As a result, we are of the unqualified opinion that the 
     United States should not ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban 
     Treaty.
           Sincerely,
     John S. Herrington.
     James D. Watkins.

  Mr. KYL. In this letter, the two former Secretaries of Energy urge 
the Senate to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
  I also note, part of my submission for the Record earlier was letters 
from various former public officials who urged rejection of the treaty. 
Behind me is a chart detailing who some of these people are. I thought 
it important, since I didn't read the entire list to Senator Biden 
earlier, to acknowledge who some of these people are.
  These are people who believe it would be a bad idea for this treaty 
to be ratified and who speak from experience based upon their positions 
in the U.S. Government. I mentioned earlier the six former Secretaries 
of Defense. Secretary Schlesinger testified, and his testimony was just 
cited by Senator Byrd as important testimony in opposition to the 
treaty. People such as Dick Cheney and others are in that list of six. 
Secretary Weinberger testified, as well.
  In addition to that, four former National Security Advisers; in 
addition to that, four former Directors of the Central Intelligence 
Agency. In addition to that, four former Directors of the National 
Laboratories--this is important because once an individual is no longer 
in the position of the lab Director, accountable to the Congress, to 
the Secretary of Energy, and to the President, that person is free to 
speak his mind--have been very clear about the reasons the National 
Laboratory Stockpile Stewardship Program cannot be an adequate 
substitute for testing, in addition to the former Secretaries of Energy 
I mentioned, former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the 
former Commanders of the U.S. Strategic Command.
  Let me also make a point I think the majority leader tried to make a 
few minutes ago but several people have reiterated a contrary view; 
that is, we have not had enough time to learn about this treaty. The 
message from the President of the United States transmitting this 
treaty was dated September 23, 1997, but the treaty was open for 
signature and signed by the United States a year before that, September 
24, 1996. So the President waited over a year to send this treaty to 
the Senate for its action. Not long after that, however, the President 
began urging us to take it up, in two State of the Union Messages and 
in a variety of comments thereafter.
  I took the President at his word, and I began studying the treaty, 
and I began talking to experts. I daresay there are not very many 
people in this body who know more about the treaty, as Senators, than I 
do. I know people such as Senator Biden and Senator Levin have done the 
same thing. They went to school and they became experts on this treaty. 
I recognize them as having an enormous quantity of information about 
it. I did, too, for a couple of years. All Senators had that 
opportunity. If they listened to the President, he was asking them to 
understand it and to bring it up.
  There have been a variety of hearings, not just in the Foreign 
Relations Committee but in other committees as well. I have committee 
reports here. Let's see; this is from the Committee on Governmental 
Affairs. I have three different reports here, I believe: March 18, 
1998; October 27, 1997; February 12, 1997; the Armed Services Committee 
hearings that have been specifically held, and so on. Of course, our 
knowledge does not need to exclusively come from hearings; we do have 
the ability to read and to talk to experts.
  The point is, we have had ample opportunity to learn about this 
treaty. The problem is, there are many in this body who for months 
demanded a vote, but what they really want is to only have a vote when 
they think they can win. They do not want a vote when they are going to 
lose. That is why you had this cacophony of voices calling for a vote 
and all of a sudden, when the majority leader accommodated them and 
they realized they did not have the votes to win, they began saying: 
Oh, we need more time. We need to put this off. We need to study it 
more.
  There was ample opportunity to study it. I spent a lot of time 
studying this treaty. I suppose I could have been doing something else, 
but I spent the

[[Page 24626]]

time studying it. And every one of my colleagues could have done the 
same.
  Finally, there is this notion, the President says: This is the 
longest-sought, hardest-fought prize in arms control history. Every 
President has sought this. That is simply not true. Let's go through 
the record.
  President Eisenhower, who imposed a testing moratorium for 3 years, 
supported the idea of a test ban treaty. But his test ban treaty would 
have been of limited duration, 4 to 5 years, and would have allowed for 
low-yield testing. As Senator Byrd noted a moment ago, two of the most 
salient points of former Secretary Schlesinger's testimony were to 
impress upon us the fact that this is a treaty in perpetuity that the 
President is asking us to sign. President Clinton's test ban treaty is 
for a zero yield, and everyone acknowledges you cannot verify a zero-
yield treaty. That was not the treaty President Eisenhower wanted, so 
let's not say this all started with President Eisenhower and this is a 
treaty he wanted.
  During the Kennedy administration, the Limited Test Ban Treaty which 
banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere, space, or underwater, was 
negotiated. But there was no serious effort to negotiate a 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as of the kind President Clinton 
submitted. Incidentally, the Johnson administration took the same 
position as the Kennedy administration.
  President Nixon's administration negotiated the Threshold Test Ban 
Treaty but also did not make any attempt to negotiate a Comprehensive 
Test Ban Treaty of the kind President Clinton has submitted.
  There was no activity on the subject during the Ford administration.
  During the Carter administration--and Secretary Schlesinger has 
presented some very interesting comments on this--the Peaceful Nuclear 
Explosion Treaty was signed and consideration was given to a 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, though the United States at that time 
was seeking a 10-year treaty where yields of up to 2 kilotons would 
have been permissible.
  Neither President Reagan nor President Bush pursued a Comprehensive 
Test Ban Treaty. In fact, responding to the Hatfield-Exon-Mitchell 
prohibition on testing in the 1993 Energy and Water Appropriations Act, 
here is what President Bush said to the Congress:

       The administration has concluded that it is not possible to 
     develop a test program within the constraints of Public Law 
     102-377 that would be fiscally, militarily and technically 
     responsible. The requirement to maintain and improve the 
     safety of our nuclear stockpile, and to evaluate and maintain 
     the reliability of U.S. forces, necessitates continued 
     nuclear testing for those purposes, albeit at a modest level, 
     for the foreseeable future. The administration strongly urges 
     the Congress to modify this legislation urgently in order to 
     permit the minimum number and kind of underground nuclear 
     tests that the United States requires, regardless of the 
     action of other states, to retain safe, reliable, although 
     dramatically reduced deterrent forces.

  So much for the proposition that all of the Presidents from 
Eisenhower through Bush support the notion of the Clinton forever zero 
yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It is simply not true.
  There is another important point that President Kennedy made. 
President Kennedy was asked to comment on his experience with the 1958-
1961 test moratorium. The reason this is important is, of course, we 
are looking at an 8-year moratorium on testing already here in the 
United States. This treaty would impose upon us a moratorium in 
perpetuity, with only one possible way out, and that is, it would be at 
least theoretically possible for the United States, if it believed, in 
its supreme national interest, it was required to do so--for the 
President to, in effect, step out of the treaty for the purpose of 
conducting one or more tests.
  Here is what President Kennedy had to say about the difficulty of 
doing that. He said:

       Some may urge us to try a moratorium again, keeping our 
     preparations to test in a constant state of readiness. But in 
     actual practice, particularly in a society of free choice, we 
     cannot keep top-flight scientists concentrating on the 
     preparation of an experiment which may or may not take place 
     or on an uncertain date in the future, nor can large 
     technical laboratories be kept fully alert on a standby 
     basis, waiting for some other nation to break an agreement. 
     This is not merely difficult or inconvenient; we have 
     explored this alternative thoroughly and found it impossible 
     of execution.

  That is what scientists tell me would be the result of a 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We already know it would take at least 2 
years to regenerate the support for a nuclear test at the Nevada Test 
Site. There is already significant testimony on the record that it 
would be exceedingly difficult to get the scientific expertise 
concentrated for the development of such a test. There is also 
significant comment on the fact that, obviously, this would send a very 
dangerous signal to our potential adversaries because there is only one 
reason to conduct such a test. Under the terms of the safeguard 
President Clinton has offered up here, it would be in the event of 
concern about the safety or reliability of our stockpile. So the whole 
world would know, if the United States began preparations to conduct a 
test, we had a problem. That would be a problem.
  One of my friends at one of the National Laboratories has in fact 
said, regardless of our need to do so--although we can always gain 
significant scientific knowledge from a test--we ought to remain 
capable of conducting a test and have at least one a year, just so we 
avoid the problem of nations believing we have problems with our 
stockpile. That way, we would not only have the benefit of a test but 
we would never signal to anyone in the outside world we were testing 
because we had a problem.
  There is another reason to have a test. When the United States began 
thinking about this moratorium, there was a request of the laboratories 
to design a way to substitute for testing, and the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program came from that request. But as part of that, the 
Directors of the laboratories recommended that a series of 10 tests a 
year for 10 years be conducted to validate the Stockpile Stewardship 
Program. Those tests have never been held.
  One of the reasons there is great discomfort with the notion that the 
Stockpile Stewardship Program could actually be a substitute for 
testing is that it has never been validated. I note that some of our 
allies, countries Senator Biden referred to earlier such as France, 
that conducted tests within the last 3 years, as well as some that 
perhaps would not be categorized as allies, such as China, that also 
conducted tests within the last 3 years, as well as other countries, 
could well have concluded--and part of this would have to get into 
classified information--could well have concluded that it was in their 
national interests to conduct tests in order to validate scientific 
experiments, in order to prepare for a long period of time in which 
they could not test, in order to develop warheads of the kind the 
Russians have developed, which are very robust and which can be 
reproduced every several years without the necessity of testing, 
something which the United States never did.
  Our moratorium was imposed, in effect, in the middle of our nuclear 
development program. Our weapons have all been designed to be replaced 
with new designs on the assumption that there would always be testing.
  We never did this testing to get us to the point where we could 
prepare for a moratorium, let alone an absolute ban on any testing in 
perpetuity. That is why the argument is absolutely false some make that 
we need to freeze in our advantage before others acquire the weapon; 
exactly the opposite is the case.
  Some countries have developed what they believe will hold them for a 
long period of time in the future based on testing, while the United 
States rather abruptly stopped its program with President Bush and 
others suggesting we should go forward with testing for a variety of 
reasons, but we did not do so.
  We are now caught in the position where we have aging stockpiles with 
several of our warheads exceeding their shelf life, with all the 
problems attendant with that, and a moratorium in

[[Page 24627]]

which we have not tested for 8 years and a prospect we would have a 
treaty to bind us, never to test again, never having validated the 
substitute program.
  This is a reason why I think those who heard testimony from lab 
Directors, from people such as Johnny Foster and Robert Barker and 
other experts who have been involved in this area for years, have been 
rather shocked at what they have heard and why many of them have 
suggested they think they need to hear more about this.
  There is, indeed, a great body of scientific evidence that suggests 
it could be a very bad thing for the United States to adopt this zero-
yield test in perpetuity, and no amount of more time is going to change 
that result. That is why, again, there is no reason to extend the time 
of this treaty in order to refute these scientific facts. These 
scientists are not going to change their views. The science does not 
change. Plutonium and uranium radioactively decay. That is a scientific 
principle, so there is some constant here and nothing, including the 
passage of time, is going to change that.
  Mr. President, I ask Senator Warner if he wants to make a comment.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Senator can go right ahead and take 
all the time he wants.
  Mr. KYL. I certainly do not want to do that.
  There is one thing Senator Biden said with which I must take a little 
bit of issue. He noted we have some 6,000 warheads in our inventory, 
that this was a lot of warheads and certainly they would not all 
atrophy; in any event, we would always have enough, even if they were 
not all good.
  I think it important to understand what our stockpile consists of 
right now, again, without getting into classified material. There are 
nine types of nuclear weapons in our arsenal. We used to have many more 
than that. We used to have redundant systems. Now, however, we have 
nine types, each of which are different. They have a different mission, 
and they are delivered on different delivery vehicles or by means of 
different platforms.
  The total number of warheads can be divided, in effect, by nine. If 
any one or two or three of those classes of warheads have defects in 
them, it is a matter that affects all of the warheads of that category. 
It is not as if you have one car that is a lemon. Instead, it is as if 
you have a car that has to be recalled because every one of that make 
and model has the same problem. That is the way we have found our 
weapon defects to have existed in the past.
  Let's say one-third of the weapon types have some defect. Roughly, 
that means about one-third of the weapons. What that means is that 
about one-third of the ability of the United States to respond with 
respect to certain targets would be inhibited, but more than that, 
there may be many targets that are unique to that particular kind of 
warhead against which we have no capability. It is not as if these 
warheads are fungible and we can throw any of them at any target with 
any delivery system. Each one has a specific purpose, and it is 
delivered on a specific platform. That is why we should not be so 
cavalier about concluding that since we have a lot of warheads we, in 
effect, can roll the dice.
  I have a final point, since Senator Warner is about ready, on a 
comment made by my friend, Senator Specter, who talked about the chain 
reaction if India and Pakistan should begin to detonate these devices 
and how can we ask them to sign on to this treaty if we are not willing 
to set the norm, set the standard of signing.
  I remind my colleagues, for 8 years we have been setting the norm. We 
have had a moratorium; we are not testing. Did that stop India? Did it 
stop Pakistan? Has it stopped any other number of countries that 
believe in their national interest they want to acquire these weapons? 
No. Are many of these countries signatories to the NPT? Yes. They have 
already forsworn these weapons. We would be asking them to also 
forswear the testing of weapons that we now know they already have.
  I believe we ought to do what is in the best interest of the United 
States for our own security and not get into this business of 
questioning what other people in the world will think of us if we do 
not go along with what they think is a great idea. Internationally, 
there are a lot of great ideas in the United Nations among countries, 
some of whom are not friendly and some are, but the United States has 
tried to be a leader in the world. I suggest we lead best if we go back 
to the drawing board and try to do this right, perhaps along the lines 
of some previous Presidents, rather than the unique way President 
Clinton proposes to do it with the zero-yield testing in perpetuity.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I commend my colleague. He has been 
steadfast throughout this period of the week when we had hearings and 
attended some of the hearings himself. Throughout the day, he has been 
very skillful and evenhanded in the way he has helped me and others, 
the leadership, Senator Helms, who is going to join us momentarily in 
handling this floor situation. I thank my colleague.
  Mr. WARNER. Our distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations 
Committee has joined us. He has been in contact with me frequently 
through this day.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. While the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is 
assuming his seat, I wish to say to my colleagues, I know of no one 
else on this side who wishes to speak today. I am anxious to hear what 
my friend from North Carolina has to say. I will sit here and listen to 
all of it. And I sincerely am anxious to hear it. But I want my 
colleagues to know for scheduling purposes, I indicated to Senator Kyl 
I am going to respond specifically to some of the points he raised 
because--again, I am not being solicitous--I think he is one of the 
best lawyers in this place. He knows this area very well. I think each 
of his points warrants a very specific response. But I will attempt to 
do that on Tuesday when we are back in. So I want to put people on 
notice, I am prepared to debate the issue if people wish to, but as far 
as I am concerned, we do not intend on using any more time today, 
unless for some reason my colleagues conclude I should.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SESSIONS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warner). The Senator from Alabama.


                         Privilege Of The Floor

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Steve Shope 
be granted floor privileges in the proceedings today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I want to share a few additional thoughts.
  Earlier today I discussed my belief that if the United States is 
going to be a leader for peace, it needs to be a leader militarily in 
the world. It has fallen uniquely to be our responsibility, our burden, 
our role to do that. I think if we fail to do that, history will record 
that we abdicated a responsibility. That is critically important.
  Presiding in the chair is the chairman of the Armed Services 
Committee. We have had a number of days of hearings--some top-secret, 
code-word briefings and hearings. Some have been public.
  I want to share a few things, as I interpret what occurred in those 
hearings. It is consistent with the headline as has been cited earlier 
in the New York Times: ``Experts Say Test Ban Could Impair Nuclear Arms 
Safety.'' That is the way it was interpreted by a New York Times 
reporter. That is the way I believe it is fair to be concluded.
  The lab Directors were pressed aggressively by Senator Levin, one of 
the finer questioners that I have ever observed in this body. He asked 
them firmly and consistently: Were they on board? They maneuvered 
around a bit, but they eventually did say they were on board. But 
Senator Robert Byrd astutely noted they were ``uneasy'' with those 
answers. In fact, they indicated

[[Page 24628]]

they were on board only after a good deal of insistence and debate 
about signing on to the CTBT concept. They indicated that they would 
sign on and be on board, if the six safeguards could be included. These 
are employees of the executive branch of the United States Government. 
They work for the President. They know the Secretary of Energy was 
testifying there at the same time.
  The chairman of the committee noted that their testimony was 
inconsistent with the testimony of the Secretary of Energy at the same 
hearing on the same day. The Secretary of Energy is a fine person, but 
he is not a nuclear engineer. He has not been given the responsibility 
to monitor the safety and security of our weapons. He says they are OK. 
The President says they are OK. But the experts didn't quite say that. 
In fact, they said it could impair nuclear arms safety. I think that is 
important. We do not have one voice about this matter.
  They talked about the Stockpile Stewardship Program, and they were 
not nearly so confident in that program as some would suggest. In fact, 
it almost seemed, I suggest, that they were saying that the President, 
in 1993, just unilaterally said: We are not going to test, so they are 
not doing that. This apparently gave them some belief that they could 
have some other kind of testing, so that is better than nothing. I may 
be misinterpreting those comments, but I don't think so. I think they 
basically said stockpile stewardship was not a guaranteed thing, but 
that they would do their best with it, as patriotic Americans. They 
said they could not be sure the Stockpile Stewardship Program would 
work, and they admitted there would be no way to validate the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program other than through live-fire tests--tests of 
explosions, nuclear explosions.
  I ask, is this, indeed, in the best interest of the United States to 
tie our invaluable deterrent responsibility to an undeveloped, 
untested, and unvalidated simulation regime?
  The preamble to the treaty states that cessation of testing is an 
effective measure of nuclear disarmament. Dr. Robinson, Director of the 
Sandia Lab, testified that nonnuclear components in today's weapons 
will ultimately become obsolete and irreproducible--they cannot be 
reproduced. That is, without testing, our nuclear capability will 
vanish. If it does, it is a distinct possibility that other states will 
find the world's situation having changed significantly, and they may 
decide to determine to expand their own capability. It will, in fact, 
be, and these words irritate a number of people, but it has a ring of 
truth to it. It will be a form of unilateral disarmament, we, being the 
world leader, signing a piece of paper that ultimately leads us to a 
point where we cannot continue to be the world leader.
  We know a test ban can't prevent nations from acquiring nuclear 
weapons. Tests by India and Pakistan showed that. The Sandia Lab 
Director further testified that, ``[t]hose who claim that by ending 
nuclear testing, we will close off the threat of terrorist development 
and use of nuclear explosives mislead themselves.'' And Congress should 
not accept such arguments as a basis for endorsing a test ban treaty.
  I hope, Mr. President, we can develop a way to continue to reduce the 
presence of nuclear weapons. This Congress, this Senate has supported 
massive reductions in the number of weapons we possess. We have 
continued to explore other treaties and agreements.
  I like limited, bilateral agreements with nations such as Russia or 
China or England or France, where we know what we are doing and it has 
an end time. We have an agreement. We have a precise understanding of 
the benefits and risks involved. These broad treaties, to which we are 
committing with the whole world of nations, many of whom are not going 
to comply with them, make me nervous. It is not necessarily good for a 
great nation to do that. A great nation has to be cautious. A great 
nation can't blithely go out and start signing up to a bunch of 
treaties and thinking that it will all work out sometime in the future. 
It is a serious matter.
  I am glad the chairman and others, Senator Kyl, Senator Helms, have 
taken such a lead in this. I am glad to see Chairman Helms here. 
Chairman Helms has said consistently, this treaty is not good for 
America. He has refused to endorse it. He opposes it. Now we have had 
hearings and debate, and a growing number in this Senate are agreeing 
with him. I don't believe there are votes sufficient to pass it, 
because I do not believe that it is good for the country. I think the 
opinion of Senator Helms on that is being validated daily by the 
experts, as well as Members of this body.
  Mr. President, I thank the chairman for his leadership. I appreciate 
Senator Biden's ability to articulate and to advocate. It makes us all 
think carefully about what we are doing. I think it has been a good 
debate. I think we have learned a lot. In the end, I think this Senate 
will conclude this is not the time to ratify this treaty.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am going to take about 5 minutes to 
respond to my friend from Alabama. He may have to catch a plane or 
something. I hope he will understand that, if he is not on the floor.
  First of all, I find it fascinating. I think he may want to amend the 
record--I am being a bit facetious, a little tongue in cheek--amend the 
record by suggesting that he has greater faith in headline writers and 
reporters than he does in the transcript I am about to read.
  I don't know whether he has ever been bitten by a headline. We all 
know headline writers read--and no one knows this better than my friend 
from North Carolina--the part of the copy that is given to them, and 
they get to write the headline they want. Sometimes it bears little 
resemblance to what happened. I hope we don't put any faith in a 
headline. I am not suggesting we shouldn't put faith in what is written 
by reporters sometimes. What was said in this article is accurate, but 
it is not complete. As my friend from Alabama said, we do not have one 
voice speaking on this, but we do have one record, one record from the 
hearing. I have a copy of the record from the hearing conducted in the 
Armed Services Committee yesterday, page 59. I will read the whole 
thing. It will take a minute.

       Senator Levin. Therefore, what you are telling us is that 
     if this safeguard [the Strategic Stockpile Program] and other 
     safeguards are part of this process that you can rely upon, 
     that in your words, Dr. Robinson, you are on board in terms 
     of this treaty; is that correct?
       Dr. Robinson. I am on board that science-based stockpile 
     stewardship has a much higher chance of success and I will 
     accept it as a substitute.

  Going on to page 60.

       Dr. Robinson. As a substitute for requiring yield tests for 
     certification.

  The tests he is referring to are nuclear tests. Then further on down, 
Dr. Tarter says:

       I can only testify to the ability of stockpile stewardship 
     to do the job. It is your job, about the treaty.
       Senator Levin. Are you able to say that, providing you can 
     rely on safeguard F--

  My description: Safeguard F is the safeguard that allows the 
President to get out of the treaty if the lab Director certifies that 
he is not able to certify the safety and reliability.

       Senator Levin. Are you able to say that, providing you can 
     rely on safeguard F and at some point decide that you cannot 
     certify it, that you are willing under that condition to rely 
     on this stewardship program as a substitute for actual 
     testing?
       Dr. Tarter. Yes.

  Further down, same page:

       Dr. Brown. Senator Levin, if the government [the 
     laboratories] provides us with the sustained resources, the 
     answer is yes, and if safeguard F is there, yes.
  Now I am not suggesting all else that is quoted is not accurate. But 
it is useful to have a punchline at the end of the quotes. It may be 
viewed as tortuous; it may be viewed in any way you want. I don't think 
my friend from Alabama means that because these renowned scientists 
happen to work for the Federal Government--they also, by the way, are 
in the employ, if I am not

[[Page 24629]]

mistaken, of outside laboratories and industries as well, or at least 
on loan from them--I hope nobody is suggesting--and I am sure he is 
not--that they would alter their testimony because the President of the 
United States or the Secretary of Energy takes a position that is 
consistent with theirs, and that is why they are taking it.
  I know my friend from Virginia will want to respond to this today, or 
Tuesday, or whenever he wants to do it. We will have plenty of time. I 
did not want there to be a hiatus between the comments of my friend 
from Alabama and my responding. I will conclude, I say to my friend 
from North Carolina. I think we should be--and believe me, I need this 
admonition for myself as well--a little careful about some of the words 
we use, such as ``unilateral disarmament.'' I don't think anybody is 
arguing we are unilaterally disarming.
  At any rate, I see my friend from Virginia has come down from on high 
and I assume wants to respond.
  I yield the floor.
  (Mr. Inhofe assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am anxious to receive the remarks of our 
distinguished chairman. But I was right there when Senator Levin asked 
the questions. I will put in the Record my edification of their 
replies.
  We have to understand, this Stockpile Stewardship Program, SSP, is 
basically a computer and other adjuncts, scientific devices that we are 
going to put in place--that is the key, ``put in place''--at the 
minimum, 5 or 6 years from now, but more likely 10 years from now. In 
the opinion of the Director of Sandia Laboratories, it could be 20 
years. That is all in the Record in response to my question.
  These Directors carefully said: Yes, we are meeting the current 
milestones in putting together this computer and other high-tech test 
programs, but we are a long way away. It could be as much as 20 years. 
So we could go to a period of, at a minimum, 8 to 10 years without any 
testing of the type that is a substitute for actual testing. Today, the 
stockpile is safe. Tomorrow, it is credible and safe. But as the years 
go on--and Senator Byrd used the words, as the years go on--the natural 
degrading under the law of physics of metallic parts, of chemical 
parts, and other parts takes place.
  Therefore, this hope for SSP, in sum, is almost a dream, but these 
men conscientiously are working on it day and night. Hopefully, in a 
period of anywhere from 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, maybe 20 years, it will be on 
line for that type of database which actual testing will give.
  In the meantime, we are going through with part of the SSP program, 
but not all of it--bits and pieces of it--largely relying on the test 
data of a bank of information we have in this country developed over 
the period of 50 years in which we did actual tests.
  I thank my colleague.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will pursue this more on Tuesday. I 
respectfully suggest that argument was based on a fallacy, and that is, 
the Stockpile Stewardship Program will not stay at zero until it is 
completed. We began this years ago. It is already working. We already 
use testing methods that do not require nuclear explosions.
  The Senator will remember the chart James Schlesinger had with the 
arrows going up and down, and I quote from Dr. Sig Hecker, the Director 
of Los Alamos in 1997, whom everybody quotes these days, wrote a letter 
to the Senator from Arizona and said:

       . . . there have been several instances since the cessation 
     of nuclear testing in September 1992, where we have found 
     problems . . . for which in the past we would have turned to 
     a nuclear test in the kiloton range to resolve. In the 
     absence of testing, we have used the methodology of 
     [Stockpile Stewardship] to evaluate the problem and suggest 
     fixes if required.
       This has included more extensive calculations, non-nuclear 
     laboratory experiments, comparison to previous nuclear test 
     data, and the extensive experience of our designers and 
     engineers. Moreover, our assessment has been checked against 
     the rigors of peer review by the Lawrence Livermore National 
     Laboratory. We have examined several problems of this nature 
     during this year's certification cycle.
       At this time, we have sufficient confidence in our 
     solutions to certify the stockpile without a resumption of 
     nuclear testing. If our confidence in the fixes were not 
     sufficiently high, we would not certify the stockpile.

  He is no longer the lab Director, but I assume my colleagues all 
believe him to be an honorable man. When they say testing is not needed 
at this time--that is, the Directors--I ask my colleagues whether or 
not they agree with Jim Schlesinger, who said it is not needed at this 
time and he doubts it will be needed in the future.
  Let me explain. We are using data from 1,000 past nuclear tests--as 
my friend says, from nonnuclear subcritical experiments and from high-
tech simulations to understand what is happening and what may happen in 
the weapons stockpile.
  Four facilities that will not be ready until 2005 are--they are 
called the National Ignition Facilities--a contained firing facility, 
dual-access radiographic hydrodynamics test facility, and the Atlas 
Plus power facilities. These facilities--and this is important--are all 
logical successors to older, less capable facilities. Our scientists 
are pushing the envelope but are not engaging in flights of fancy. That 
is why our labs and the Department of Energy are confident the National 
Ignition Facility will work, even though it has cost overruns. These 
facilities will serve several purposes and increase knowledge of basic 
physics of nuclear weapons. That new knowledge will lead to more 
accurate and precise computer simulations. The facilities can also be 
used to test the particular weapons problems. That is why I say our 
weapons will still be tested, even without full-scale nuclear weapons 
testing.
  Another key tool we are developing is this advanced supercomputing 
accelerated strategic computing initiative, another generation of 
supercomputers that will be able to synthesize test data from the past, 
and all of the testing done on weapons components, to provide three-
dimensional simulations of all aspects of nuclear weapons and how they 
react. Already, our scientists and engineers are working with industry 
and several universities to develop computers that are capable of 
running more than 3 trillion operations per second. That is a new 
record level of computing power, and it gives us new safety.
  Our goal, admittedly, over the next 5 years is for those 
supercomputers to be able to do 100 trillion operations per second. 
That is not something we need in our stockpile today. In fact, it 
represents a 100,000-fold increase in today's computational ability, 
and everybody says today's computational ability is sufficient to 
guarantee the stockpile. But when our weapons reach their so-called 
shelf life, then it is going to be needed, and we anticipate needing 
that sophisticated modeling. No one thinks that sophisticated modeling 
is needed now.
  Finally, I have real questions about my colleagues' concern that the 
stockpile stewardship cannot work. Our scientists are the best in the 
world. They know what they are doing. They define scientific challenges 
that must meet the military performance and reliability standards. 
After defining these challenges, they believe they can meet them. I 
believe they know what they are talking about. But I see one problem. 
The one problem the Stockpile Stewardship Program faces now and in the 
future is that some may not fund it. That is what our colleagues at the 
laboratories are talking about.
  Let me quote and conclude from a news release released today by the 
Department of Energy. I will submit it for the Record. It is ``For 
Immediate Release,'' dated October 8, 1999, and is a joint statement by 
Directors of three nuclear weapons laboratories--I note parenthetically 
that my guess is they probably read the New York Times article--C. Paul 
Robinson, Sandia; John C. Browne, Los Alamos; C. Bruce Tarter, Lawrence 
Livermore National Lab.
  I will read only from the fourth paragraph:

       While there can never be a guarantee that the stockpile 
     will remain safe and reliable indefinitely without nuclear 
     testing, we have stated that we are confident that a fully 
     supported and sustained stockpile stewardship program will 
     enable us to continue to maintain America's nuclear deterrent 
     without nuclear testing.


[[Page 24630]]


  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the entire statement be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From the DOE News, October 8, 1999]

     Joint Statement by Three Nuclear Weapons Laboratory Directors

 (C. Paul Robinson, Sandia National Laboratories; John C. Browne, Los 
  Alamos National Laboratory; and C. Bruce Tarter, Lawrence Livermore 
                          National Laboratory)

       ``We, the three nuclear weapons laboratory directors, have 
     been consistent in our view that the stockpile remains safe 
     and reliable today.
       ``For the last three year, we have advised the Secretaries 
     of Energy and Defense through the formal annual certification 
     process that the stockpile remains safe and reliable and that 
     there is no need to return to nuclear testing at this time.
       ``We have just forwarded our fourth set of certification 
     letters to the Energy and Defense Secretaries confirming our 
     judgment that once again the stockpile is safe and reliable 
     without nuclear testing.
       ``While there can never be a guarantee that the stockpile 
     will remain safe and reliable indefinitely without nuclear 
     testing, we have stated that we are confident that a fully 
     supported and sustained stockpile stewardship program will 
     enable us to continue to maintain America's nuclear deterrent 
     without nuclear testing.
       ``If that turns out not to be the case, Safeguard F--which 
     is a condition for entry into the Test Ban Treaty by the 
     U.S.--provides for the President, in consultation with the 
     Congress, to withdraw from the Treaty under the standard 
     ``supreme national interest'' clause in order to conduct 
     whatever testing might be required.''

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me conclude by pointing out that I find 
it kind of interesting. The very people who stand up here and say, as I 
happen to believe, that they have confidence that our scientists in the 
future are going to be able to shoot out of the sky like a bullet 
meeting a bullet incoming nuclear weapons over the ocean traveling at 
multithousand miles per hour and do it with certainty and accuracy--
they have faith in the ability of that to occur, but they don't have 
faith in the ability of our scientists at the three laboratories, who 
say they are well on their way to doing that, to be able to say what 
they need.
  I find it kind of interesting. I must admit it is a double-edged 
sword. I find my Democratic colleagues who do not support any national 
defense initiative--because they say this star wars notion can't work, 
it is too far out--I do not know how they come and rely so easily upon 
the likelihood that a $45 billion investment is going to guarantee 
these supercomputers will function to the degree they are needed to 
when these weapons reach their shelf life. But let's be fair. You can't 
have it both ways. I would respectfully submit that the ability to 
guarantee MIRV nuclear warheads fired in the hundreds or the thousands 
at the United States could be blown out of the sky with impunity by a 
missile defense initiative on our part is a mildly greater scientific 
feat than what the stockpile requires.
  As someone said: ``The faith of our father''--``the faith of our 
father''--has always been that if we put our mind to it, if we invest 
the money, we have the intelligence, the ingenuity, and the know-how to 
get it done. I would respectfully suggest our three present laboratory 
Directors and all the doubts they express are primarily related to 
whether or not safeguard F and funding of $45 billion for the stockpile 
would be forthcoming.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the best deterrent from keeping those 
thousands of missiles coming in is precisely what we have had these 50-
plus years--a credible safe deterrent in our stockpile. And the person 
whose finger is on the button firing those missiles knows that.
  I am reading from yesterday's proceedings of the Senate Armed 
Services Committee on page 50 where the chairman, myself, asked the 
following questions. This is one of the laboratory Directors 
testifying:
  ``We moved this year toward the development of the SSP, and last year 
toward putting in place the supercomputers on a path that we think we 
need to have. We are on a path that by 2004 we will have a 
supercomputer in place that begins''--begins--``to get us into the 
realm of what we need to do this job''--namely certifying the 
stockpiling.
  ``The issue that I think you are trying to address''--this is the 
hardest point I think as a scientist--``is that we cannot predict that 
by such and such a date we will know everything we need to know.''
  ``It is an evolving process. Each year we learn something else.''
  Bit by bit, year by year.
  I then asked: ``My time is running out.''
  And it is running out. We want to control time.
  ``Give us your best estimate, doctor,'' Senator Warner said.
  ``Dr. Brown: I think we are going to be in the best position sometime 
between 2005 and 2010.''
  ``Chairman Warner: Dr. Tarter.''
  ``Dr. Tarter: I agree with Dr. Brown.''
  ``Dr. Robinson: My guess is somewhere in the 10 years hence to 20 
years hence period.''
  There it is, short answers directed to the question.
  Mr. BIDEN. Would my friend yield for a question? From what page of 
the record was he reading?
  Mr. WARNER. Page 50 of the official transcript of the Armed Services 
Committee.
  Mr. BIDEN. I don't doubt it. I read from page 59 to get the 
significance?
  Do you get the significance?
  That was stated on 50 and 51 and 52. This is 59. After all is said 
and done, the question was asked: Do you believe with the safeguards 
you can rely upon the stockpile, the strategic stockpile, approach as 
opposed to nuclear testing?
  They said yes.
  It follows. Page 59 and 60, I am reading from. Maybe there is 
something after page 61 in the testimony that would undermine what I 
have just said. I respectfully suggest I am unaware of it if it is. I 
stand ready to hear it if it has been.
  It is one of those deals, folks. You have to go to the end. It 
``ain't over until the fat lady sings.'' It ain't over until you read 
the whole transcript. The last thing stated was: We have confidence.
  Then, after the testimony, after the testimony and after the New York 
Times article, the Department of Energy and in the name of the three 
scientists quoted--and I will read it again.
  ``While there can be no guarantee''--the point he is making on page 
50--``that the stockpile remains safe and reliable indefinitely without 
nuclear testing, we have stated that we are confident that a fully 
supported and sustained stockpile stewardship program will enable us to 
continue to maintain America's nuclear deterrent without nuclear 
testing.''
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, it is 117 pages. I sat there for 5 hours 
10 minutes. How well I know the various parts of this system. I was 
weary after 3 days of testimony. But it is all here for all Senators to 
read. I invite them to spend as much time as they can on the record.
  It comes down to honest men, well-intentioned individuals--men and 
women on both sides of the issue--cannot agree, and should we move 
forward with a treaty that will vitally affect our security interests, 
unless the preponderance of the evidence is overwhelming, and beyond a 
reasonable doubt? Give us the certainty to make that step.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warner). The Senator from Oklahoma is 
recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have a few brief comments to make in 
response to the very eloquent remarks from the Senator from West 
Virginia, in which I thought he covered it quite well. He had a concern 
for whether the intelligence estimate was going to be forthcoming.
  I would suggest, and get into the Record at this time, that back in 
December of 1995 we were waiting for the NEI report to come out. And it 
came out.

[[Page 24631]]

  That report said we would not have to defend ourselves in the United 
States of America for a limited attack in terms of--the discussion, of 
course, was the national missile defense--until approximately 15 years, 
not any less than 15 years.
  We found out later that was actually imminent at that time.
  I can recall so well writing the Chairman and Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
General Shelton, on the 24th of August of this last year--1998--and 
asking him to be specific in terms of taking the national intelligence 
estimate and all the information that he could garner and tell me at 
approximately what date North Korea would be able to fire a missile, a 
multiple-stage rocket. He came back and said it would be more than 5 
years.
  Seven days later--on the 31st of August, 1998--they fired one.
  I think we all know right now that they have another type of missile 
that can reach Washington, DC, from anyplace in the world in about 35 
minutes, and we don't have any defense against that.
  I don't think, if we are going to rely on the NEI information, we are 
relying on something that is going to be in the best interests of 
defending our country.
  The Senator from West Virginia also talked about the ratification 
process and about needing more time.
  We hear over and over again from every single person who stood up to 
defend the CTBT we need more time, we have to have more time. Yet if 
one reads what those same individuals are saying, the President of the 
United States said on the 16th of May, 1998:

       Now it's all the more important that the Senate act 
     quickly, this year, so we can increase the pressure on, and 
     isolation of, other nations that may be considering their own 
     nuclear test explosions.

  Also the President said:

       . . . I ask the Senate to approve it [CTBT] this year.

  That was 1998--last year; here it is 1999.
  Vice President Al Gore said the same thing:

       The U.S. Congress should act now to ratify the 
     Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

  That is July of 1998.
  Secretary Albright said:

       We need this Treaty now.

  That was on September 23, a few days ago, this year.
  She said, further:

       For American leadership, for our future, the time has come 
     to ratify CTBT--this year, this session, now.

  I could go on and on; the leaders have said we have to do it now.
  As far as taking up this treaty, knowing what is in it, the treaty 
has been there for 2 years. We have all had an opportunity. Have I read 
the entire treaty? No, but I read the areas that concern me on 
verification, on zero-yield thresholds, things where I know we cannot 
verify what would be done. Verification is not there.
  I remind Members, every Senator, including the illustrious Senator 
from Delaware, had the opportunity to object to the unanimous consent 
request propounded and agreed to a few days ago calling for the vote to 
take place after the 14 hours of debate which should be some time on 
Tuesday or Wednesday.
  The only Senator from that side who is not openly supporting this yet 
is the Senator from West Virginia who said, by his own mistake, he was 
not able to get down in time to object to the unanimous consent 
request.
  We had an opportunity for every Senator to have slowed this train 
down so they wouldn't have to vote on it and they elected not to do it.
  I think it is very important we all keep that in mind. This is 
significant. It is something we have reviewed over a long period of 
time. It is something we understand. We have heard the professional 
testimony. We have attended many meetings. I along with the Presiding 
Officer, have sat through hours of committee meetings and subcommittee 
meetings that I have held in my committee on this very subject. I think 
we understand it and I agree with the statements of all of those, 
including the President, Vice President, and the Secretary of State, 
who I quoted. We need to do it now.
  I will be here to object to any unanimous consent that would in some 
way vitiate the vote that we believe should be imminent next week.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President I will take 1 minute.
  The President doesn't need any more time; he read it and negotiated 
it. I don't need any more time; I spent over 100 hours on that. It is 
my job on the committee of responsibility. The Senator presiding 
doesn't need more time; he spent hundreds of hours. The Senator from 
Oklahoma doesn't need more time because he spent hundreds of hours on 
it. I defy anyone to find five other Members of the Senate who have 
spent as much time.
  Usually what happens is we take on the responsibility to inform our 
colleagues based on our committees because we have more expertise when 
assigned the job. When it is tax policy, I don't know what the Tax Code 
says on major changes, but I rely upon the committee headed on the 
Democratic side by my friend from New York to tell me what is in it 
from spending hundreds of hours going through the detail.
  This is a different way to do business. I don't ever remember Members 
having voted on a treaty without there being a significant report from 
the relevant committees on the floor.
  The President doesn't need any more time. I don't need any more time. 
Senator Byrd says he needs more time, and I don't know anybody more 
conscientious than Senator Byrd. But the reason for more time is there 
haven't been any hearings.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs 
Committee, the Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I assure my friend from Delaware, the 
ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, I enjoy hearing him 
and hearing him and hearing him.
  I guess it is sort of similar to what the President said in one of 
his strong moments not long ago: I guess it depends on what the 
definition of ``is'' is.
  This afternoon in Canada, President Clinton held a press conference 
in which he explicitly rejected the offer I made along with a number of 
other Republican Senators that the Senate would put off a vote on the 
CTBT if the President requested in writing (a) that the treaty be 
withdrawn and (b) that it not be considered for the duration of his 
presidency.
  Considering that the President acknowledged he does not have the 
votes to ratify the treaty, this seemed to many of us a generous offer 
which the President rejected with a strange rhetorical outburst.
  When asked about our offer today, he said:

       They want me to give them a letter to cover the political 
     decision they have made that does severe damage to the 
     interest of the United States and the interest of 
     nonproliferation in the world? I don't think so.

  The Mr. President further suggested, strangely and absurdly, that the 
reason we made the offer in the first place was because, as he put it, 
Republicans are afraid to go though with a vote. He said:

       . . . they want to [kill the treaty] and don't want to get 
     up and defend it before the American people in an election 
     year. . . . [They think] that some letter from me will 
     somehow obscure [that fact] . . . 

  Mr. President, among those who are urging that the Senate kill this 
dangerous treaty are: six former Secretaries of Defense, four former 
National Security Advisors, four former Directors of Central 
Intelligence, and two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
  Yet, Mr. Clinton suggests that Republicans are afraid to vote? The 
fact is, the President and his advisors have done everything possible 
to discourage a solution.
  Let's make it clear so the President can get his confusing rhetoric 
straightened out: Since he has rejected our offer, I will object, along 
with many of my Republican colleagues, to any effort to put off next 
week's vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
  This is a dangerous treaty, contrary to the national security 
interests of

[[Page 24632]]

the American people. The Senate should go on record as planned: The 
Senate should vote this treaty down.
  Mr. President, may I make an inquiry how much time has expired on 
each side since this morning when the Senate convened?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the distinguished chairman 
of a remarkable coincidence: The opponents have used 204 minutes, the 
proponents, 208 minutes.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, pursuant to the unanimous-consent agreement 
by the Senate, consideration has begun regarding an arms control treaty 
that has been the longest-sought, hardest-fought item on the unilateral 
nuclear disarmament agenda. Strangely, the Clinton administration has 
used every fanciful reasoning in its attempt to portray the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) as an agreement long pursued by 
every administration since President Eisenhower, a claim that is 
bewilderingly untrue. Even the administration's own negotiator 
acknowledged that the administration's claims are ``hyperbole.''
  You see, Mr. President, the truth of the matter is that not one 
administration (prior to the current one) ever proposed a zero-yield, 
unverifiable, permanent duration test ban. Indeed, as Ambassador 
Ledogar admitted, even the Clinton administration itself did not want 
such a treaty initially.
  Someone has commented that the CTBT now before the Senate is the 
clearest case of ``parchment worship'' ever seen. It was neither 
carefully negotiated nor well-thought through. It does not even define 
exactly what it bans.
  Instead, the CTBT is the product of a mad scramble to: (1) Create an 
arms control ``legacy'' for the Clinton-Gore administration; or (2) 
provide an excuse for this administration's lack of any 
nonproliferation policy; or (3) obscure the fact that this 
administration presided over the collapse of the single-most 
significant reduction in nuclear weapons with Russia ever negotiated--
the START II Treaty--which would have eliminated all MIRVed ICBMs and 
the SS-18 missile. (The likelihood is that all three played a major 
role in the administration's decision to try to ram through this Senate 
this unwise and dangerous treaty.)
  Unfortunately, in the race to fashion a last-minute rickety 
``legacy'', the Clinton administration abandoned longstanding United 
States policy on nuclear testing and signed up to a ``zero yield,'' 
unverifiable, permanent duration test ban. As several of us have noted, 
for a number of reasons relating to verification and U.S. nuclear 
weapons requirements, this is something to which no other 
administration ever agreed. For instance, President Eisenhower--who has 
been repeatedly and mistakenly blamed with authorship of the CTBT--
insisted that nuclear tests with a seismic magnitude of less than 4.75 
be permitted.
  The reason that the United States historically has refused to sign on 
to a zero yield test ban is that five problems are created by such a 
prohibition. First, confidence in the safety and the reliability of the 
weapons stockpile will erode. Second, warheads cannot be 
``remanufactured'' to capitalize upon modern technologies. Third, no 
further designs or capabilities can be added to the nuclear stockpile. 
Fourth, critical infrastructure and hardware cannot be thoroughly 
``hardened'' against nuclear weapons effects. Fifth, the U.S. can have 
no confidence that other countries are abiding by the CTBT because a 
zero yield ban cannot be verified.
  By preventing the United States from testing, the CTBT will erode our 
ability to discover and fix problems with the nuclear stockpile and to 
make safety improvements. Confidence that the weapons will perform as 
needed will erode. Already, leaders of our own nuclear weapons design 
laboratories have stated that problems with the stockpile have arisen 
that formerly would have prompted nuclear tests.
  Further, several of the weapons are not as safe as they could be. As 
this chart demonstrates, only one warhead of the nine in the stockpile 
is equipped with all of the modern surety features available. One 
weapon--the W62--does not have any safety features at all, and three of 
the weapons--the W76, W78, and W88--are only equipped with ``enhanced 
detonator safety'' measures.
  Mr. President, several important safety improvements cannot be made 
to these weapons unless subsequent nuclear testing is allowed to ensure 
that modified devices will function properly with these changes. I will 
underscore that for Senators. The CTBT will prevent the United States 
from making critical safety improvements to its warheads. I, for one, 
agree with the Governor of North Dakota who wrote to me opposing the 
CTBT stating:

       As a governor of a state that hosts a sizable percentage of 
     our nation's nuclear weapons, I have an obligation to the 
     people of North Dakota to ensure that these warheads are as 
     safe and reliable as they can be made. It troubles me that 
     several U.S. warheads do not contain the most modern safety 
     features available, such as fire-resistant pits and 
     insensitive high explosives. Yet these warheads cannot 
     capitalize upon such improvements without nuclear testing.

  I hope Senators will understand that the CTBT will gradually 
undermine the safety of the U.S. deterrent by precluding the 
incorporation of modern safety features.
  Moreover, nuclear testing is essential if the United States is to 
discover and fix problems with the stockpile. These problems usually 
are associated with aging. The materials and components of weapons can 
degrade in unpredictable ways and can cause the weapon to fail. Many 
weapons believed to be reliable and thoroughly tested nevertheless 
developed problems which were only discovered, and could only be fixed, 
through nuclear testing. In fact, one-third of all the weapon designs 
placed in the stockpile since 1958 have required and received post-
deployment nuclear tests to resolve problems.
  In three quarters of these cases, the problems were identified and 
assessed only as a result of nuclear testing, and only could be fixed 
through testing.
  The United States has chosen to remanufacture aging weapons in the 
enduring stockpile rather than designing and building new ones. This 
presents problems because many of the materials and processes used in 
producing the original weapon are no longer available. New materials 
and processes need to be substituted, but they can only be validated to 
assure that the remanufactured weapon works as intended through nuclear 
testing.
  Exact replication, especially of older systems, is impossible without 
testing. In part, this is because documentation has never been 
sufficiently exact to ensure replication. Nuclear testing is the most 
important step in product certification; it provides the data for valid 
certification. As a case in point, the United States attempted to 
remanufacture both the W52 and W68 warheads on the basis of 
simulations. However, when actually tested, both weapons had a measured 
yield well short of what test-experienced weapons designers predicted. 
This is a lesson that the administration, in supporting the CTBT, seems 
willing to forget.
  The CTBT also will prevent the United States from developing new 
weapons to counter new technological advances by adversaries. Nuclear 
testing is essential to such modernization. Without it, the nuclear 
triad will become obsolete.
  I fail to see the logic behind the argument that the United States 
has no need to modernize its deterrent if Russia, China, and others are 
similarly constrained. Such a claim just won't fly; in fact, given the 
demonstrable inability to verify a total test ban, I am persuaded that 
such assertions are founded upon the mistaken presumption that nuclear 
weapons modernization is driven by the evolution of other nuclear 
deterrents. Historically, this simply has not been the case.
  Indeed, nuclear weapons modernization is generally driven either by 
new mission requirements, or by non-nuclear technological evolution in 
defensive systems. For instance, during the cold war, advances in air 
defense and anti-submarine warfare created needs for new weapons. 
Nuclear testing was needed to create the B83 bomb, a gravity bomb--a 
``laydown weapon'' because it enabled the B-1B to drop its payload, at 
low altitude and high speed, and thereby escape the resulting 
explosion.

[[Page 24633]]

  This weapon was needed in response to advances in air defense 
capability. For the same reason, the U.S. developed the nuclear air-
launched cruise missile, which allows U.S. bombers to fulfill their 
mission outside of air defense ranges.
  Nuclear testing was needed for the Trident II missile's warheads, W76 
and W88. Testing was essential to optimize the system, giving the 
missile, and thus the submarine as well, increased striking range. This 
was needed in response to advances in anti-submarine warfare. Without 
the ability to test and modernize, the airmen and sailors aboard our 
bombers and submarines will be put at increased risk as they try to 
perform their duties with obsolete technology. Senators should think 
carefully about the implications of the CTBT, and the risk it poses--
not just to the nuclear weapons themselves--but to our servicemen.
  Our clear, future need facing the United States is the requirement to 
develop new or modified warheads to respond to developments in missile 
defense--particularly in the area of directed energy. It would be 
impossible to adapt to such developments under a complete test ban.
  Further, without the ability to design new weapons, such as a warhead 
optimized to kill biological plagues or to destroy deeply-buried 
targets, the U.S. will be unable to respond to serious emerging threats 
to our security. I could not agree more with one of the former 
Directors of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Dr. Roger Batzel, 
who warned that; ``A nuclear arsenal which is unable to keep pace with 
a changing security environment is unlikely, in the long run, to prove 
much of a deterrent.''
  Fourth, the CTBT would make the United States increasingly vulnerable 
to foreign nuclear programs. Critical systems such as satellites cannot 
be hardened and thoroughly protected against electro-magnetic pulse 
attack without nuclear testing. Computers cannot simulate a nuclear 
environment. Neither can controlled radiation sources. It takes a 
nuclear explosion to create the heat and complex interplay of radiation 
needed to evaluate the resistance of systems to these nuclear effects.
  Historically, the United States often has been surprised by how 
systems which seemingly performed as needed during non-nuclear 
simulations then failed to function properly in an actual nuclear 
environment. Indeed, surprises have been found in the vulnerability to 
nuclear effects of all U.S. strategic nuclear systems except the 
Minuteman II. The CTBT will allow counties to exploit a growing U.S. 
vulnerability brought about by an increasing reliance on high-tech 
weaponry and a decision not to test in order to harden systems.
  Finally, a ``zero yield'' test ban is not verifiable. While the exact 
thresholds are classified, it is commonly understood that the United 
States cannot detect nuclear explosions below a few kilotons of yield. 
Countries are able to resort to a number of techniques, ranging from 
``unattended detonations'' to seismic decoupling, that will enable them 
to conduct significant nuclear explosions with little chance of being 
detected.
  The proposed verification regime under the CTBT offers scant 
reassurance in this matter. The seismic detection thresholds of the 
International Monitoring System are sufficiently high that a large 
amount of clandestine testing could occur without fear of seismic 
detection. Moreover, the on-site inspection regime is riddled with 
loopholes and deficiencies.
  The bottom line is that if the Senate were to make the mistake of 
approving this treaty, the United States would scrupulously adhere to 
the CTBT, thereby losing confidence in its nuclear deterrent. Other 
nations, however, most likely would violate the treaty and escape 
detection, building new weapons to capitalize upon the U.S. 
deficiencies and vulnerabilities created by the CTBT. For these 
reasons, I oppose the CTBT and I am gratified that more and more 
Senators are making clear their opposition to ratification of an 
unwise, even dangerous, proposal to deprive the American people of the 
protection they need and deserve.
  Mr. President, for just a moment I suggest the absence of a quorum 
and then I will resume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to 
suggest the absence of a quorum and the time be divided equally from 
both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the senior Senator from 
New York.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise simply to express the thanks of 
this Senator to the eminent chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations for the careful discourse he has presented to us, for the 
facts, they are complex. No one understands complexity better than he 
or is more willing to live with it. If we do not come to the same 
conclusions, it is not for lack of respect and, indeed, a reverence.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I do thank my friend from New York--our 
friend from New York--whom we will sorely miss before very long.
  I thank the Senator and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Hearing no objection to the unanimous consent 
request from the Senator from North Carolina, without objection, it is 
so ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Helms). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the Senate will soon exercise its 
constitutional duty of ``advice and consent'' for international 
treaties. This is a solemn task. And the treaty before us, the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or ``CTBT,'' relates to an issue of 
utmost importance, the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  As I have evaluated this treaty, I have kept one question first and 
foremost in my mind: Will ratification of this treaty by the United 
States serve to protect the national security of the United States? And 
after careful consideration, my position is that the CTBT weakens the 
national security of the United States, and I will therefore oppose 
ratification.
  Although I support the lofty goals of the Test Ban Treaty--preventing 
the spread of nuclear weapons--I think only the good guys will play by 
the rules. Test ban advocates argue that setting a good example will 
lead others to play by the rules. The United States has not tested a 
bomb since 1992, but India and Pakistan went ahead with testing bombs, 
despite U.S. sanctions and condemnation.
  Test Ban advocates also argue that the threat of sanctions will keep 
countries in line. As my colleagues will recall, North Korea violated 
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty--in fact, are still violating the 
NPT--and the Clinton Administration has rewarded the DPRK with aid, and 
more recently, with the removal of sanctions. I suspect the same 
pattern if rogue nations like North Korea even ratify the CTBT.
  But even more fundamentally, I believe this zero-yield treaty of 
unlimited duration fundamentally threatens the United States' nuclear 
deterrent by preventing nuclear testing essential to maintaining the 
safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpile. Our nuclear weapons 
are the most sophisticated designs in the world, yet over time, the 
nuclear materials and high explosives triggers deteriorate, and we lack 
the experience in predicting the effects of these changes.
  According to expert testimony, one-third of all weapons designs 
introduced

[[Page 24634]]

into the nuclear weapons stockpile since 1985 have required and 
received post-deployment nuclear tests to resolve problems. In three-
fourths of these cases, the problems were discovered only because of 
on-going nuclear tests. In each case, the weapons were thought to be 
reliable and thoroughly tested.
  How confident can we be in the reliability of our nuclear stockpile 
if we are unable to test these weapons to determine the degradation 
effects of aging? If we cannot be confident in our own weapons' 
effectiveness, what do you suppose other nations will conclude? The use 
of nuclear weapons as a deterrent is only effective when other parties 
believe in their capability as well.
  Although the Stockpile Stewardship Program should be pursued, we must 
remember that the Program is in its infancy. Deciding in 1999 to rely 
on an untested program that will be operational in 2010 is reckless. In 
the future, I hope that nuclear tests can be replaced by computer 
simulations and laboratory-based experiments. But I am not willing to 
bet my grandchildren's security on it.
  In light of hearings this past year before the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee on Chinese espionage allegations, I also am not 
comfortable placing the results of our nuclear testing in the memory 
banks of the National Labs' computers which are vulnerable to espionage 
or sabotage.
  Finally, I would like to address the problem of verifying other 
nations' compliance with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Recent 
reports from the intelligence community indicate that we are unable to 
monitor low- level nuclear tests precisely enough to distinguish 
between a conventional explosion, a low-level nuclear test, or even 
natural seismic activity. The United States cannot now, and may not in 
the foreseeable future, be able to confidently detect and identify 
militarily significant nuclear tests of one kiloton or less. That is 
roughly 500 times the size of the blast which destroyed the Murrah 
Building in Oklahoma City.
  Twice last month Russia carried out what might have been nuclear 
explosions at its Novaya Zemlya testing site in the Arctic. It was 
reported that U.S. surveillance satellites have repeatedly observed the 
kind of activity that usually precedes and follows a low-level nuclear 
test. Yet, data from the CIA's seismic sensors and other monitoring 
equipment were reportedly insufficient to reach a firm conclusion as to 
the true nature of the explosions. If it is not possible to confirm 
tests such as these, how are we going to verify that countries such as 
Russia and China are complying with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?
  Mr. President, this Treaty is not in the national interest and I urge 
my colleagues to reject its ratification.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, the Senate has begun consideration of the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. I regret that the Senate is taking up 
the treaty in an abrupt and truncated manner that is so highly 
politicized. Admittedly, the CTBT is not a new subject for the Senate. 
Those of us who over the years have sat on the Foreign Relations, Armed 
Services, or Intelligence Committees are familiar with it. The Senate 
has held hearings and briefings on the treaty in the past.
  But for a treaty of this complexity and importance a more sustained 
and focused effort is important. Senators must have a sufficient 
opportunity to examine the treaty in detail, ask questions of our 
military and the administration, consider the possible implications, 
and debate at length in committee and on the floor. Under the current 
agreement, a process that normally would take many months has been 
reduced to a few days. Many Senators know little about this treaty. 
Even for those of us on national security committees, this has been an 
issue floating on the periphery of our concerns.
  Presidential leadership has been almost entirely absent on the issue. 
Despite having several years to make a case for ratification, the 
administration has declined to initiate the type of advocacy campaign 
that should accompany any treaty of this magnitude.
  Nevertheless, the Senate has adopted an agreement on procedure. So 
long as that agreement remains in force, Senators must move forward as 
best they can to express their views and reach informed conclusions 
about the treaty.
  In anticipation of the general debate, I will state my reasons for 
opposing ratification of the CTBT.
  The goal of the CTBT is to ban all nuclear explosions worldwide: I do 
not believe it can succeed. I have little confidence that the 
verification and enforcement provisions will dissuade other nations 
from nuclear testing. Furthermore, I am concerned about our country's 
ability to maintain the integrity and safety of our own nuclear arsenal 
under the conditions of the treaty.
  I am a strong advocate of effective and verifiable arms control 
agreements. As a former Vice-Chairman of the Senate Arms Control 
Observer Group and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have 
had the privilege of managing Senate consideration of many arms control 
treaties and agreements.
  I fought for Senate consent to ratification of the INF Treaty, which 
banned intermediate range nuclear weapons in Europe; the Conventional 
Forces in Europe Treaty, which created limits on the number of tanks, 
helicopters, and armored personnel carriers in Europe; the START I 
Treaty, which limited the United States and the Soviet Union to 6,500 
nuclear weapons; the START II Treaty, which limited the U.S. and the 
former Soviet Union to 3,500 nuclear weapons; and the Chemical Weapons 
Convention, which outlawed poison gas.
  These treaties, while not ensuring U.S. security, have made us safer. 
They have greatly reduced the amount of weaponry threatening the United 
States, provided extensive verification measures, and served as a 
powerful statement of the intent of the United States to curtail the 
spread of weapons of mass destruction.
  I understand the impulse of the proponents of the CTBT to express 
U.S. leadership in another area of arms control. Inevitably, arms 
control treaties are accompanied by idealistic principles that envision 
a future in which international norms prevail over the threat of 
conflict between nations. However, while affirming our desire for 
international peace and stability, the U.S. Senate is charged with the 
constitutional responsibility of making hard judgments about the likely 
outcomes of treaties. This requires that we examine the treaties in 
close detail and calculate the consequences of ratification for the 
present and the future. Viewed in this context, I cannot support the 
treaty's ratification.
  I do not believe that the CTBT is of the same caliber as the arms 
control treaties that have come before the Senate in recent decades. 
Its usefulness to the goal of non-proliferation is highly questionable. 
Its likely ineffectuality will risk undermining support and confidence 
in the concept of multi-lateral arms control. Even as a symbolic 
statement of our desire for a safer world, it is problematic because it 
would exacerbate risks and uncertainties related to the safety of our 
nuclear stockpile.
  The United States must maintain a reliable nuclear deterrent for the 
foreseeable future. Although the cold war is over, significant threats 
to our country still exist. At present our nuclear capability provides 
a deterrent that is crucial to the safety of the American people and is 
relied upon as a safety umbrella by most countries around the world. 
One of the most critical issues under the CTBT would be that of 
ensuring the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile 
without testing. The safe maintenance and storage of these weapons is a 
crucial concern. We cannot allow them to fall into disrepair or permit 
their safety to be called into question.
  The Administration has proposed an ambitious program that would 
verify the safety and reliability of our weapons through computer 
modeling and simulations. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on the 
Stockpile Stewardship Program. The last nine years have seen

[[Page 24635]]

improvements, but the bottom line is that the Senate is being asked to 
trust the security of our country to a program that is unproven and 
unlikely to be fully operational until perhaps 2010. I believe a 
National Journal article, by James Kitfield, summed it up best by 
quoting a nuclear scientist who likens the challenge of maintaining the 
viability of our stockpile without testing to ``walking an obstacle 
course in the dark when your last glimpse of light was a flash of 
lightning back in 1992.''
  The most likely problems facing our stockpile are a result of aging. 
This is a threat because nuclear materials and components degrade in 
unpredictable ways, in some cases causing weapons to fail. This is 
compounded by the fact that the U.S. currently has the oldest inventory 
in the history of our nuclear weapons programs.
  Over the last forty years, a large percentage of the weapon designs 
in our stockpile have required post-deployment tests to resolve 
problems. Without these tests, not only would the problems have 
remained undetected, but they also would have gone unrepaired.
  The Congressional Research Service reported last year that: ``A 
problem with one warhead type can affect hundreds of thousands of 
individually deployed warheads; with only 9 types of warheads expected 
to be in the stockpile in 2000, compared to 30 in 1985, a single 
problem could affect a large fraction of the U.S. nuclear force.'' If 
we are to put our faith in a program other than testing to ensure the 
safety and reliability of our nuclear deterrent and thus our security, 
we must have complete faith in its efficacy. The Stockpile Stewardship 
Program falls well short of that standard.
  The United States has chosen to re-manufacture our aging stockpile 
rather than creating and building new weapon designs. This could be a 
potential problem because many of the components and procedures used in 
original weapon designs no longer exist. New production procedures need 
to be developed and substituted for the originals, but we must ensure 
that the remanufactured weapons will work as designed.
  I am concerned further by the fact that some of the weapons in our 
arsenal are not as safe as we could make them. Of the nine weapon 
designs currently in our arsenal, only one employs all of the most 
modern safety and security measures. Our nuclear weapons laboratories 
are unable to provide the American people with these protections 
because of the inability of the Stockpile Stewardship Program to 
completely mimic testing.
  At present, I am not convinced the Stockpile Stewardship Program will 
permit our experts to maintain a credible deterrent in the absence of 
testing. Without a complete, effective, and proven Stockpile 
Stewardship program, the CTBT could erode our ability to discover and 
fix problems with the nuclear stockpile and to make safety 
improvements.
  In fact, the most important debate on this issue may be an honest 
discussion of whether we should commence limited testing and continue 
such a program with consistency and certainty.
  President Reagan's words ``trust but verify'' remain an important 
measuring stick of whether a treaty serves the national security 
interests of the United States. The U.S. must be confident of its 
ability to detect cheating among member states. While the exact 
thresholds are classified, it is commonly understood that the United 
States cannot detect nuclear explosions below a few kilotons of yield. 
The Treaty's verification regime, which includes an international 
monitoring system and on-site inspections, was designed to fill the 
gaps in our national technical means. Unfortunately, the CTBT's 
verification regime will not be up to that task even if it is ever 
fully deployed.
  Advances in mining technologies have enabled nations to smother 
nuclear tests, allowing them to conduct tests with little chance of 
being detected. Similarly, countries can utilize existing geologic 
formations to decouple their nuclear tests, thereby dramatically 
reducing the seismic signal produced and rendering the test 
undetectable. A recent Washington Post article points out that part of 
the problem of detecting suspected Russian tests at Novaya Zemlya is 
that the incidents take place in a large granite cave that has proven 
effective in muffling tests.
  The verification regime is further bedeviled by the lack of a common 
definition of a nuclear test. Russia believes hydro-nuclear activities 
and sub-critical experiments are permitted under the treaty. The U.S. 
believes sub-critical experiments are permitted but hydro-nuclear tests 
are not. Other states believe both are illegal. A common understanding 
or definition of what is and what is not permitted under the treaty has 
not been established.
  Proponents point out that if the U.S. needs additional evidence to 
detect violations, on-site inspections can be requested. Unfortunately, 
the CTBT will utilize a red-light inspection process. Requests for on-
site inspections must be approved by at least 30 affirmative votes of 
members of the Treaty's 51-member Executive Council. In other words, if 
the United States accused another country of carrying out a nuclear 
test, we could only get an inspection if 29 other nations concurred 
with our request. In addition, each country can declare a 50 square 
kilometer area of its territory as off limits to any inspections that 
are approved.
  The CTBT stands in stark contrast to the Chemical Weapons Convention 
in the area of verifiability. Whereas the CTBT requires an affirmative 
vote of the Executive Council for an inspection to be approved, the CWC 
requires an affirmative vote to stop an inspection from proceeding. 
Furthermore, the CWC did not exclude large tracts of land from the 
inspection regime, as does the CTBT.
  The CTBT's verification regime seems to be the embodiment of 
everything the United States has been fighting against in the UNSCOM 
inspection process in Iraq. We have rejected Iraq's position of 
choosing and approving the national origin of inspectors. In addition, 
the 50 square kilomater inspection-free zones could become analogous to 
the controversy over the inspections of Iraqi presidential palaces. The 
UNSCOM experience is one that is best not repeated under a CTBT.
  Let me turn to some enforcement concerns. Even if the United States 
were successful in utilizing the laborious verification regime and non-
compliance was detected, the Treaty is almost powerless to respond. 
This treaty simply has no teeth. Arms control advocates need to reflect 
on the possible damage to the concept of arms control if we embrace a 
treaty that comes to be perceived as ineffectual. Arms control based 
only on a symbolic purpose can breed cynicism in the process and 
undercut for more substantive and proven arms control measures.
  The CTBT's answer to illegal testing is the possible implementation 
of sanctions. It is clear that this will not prove particularly 
compelling in the decision-making processes of foreign states intent on 
building nuclear weapons. For those countries seeking nuclear weapons, 
the perceived benefits in international stature and deterrence 
generally far outweigh the concern about sanctions that could be 
brought to bear by the international community.
  Further, recent experience has demonstrated that enforcing effective 
multilateral sanctions against a country is extraordinarily difficult. 
Currently, the United States is struggling to maintain multilateral 
sanctions on Iraq, a country that openly seeks weapons of mass 
destruction and blatantly invaded and looted a neighboring nation, 
among other transgressions. If it is difficult to maintain the 
international will behind sanctions on an outlaw nation, how would we 
enforce sanctions against more responsible nations of greater 
commercial importance like India and Pakistan?
  In particularly grave cases, the CTBT Executive Council can bring the 
issue to the attention of the United Nations. Unfortunately, this too 
would most likely prove ineffective, given that permanent members of 
the Security Council could veto any efforts to punish

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CTBT violators. Chances of a better result in the General Assembly are 
remote at best.
  I believe the enforcement mechanisms of the CTBT provide little 
reason for countries to forego nuclear testing. Some of my friends 
respond to this charge by pointing out that even if the enforcement 
provisions of the treaty are ineffective, the treaty will impose new 
international norms for behavior. In this case, we have observed that 
``norms'' have not been persuasive for North Korea, Iraq, Iran, India, 
and Pakistan, the very countries whose actions we seek to influence 
through a CTBT.
  If a country breaks the international norm embodied in the CTBT, that 
country has already broken the norm associated with the Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Countries other than the recognized nuclear 
powers who attempt to test a weapon must first manufacture or obtain a 
weapon, which would constitute a violation of the NPT. I fail to see 
how an additional norm will deter a motivated nation from developing 
nuclear weapons after violating the longstanding norm of the NPT.
  On Tuesday the Senate is scheduled to vote on the ratification of the 
CTBT. If this vote takes place, I believe the treaty should be 
defeated. The Administration has failed to make a case on why this 
treaty is in our national security interests.
  The Senate is being asked to rely on an unfinished and unproven 
Stockpile Stewardship Program. This program might meet our needs in the 
future, but as yet, it is not close to doing so. The treaty is flawed 
with an ineffective verification regime and a practically nonexistent 
enforcement process.
  For these reasons, I will vote against ratification of the CTBT.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, today the Senate formally begins 
consideration of whether to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban 
Treaty, CTBT. Each party to this treaty pledges not to carry out any 
nuclear weapons tests and to refrain from helping others to carry out 
such tests. CTBT has been signed by over 150 nations, 51 of which have 
already ratified the treaty. The question before the Senate now is 
whether we should join this group in an international effort to limit 
the spread of nuclear weapons.
  Although I will have more extensive remarks on the substance of the 
treaty shortly before the Senate votes, I would like to say a few words 
now about why I believe the Senate should ratify this important treaty. 
As in the case of previous arms control agreements, each Senator must 
ask himself or herself the following series of questions: Is U.S. 
national security enhanced by Senate ratification of the CTBT? Is this 
nation better off with the CTBT? Will Senate ratification of CTBT lead 
to a safer world for our children?
  In my view Mr. President, the answer to each of these questions is an 
unequivocal, unqualified yes for one simple, straightforward reason: a 
world with fewer countries possessing nuclear weapons is a safer, more 
secure world for our national security interests, our nation and our 
children. Senate ratification of CTBT will help us achieve just such a 
world.
  Opponents of the treaty raise two issues: can we verify that other 
nations are complying with the treaty and would U.S. compliance with 
the treaty permit this nation to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear 
deterrent? On the first issue, opponents assert that it is impossible 
to verify a prohibition of all nuclear tests. Mr. President, let me 
state now that they are absolutely correct on that point. The 
intelligence community has confirmed that neither the United States nor 
the International Monitoring System that would be established under 
CTBT would ensure the detection of every single nuclear explosion, 
regardless of size and location.
  However, this feature is not unique to CTBT. No arms control treaty 
is 100 percent verifiable. In just the last two decades, the Senate has 
ratified numerous treaties knowing full well at the time that it would 
be possible for a country to successfully skirt one provision or 
another for some period of time or another. The standard for the Senate 
on previous treaties and the standard we should apply to this treaty is 
``effective'' verification. In the case of CTBT, effective verification 
means we will be able to detect, with a high degree of confidence, any 
tests that could undermine our nuclear deterrent. After examining the 
information and analysis provided by our intelligence community, our 
senior military leaders have testified that we can effectively verify 
this treaty.
  Furthermore, with or without CTBT, we need to monitor the nuclear 
testing activities of other countries and will face the exact same 
problems people are assigning exclusively to CTBT --with one major 
difference. In a world of CTBT, the United States would have additional 
tools at its disposal to determine what has happened. The treaty would 
permit us to have access to data collected at any of the 321 monitoring 
sites established as part of the CTBT's International Monitoring 
System. Under the treaty, we will also be able to conduct on-site 
inspections of facilities when we suspect questionable activity has 
occurred. These are resources available to us only if we ratify CTBT.
  As for the safety and reliability of our existing nuclear weapons, I 
am convinced that the science-based stockpile stewardship program will 
permit us to preserve our nuclear deterrent without testing. I 
acknowledge up front that this program, for which we are spending $4.5 
billion annually, is still evolving and it will be a few more years 
before we will know for certain its effectiveness. However, critics 
must also acknowledge three other facts. First, our nuclear weapons are 
safe and reliable today and are likely to remain so for another 
decade--with or without a stockpile program. Second, although not fully 
up and running, the stockpile stewardship program has already 
demonstrated its viability. Although we stopped testing nuclear weapons 
seven years ago, for the past four years the Department of Energy has 
been able to certify that our nuclear stockpile is safe and reliable. 
In order to make this certification, the Department has relied in part 
on data generated by the early phases of the stockpile stewardship 
program. Third, the President submitted, and I strongly support, a 
condition to the treaty that would permit the United States to withdraw 
from the treaty and resume nuclear testing if we have anything other 
than the highest confidence in the safety and reliability of our 
nuclear weapons.
  Having said all of this, I would like to raise another important 
issue today. Regardless of where members stand on the merits of the 
CTBT, I think there are two things every member of this body should 
agree upon. The process of treaty ratification is one of the most 
important responsibilities our founding fathers vested in the United 
States Senate. In the course of this nation's history, the Senate has 
never taken this responsibility lightly. It would be a mistake to do so 
now. Second, it is hard to imagine a treaty with more significant 
ramifications for our national security for decades to come than the 
treaty before the Senate today. In the few brief days that this issue 
has been before us, I have heard senior Senators, members who have cast 
thousands of votes, state that their vote on CTBT could well be one of 
the most consequential of their Senate careers. I agree with that 
assessment.
  Unfortunately, we are on the verge of ignoring these two truths. For 
some unknown reason, the CTBT has become a political football in a high 
stakes, highly partisan debate. It appears that some are seeking to 
score political points instead of carefully weighing this nation's 
national security interests and our role and responsibilities in the 
world. If politics should stop at the waters' edge, so too should it 
stop at the door to this chamber when we are deliberating treaties with 
such tremendous national and international ramifications.
  Instead, after over 2 years of inaction, the Senate now finds itself 
locked in a sprint to a vote that is equally unfair to both the 
opponents and proponents of this treaty. No member of this body can 
truly believe he or she has all the information needed to render such a 
momentous decision. No

[[Page 24637]]

member can truly state that the Senate has lived up to the founding 
fathers' expectations of how this chamber should conduct itself when 
giving its advice and consent on treaties. No member can really assert 
with a clear conscience that this was a fair and thorough process for 
dealing with any issue, let alone one of this magnitude.
  Proceeding before we have given full airing to the numerous and 
complex issues surrounding the CTBT is unfair to the Senate, unfair to 
our national security and unfair to the American people. Before we 
begin the calling of the roll asking where we stand on this treaty, we 
should all take a step back and give ourselves time to study these 
issues. For the good of our nation's security and Americans for 
generations to come, I ask members on both sides of the aisle to join 
me in this effort.

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