CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

March 14, 1967

Page 6579

Mr. MOSS. Mr. President, it is unquestionably in our national interest to ratify the Consular Treaty. The U.S. Senate should take this action, and we should take it without reservations or understandings.

What is at issue is a more stable world. The treaty presents an opportunity to improve the machinery through which we handle certain official business with the Soviet Union. We can grasp this opportunity without endangering our own future or our own security. It would be foolish to pass it by. It could help propel us toward peace.

Primarily, we need the treaty to give greater protection to Americans traveling in the Soviet Union. At the present time, an American can be held incommunicado up to 9 months during an investigation of criminal charges lodged against him, and the Soviet Union does not have to notify U.S. authorities. If the treaty were in effect, the Soviet Union would have to notify U.S. authorities immediately, and these officials would have the right to visit the American citizen being held within 4 days of his arrest, and on a continuing basis thereafter. The small number of Soviet citizens now traveling in the United States already have such protection under our democratic system, but the more than 18,000 Americans who now go to the Soviet Union annually have no such protection.

We learned recently what the absence of a Consular Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States meant when two young Americans, Craddock M. Gilmore, of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Buel Ray Wortham, of Little Rock, Ark., were arrested on charges of currency black marketing, with the additional charge of the theft of a souvenir bear from a Russian hotel against Wortham.

The men were arrested on October 1 of last year. It was 6 days before the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was notified that the Americans were being detained, and where. It was 5 days later before the first U.S. consular officer was allowed to visit them. A second visit was not permitted until October 28, and even then representatives of the U.S. Embassy could not talk with either of the two -- they were in solitary confinement -- about the charges against them.

It will take too much time to chronicle each request for a visit to the boys, and the various denials. Nor will I go through the details of the trials of both, and of the release and fining of Gilmore following the December trial, and the final release and fining of Wortham only last week.

The point of the matter is that the boys and their families and the communities and States in which they live were subject to great tensions and anxieties because of the uncertainty surrounding the treatment of the American citizens under Soviet law, and that some of this could have been alleviated had the Consular Treaty been in effect. As more and more American citizens go to the Soviet Union in the years ahead to try to get a better understanding of the people and their philosophy and to see how they live, there are likely to be other incidents, and we must be sure that we have done what we could to give our citizens all the protection possible.

The convention itself is not needed to provide for the opening of new consulates. That can already be done. This treaty contemplates possibly one additional consulate to be established in each country, and some 10 or 15 additional Soviet personnel to be admitted in addition to the 400 already in this country with diplomatic immunity, but it does guarantee rights for Americans in the U.S.S.R. Some of the mail I have received has insisted this would make it possible for Soviet consular officials to bring small atomic weapons in the United States -- that, to use the exact phrase in one of my letters, "atomic bombs up to one-half kiloton in size" could be smuggled in through "diplomatic pouch." I can only point out that Soviet diplomatic officials in this country have had the privilege of diplomatic immunity since the opening of the Soviet Embassy in Washington in 1934, and there is no evidence that they have ever misused these privileges to bring into this country weapons detrimental to the national security of the United States.

Now, I am not presuming to say that no Soviet consular official brought into this country under this treaty, or under any other agreement with the Soviet Union, will never become a security problem to us. But we can cancel the Consular Treaty any time on a month's notice. And we can expel any Soviet employee who is guilty of offensive conduct. And we have in the Federal Bureau of Investigation the best internal security agency in the world. Surely, a handful of additional Soviet citizens would not strain too greatly the vast and well organized facilities of the FBI.

I have been chagrined, as I know many of my colleagues have, by the blitz of frenzied mail against this treaty inspired by several of our right-wing lobbies. I regret that some of our sincere and patriotic citizens have been led to believe that ratification of this treaty would admit a horde of Soviet spies with suitcases filled with bombs. I regret that these citizens have had an opportunity to read and hear only one side of the argument on the treaty -- that they have had no way of getting perspective on it. I wish we had a better system of getting all the facts to our people.

Mr. President, this treaty has actually been in the making for many years. It was talked. about in 1933, when we first reestablished relations with Russia, and President Eisenhower proposed at the 1955 Geneva Summit Conference that "concrete steps" be taken to lower the barriers which now impede the opportunities for people to travel anywhere in the world. Secretary of State Christian Herter discussed the treaty in 1959 at Camp David with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko. Formal negotiations began in Moscow in 1963, and after 8 months of hard negotiations, the convention was signed on June 1, 1964, and submitted to the Senate by President Johnson on June 12, 1964. The Committee on Foreign Relations has twice held hearings on it, and reported it to this Congress by a favorable vote of 15 to 4. It has now been debated in the Senate for almost a week.

We have examined it carefully in all of its aspects. I am sure that any possible adverse effect to our national interest has been thoroughly explored and aired. The benefits far outweigh any dangers. We should ratify it now without further delay and put it into effect immediately.

The proposed reservations or even the understanding would, in my opinion, kill the treaty. Therefore, I will vote against reservations or understandings, and I will vote for the treaty.

Mr. SPARKMAN. Mr. President, I request the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. SPARKMAN. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Maine [Mr. MUSKIE].

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, in a newsletter to my constituents dated March 4, 1967, I stated the reasons why I will support ratification of the Consular Treaty.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of that newsletter be printed in the RECORD at this point.

There being no objection, the newsletter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

DEAR FRIENDS: While we wrestle with the problem of Vietnam, we should try to avoid becoming so involved in the debate over the conflict that we ignore or distort the opportunities for more peaceful forms of competition with Communist countries. Nowhere has this danger been more apparent than in the debate over the Consular Treaty between the United States and Russia.

In the past few weeks, what should have been a relatively innocuous policy decision -- initiated, incidentally, by President Eisenhower -- has become a major issue in the Senate.

Judging from my mail, many Americans misunderstand the Treaty. Their major objection seems to be a fear of increased espionage by members of Russian consulates in this country.

The fact is that the Treaty would not require the opening of a single consulate here or in Russia.

What the Treaty would do is enable members of our Moscow Embassy staff to give comfort and encouragement to touring Americans arrested or detained by Russian authorities. It also would set protective ground rules for an exchange of consulates if at some time in the future, we decide it is to our advantage to do so.

The Treaty would require the Russians to notify our Embassy personnel within three days of the detention of an American, and would enable Embassy personnel to visit the American within four days of the arrest, and visit with him on a regular basis thereafter.

Presently under Soviet law, any tourist or Russian citizen can be arrested and held for nine months, and sometimes longer, for investigation. In the cases involving Americans, our Embassy frequently is not notified of the detentions for weeks, if ever. Even when we are notified, we have no rights of visitation.

What this means to a detained American is prolonged isolation in a Russian prison with neither hope of seeing another American nor knowledge that his country knows or care of his imprisonment.

The importance of the Treaty grows each year as more Americans visit Russia. From 1962 to 1966, the number of Americans traveling in Russia increased 50 percent to 18,000. Since 1964, more than 20 Americans have been arrested or detained in Russia. One, Newcomb Mott, died mysteriously at Russian hands under these circumstances.

Russian tourists in America, numbering about 900 a year, already have the Treaty's protections in our open society without the Treaty.

With the Treaty, Americans in the Soviet Union would have more rights than any Russian citizen now possesses in his homeland.

The notification and visitation provisions of the Treaty are its most compelling features.

However, its ground rules for consular exchanges also are important because the opening of a single consulate in each country is contemplated, even though no formal proposals have been made or are under consideration.

Under the Treaty, the exchange of consulates would be the subject of careful negotiation on a strict quid-pro-quo basis. For instance, if an American consulate in Russia had a staff of 10 persons, the Soviets would be limited to the same number for their consulate here.

Normally, a consulate would have 10 to 15 officers, and neither Attorney General Ramsey Clark nor FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover regard this number as a problem which the FBI could not deal with effectively and efficiently. There are now 452 Russian diplomatic personnel in the United States.

The Treaty provides additional limitations and safeguards:

1. We would have the right to screen Russian personnel before agreeing to their assignment to our country;

2. We could prohibit Russian consular officers from traveling to sensitive areas in the United States;

3. We could expel the Russian officers if they proved undesirable;

4. We could close a Soviet consulate whenever we wished; and

5. We could cancel the Treaty on six months' notice.

Clearly, the Treaty represents concessions by the Russian Government which we have sought and which are regarded as being to our advantage.

For these reasons, I have supported Senate approval of the Treaty. It is another step in our search for a detente in the Cold War. It is one justifiable means of neutralizing the strains in American-Russian relations caused by the hot war in Vietnam. It is a small but important step in search of a lasting peace. And when I think of these small but sometimes difficult steps, I remember President Kennedy speaking at the Convocation at the University of Maine in October, 1963:

"While the road to ... peace is long and hard, and full of traps and pitfalls, that is no reason not to take each step we can safely take."

Sincerely,

EDMUND S. MUSKIE.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the first question which confronts us is this: Is the treaty in its present form, as developed in negotiations extending over several years, in our national interest?

I believe it is, for the reasons stated in my newsletter.

I believe the proposed commitments on our part are limited, acceptable, and properly safeguarded.

I believe the proposed commitments on the part of the Soviet Union are advantages and protections of substance to American citizens traveling in the Soviet Union.

I believe that the treaty in its present form is in the national interest, notwithstanding the fact that other differences and disputes between tie United States and the Soviet Union are not resolved by it.

The second question which confronts us is this: Is it realistic to expect that the Soviet Union would agree to additional commitments on her part involving no additional commitments on our part? Or to agree to a reduction in our commitments without reductions or compensating advantages to her?

An affirmative answer would have to be based upon an assumption that the treaty, in its present form, holds greater advantages to the Soviet Union than for us and the further assumption that she would concede the first assumption. Neither assumption is valid.

At best, therefore, we could expect not acquiescence, but the opening up of an enlarged area of disagreement, moving us away from the limited agreement we are considering, and with pretty dim prospects for an enlarged agreement.

The history of negotiations with the Soviet Union since World War II is that agreements come slowly, that they are limited, and that progress, when it is achieved at all, comes with small steps, not large ones.

Mr. President, each of us can suggest other problems we would like to see resolved by the treaty. Each of us could wish that this one document might wipe away all the tensions, the frustrations, and the dangers of the cold war. Each of us, I am sure, knows that no such single step is possible.

And so, Mr. President, we have the question whether, confronted by that reality, we should, in the words of President Kennedy, "Take each step we can safely take."

I think we should. I think this treaty is such a step. I think that to insist on a greater step as our price for agreement will endanger the prospect for the limited agreement represented by this treaty.

On October 19, 1963, Mr. President, in an address at the University of Maine, President Kennedy spoke on "The meaning of the test ban treaty." His advice on that occasion is appropriate to the decision before us. I ask unanimous consent that excerpts from that address be printed in the RECORD at this point.

There being no objection, the excerpts were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

One year ago this coming week, the United States and the world were gripped with a somber prospect of a military confrontation between the two great nuclear powers. The American people have good reason to recall with pride their conduct throughout that harrowing week. For they neither dissolved in panic nor rushed headlong into reckless belligerence. Well aware of the risks of resistance, they nevertheless refused to tolerate the Soviets' attempt to place nuclear weapons in this hemisphere, but recognized at the same time that our preparations for the use of force necessarily require a simultaneous search for fair and peaceful solutions....

A year ago it would have been easy to assume that all-out war was inevitable, that any agreement with the Soviets was impossible, and that an unlimited arms race was unavoidable. Today it is equally easy for some to assume that the Cold War is over, that all outstanding issues between the Soviets and our country can be quickly and satisfactorily settled, and that we shall now have, in the words of the Psalmist, an "abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth."

The fact of the matter is, of course, that neither view is correct. We have, it is true, made some progress on a long journey. We have achieved new opportunities which we cannot afford to waste. We have concluded with the Soviets a few limited, enforceable agreements or arrangements of mutual benefit to both sides and to the world.

But a change in the atmosphere and in emphasis is not a reversal of purpose. Mr. Khrushchev himself has said that there can be no coexistence in the field of ideology. In addition, there are still major areas of tension and conflict, from Berlin to Cuba to Southeast Asia. The United States and the Soviet Union still have wholly different concepts of the world, its freedom, its future. We still have wholly different views on the so-called wars of liberation and the use of subversion. And so long as these basic differences continue, they cannot and should not be concealed. They set limits to the possibilities of agreements; and they will give rise to further crises, large and small, in the months and years ahead, both in the areas of direct confrontation -- Germany and the Caribbean -- and in areas where events beyond our control could involve us both -- areas such as Africa and Asia and the Middle East.

In times such as these, therefore, there is nothing inconsistent in signing an atmospheric nuclear test ban, on the one hand, and testing underground on the other; about being willing to sell to the Soviets our surplus wheat while refusing to sell strategic items; about probing their interest in a joint lunar landing while making a major effort to master this new environment; or about exploring the possibilities of disarmament while maintaining our stockpile of arms. For all of these moves, and all of these elements of American policy and Allied policy toward the Soviet Union, are directed at a single, comprehensive goal -- namely, convincing the Soviet leaders that it is dangerous for them to engage in direct or indirect aggression, futile for them to attempt to impose their will and their system on other unwilling people, and beneficial to them, as well as to the world, to join in the achievement of a genuine and enforceable peace.

Historians report that in 1914, with most of the world already plunged in war, Prince Bulow, the former German Chancellor, said to the then Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, "How did it all happen?" And BethmannHollweg replied, "Ah, if only one knew." My fellow Americans, if this planet is ever ravaged by nuclear war, if 300 million Americans, Russians and Europeans are wiped out by a sixty-minute nuclear exchange, if the pitiable survivors of that devastation can then endure the ensuing fire, poison, chaos and catastrophe, I do not want one of those survivors to ask another, "How did it all happen?" and to receive the incredible reply. "Ah, if only one knew."

Therefore, while maintaining our readiness for war, let us exhaust every avenue for peace. Let us always make clear our willingness to talk, if talk will help, and our readiness to fight, if fight we must. Let us resolve to be the masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicion and emotion....

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. MONTOYA in the chair). The time of the Senator has expired.

Mr. SPARKMAN. I yield 2 additional minutes to the Senator from Maine.

Mr. MUSKIE. I should like to read the following excerpt from that address:

In times such as these, therefore, there is nothing inconsistent in signing an atmospheric nuclear test ban. on the one hand, and testing underground on the other; about being willing to sell to the Soviets our surplus wheat while refusing to sell strategic items; about probing their interest in a joint lunar landing while making a major effort to master this new environment; or about exploring the possibilities of disarmament while maintaining our stockpile of arms. For all of these moves, and all of these elements of American policy and Allied policy toward the Soviet Union, are directed at a single, comprehensive goal -- namely, convincing the Soviet leaders that it is dangerous for them to engage in direct or indirect aggression, futile for them to attempt to impose their will and their system on other unwilling people, and beneficial to them, as well as to the world, to join in the achievement of a genuine and enforceable peace.

Historians report that in 1914, with most of the world already plunged in war, Prince Bulow, the former German Chancellor, said to the then Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, "How did it all happen?" And BethmannHollweg replied, "Ah, if only one knew." My fellow Americans, if this planet is ever ravaged by nuclear war, if 300 million AmerScans, Russians and Europeans are wiped out by a sixty-minute nuclear exchange, if the pitiable survivors of that devastation can then endure the ensuing fire, poison. chaos and catastrophe, I do not want one of those survivors to ask another, "How did it all happen?" and to receive the incredible reply, "Ah, if only one knew."

Therefore, while maintaining our readiness for war, let us exhaust every avenue for peace. Let us always make clear our willingness to talk, if talk will help. and our readiness to fight, if fight we must. Let us resolve to be the masters, not the victims. of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicion and emotion....

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

Mr. MUNDT. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. MUNDT. Mr. President, I wish to spend a little time on this matter. I believe I can do it in 5 minutes. Thereafter I shall be happy to discuss with the majority leader the yielding back of time so that we can get on with the vote.

I wish to devote a little time to the second issue which I mentioned when we started the debate this afternoon. The first issue was: Is the Senate still prepared to exercise, when an occasion demands it, its power of advice in treaty making or are we going to accept the thrust of the three letters which have been put in by the State Department representatives, exhibits I, II, and III, on pages 6406 and 6407 of the RECORD, which are to the effect that if the Senate tampers with the treaty or exercises its advice in a meaningful way that means the treaty is automatically killed?

For the Senate to accept that doctrine would mean that we are simply out of the treaty making business. If we accept that doctrine, why does the State Department and the President send us a treaty at all if we cannot act on it and offer our advice? Why not just route it through the arm-twisting machine at the other end of the avenue and get an automatic, computerized, instantaneous assent and consent?

I submit that we should not contribute to the further decrease of senatorial dignity, power, and responsibility by accepting such a hypothesis, which the Senate has no constitutional right to adopt.

The second argument goes to the merits of reservation No. 1. It is clear cut. It is cogent and direct, and easy to understand. If we are going to exercise our function to advise, do we want to advise the State Department that we feel our consular officers and representatives of the press should have on the Russian side exactly the same rights, privileges and protections their people have on the American side? If we believe that, we should vote "yes," and if we do not believe that, we should vote “no.”

If we believe that the Senate can exercise the right to advise, we vote yes; if we do not believe it and accept the philosophy that we are here only to assent, we can vote no.

The question to decide is: Is it important that at long last we move in the direction of complete reciprocity in our dealings with Soviet Russia? If there is a detente they should accept this without argument. If there is this growing rapprochement, this amity between the two countries that we all hope and pray for, they can accept this and do it with alacrity. It need not delay the ratification of the treaty by Russia for 1 minute.

Secondarily is the question of the reservations we are called upon to consider. The Soviets will consider this treaty secondarily. They do not have to reconvene the conference. It simply would require acquiescence on their part with this good faith amendment, this rule of fair play, this complete reciprocity of the rights of nationals of both countries in both areas.

For that reason I recommend the adoption of executive reservation No. 1.

Mr. McGEE. Mr. President, the Consular Treaty should be ratified without reservation. I intend to oppose the reservation to the pact as introduced by the Senator from South Dakota. It would be a serious mistake to tie the proposed treaty in any way to Vietnam. Not only would this confuse issues, it would work to the disadvantage of the United States. Twenty years of cold war should have taught us by now that there are many, many variables at work on the national interests of the United States in many, many parts of the world. What becomes an effective tactic in one part of the world does not necessarily work in another. Since the breakup of the Communist monolith a few years ago, it is no longer wise or practical to cope with a potential Communist aggression with a single policy. Soviet Communists respond to one set of pressures; Chinese Communists, to yet a different type of pressures; and Ho Chi Minh Communists to still another.

A fundamental objective -- perhaps the fundamental objective -- in American foreign policy is to preserve a favorable balance of power in the world. This requires preventing aggression, whether in the East or in the West. How we best achieve that objective depends upon the particular crisis at hand. In Europe, for example, Soviet aggression was successfully stopped long ago, at least as far back as the critical test in Berlin in 1948.

Ever since then, time has been on the side of the free world as far as Europe is concerned. Each year has witnessed the erosion of a bit more of the so-called Iron Curtain lowered across Eastern Europe by the Russians during and after World War II. By trade, tourism, and diplomacy, new bridges have been built into the East. We have an opportunity now to penetrate that curtain in still another way; namely, through the pending Consular Treaty.

It is in our national interest to ratify the treaty, not because it helps the Soviets but rather because it helps us. It helps us in two ways. First, in the additional protection it affords individual Americans traveling in the Soviet Union; second, by easing East-West tensions in Europe. The easing of those tensions can only redound to the advantage of the West. We should not forget that the Iron Curtain was lowered to protect the Russians against contact with the West. Each breach in that protective curtain becomes more difficult for the Russians to live with than it does for the rest of us. Thus, building bridges to the East ought to remain as a constant objective of American foreign policy.