CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

March 10, 1969

Page 5751

Mr. GORE. . . . There are an estimated 20 defensive missiles surrounding Moscow. What protection does that provide for Moscow? If the Soviets thought that 20 would do the job, maybe that would be the reason why they did not complete the deployment. Let us suppose that those 20 are in fact perfect instruments of technological sophistication and that if the United States should, God forbid, launch a nuclear missile attack upon the Soviet Union, each one of these 20 anti-missile missiles would perform perfectly and intercept and destroy the first 20 that arrived oven Moscow.

Suppose there were 920 more missiles on the way. What protection would those 20 missiles give to the people of Moscow?

I heard someone on the television not long ago say, "Why would the Soviets deploy 20 missiles unless they thought they were good?" I suppose the French now wonder why they built the Maginot Line. And I suppose we can wonder why we spent $1.6 billion on the McNamara line that saved nobody but cost many lives. Ultimately, it was no good at all.

I suppose there is wonder as to why $23 billion has been spent on missile systems that have been utterly useless.

It is time to think, and I have confidence that our President is thinking, and thinking seriously. I am confident of that. I hope he gives heed to the advice of the Foreign Relations Committee expressed in its report. This is an exercise of the Senate's constitutional function.

Mr. ALLOTT. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. GORE. I yield.

Mr. ALLOTT. As I understand the gist of the Senator's argument at this particular point, he is saying that first the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty should be adopted, and then, as he used the words, in the language of the blacksmith, we should strike while the iron is hot, to enter into or attempt to enter into complete disarmament throughout the world.

Mr. GORE. No. May I correct the Senator? I did not use the term "complete disarmament." The next step to which I referred was to enter into good faith negotiations

Mr. ALLOTT. Leading to disarmament?

Mr. GORE. Which this treaty obligates us to do, on the limitations of the nuclear armaments race.

Mr. ALLOTT. That is correct.

Mr. GORE. I might say that it is the position, previously stated, of the U.S. Government ultimately to seek general and complete disarmament. But this is a goal in the distant future. I believe this goal must be approached by phases, by steps. Ratification of this treaty, in my opinion, would be a step. I believe the next step should be an agreement to mutually limit the nuclear armaments race.

I am urging -- and the Senate committee has urged, by this report -- the President to consider deferring deployment of anti-ballistic-missile missiles until a good faith negotiation can be had.

Does that explain it?

Mr. ALLOTT. Yes. I understand that what the Senator is urging the President to do is to get to the negotiating, to take one of these steps -- step by step -- down the road leading to a disarmament. I will not classify the nature of that disarmament.

But what bothers me a little is this: I supposed we had been doing this for the last 6 years because of the agreement which had been reached in the Test-Ban Treaty. The Test-Ban Treaty was adopted in 1963. I read from the preamble to it:

Proclaiming as their principal aim the speediest possible achievement of an agreement on general and complete disarmament under strict international control, in accordance with the objectives of the United Nations, which would put an end to the armaments race and eliminate the incentive to the production and testing of all kinds of weapons, including nuclear weapons, seeking to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time, determined to continue negotiations to this end, and desiring to put an end to the contamination of man's environment by radioactive substances.

Does not this preamble clearly say that, as Americans, we and the former President should have been doing for the last 5 or 6 years what the Senator is proposing now that President Nixon proceed to do under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?

Mr. GORE. The preamble, which the Senator has read, undoubtedly states the general goal and obligations of the parties to the treaty.

What is specifically referred to in article VI of the pending treaty is negotiation for the mutual non-deployment -- if I may use that term -- of defensive missile systems.

Does that answer the Senator?

Mr. ALLOTT. Yes.

The only point, I think, is that under article VI we agree to agree to negotiate. I voted for the Test Ban Treaty, not without a few red-hot letters from my constituents, I must say. But I voted for the Test-Ban Treaty, which contains this language in its preamble: "a general and complete disarmament under strict international control, put an end to the armaments race -- determined through continued negotiation to this end."

We have been doing this, or at least the President is supposed to have been doing it, for the last 6 years -- the President and the State Department.

Mr. GORE. I should like to make this observation to the distinguished Senator. Having participated in the negotiations of both, I think there is a distinction.

The Senator has read from the preamble of the Limited Test-Ban Treaty, but article VI of the pending treaty is an operative feature of the treaty. Therefore, the obligation to negotiate is not general but specific in the pending treaty.

As the chairman of the committee, the able junior Senator from Arkansas, has said, we do not obligate ourselves to agree. We obligate ourselves to negotiate in good faith, obviously in the hope of reaching agreement.

The distinction I wish to point out is that the provision which the Senator has read is a preambular paragraph in the Limited Test-Ban Treaty, while article VI is an operative paragraph and thus becomes an obligation.

Mr. ALLOTT. The Senator is correct in that, but I do not believe there is any question in his mind that the preamble of the Test-Ban Treaty spells out the purpose of the treaty.

Mr. GORE. Yes; I agree.

Mr. ALLOTT. The Senator has spoken of participating in the various conferences. Does he know or is he aware of whether or not the Committee on Foreign Relations had any part in the writing of the present draft of the Nonproliferation Treaty?

Mr. GORE. I know this: The Committee on Foreign Relations was kept constantly and currently and fully advised about the negotiations. The proposed drafts, step by step, were submitted to the committee. I can say from personal knowledge that Ambassador Foster and Ambassador Fisher kept former Senator Hickenlooper, my fellow Senate adviser-delegate, and me as fully advised as we were willing to give the time to become advised. And the staff of the Committee on Foreign Relations, the chairman of the committee, and the membership of the committee had available to them the fullest consultation with our representatives at this conference. So the answer is, "Yes."

Mr. ALLOTT. And when was the conference held?

Mr. GORE. I have not the exact date.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. Approximately 4 years.

Mr. GORE. It has been a long time.

Mr. ALLOTT. I thank the Senator.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, first, I would say to the distinguished Senator from Tennessee that I thoroughly appreciate the lucid discussion he has given us not only of this treaty but also of the related issue of the anti-ballistic-missile problem.

I have learned something this afternoon as I always do when listening to the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. GORE. I thank the able Senator. (At this point, Mr. SAXBE assumed the chair as Presiding Officer.)

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, for more than two decades, the United States has sought to bring a halt to the spread of nuclear weapons. Every American President, from Harry S. Truman to Richard Nixon, has committed his administration to that goal. The American people have overwhelmingly supported all our efforts to reach realistic understandings with other countries to stop the nuclear spread -- to end the threat of a world armed to the teeth with the implements of its own ruin.

Now those efforts have borne tangible fruit, and the Senate is called on to give its advice and consent to the ratification of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed last summer by the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and almost 90 other countries.

President Nixon has termed the treaty "an important step in our endeavor to curb the spread of nuclear weapons." The Committee on Foreign Relations has found that the treaty is "the best that can be negotiated at this time" and has, on two occasions, urged that the Senate act favorably upon it.

I share these judgments without reservation, and I call upon the Senate to ratify the treaty while time remains to substitute reason for the slow unraveling of world security.

No one could rightly say that the Nonproliferation Treaty will itself guarantee that this or future generations will be saved from nuclear war. Even when the treaty comes into force, patient negotiation will be required to extend its provisions to additional important countries and to reach practical agreements on safeguards over peaceful nuclear activities. In and of itself, the treaty does nothing about the vast arsenals the nuclear powers now possess, and that could, at any time, destroy mankind. It is to this point that the distinguished Senator from Tennessee (Mr. GORE) addressed himself this afternoon.

But the treaty buys us time, precious time, to gain control over our destiny. With American adherence, coupled with energetic efforts to bring the treaty's mechanisms into force among the widest possible number of states, the Nonproliferation Treaty can help stop nuclear arms races from multiplying around the world. Without the United States, the effort to stop proliferation can be no more successful today than the League of Nations was 50 years ago. The tragedy for the world would be all the greater.

Since achieving the role of a major power early in this century, our burdens of leadership have grown. We face enormous demands on our patience and strength in meeting global commitments, while our society at home undergoes stresses more dramatic and far reaching than at any time in history.

For our own security and the security of our friends, this country can never withdraw from its central responsibility for the preservation of peace. In all prudence, we can, and we must, work to keep the dangers of nuclear war from getting worse, and we must be willing to take some risks in that direction.

It is for this reason -- its elemental prudence -- that I support the NonproliferationTreaty, as I supported the limited Test-Ban Treaty 5 years ago. Eighty Senators voted in favor of the test ban then. This treaty, which complements and strengthens the mechanisms of the Test-Ban Treaty, is a further step along the same path of reason.

There are three basic respects in which I find the merits of the Nonproliferation Treaty compelling.

First, the treaty promises to be effective in creating a global consensus against the growth of nuclear arms races to new and terrifying levels of violence. For the almost 90 non-nuclear nations already pledging to accept a commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons, the treaty represents relief from the prospect of deepening instability and the enormous cost these weapons represent in the diversion of resources. Although several important non-nuclear nations have yet to agree they will adhere to the treaty, the consensus developed on behalf of the treaty will bring united pressures to bear upon the holdouts. And even if nations such as West Germany, Israel, and India do not unequivocally block out their options to acquire nuclear weapons, broad acceptance of the treaty by others will serve as a useful restraint to hinder and deny legitimacy to unilateral decisions on the acquisition of such weapons.

From the point of view of U.S. security and diplomacy, the treaty would thus dramatically lessen the risk that the spread of nuclear weapon capabilities would require major expansions of American commitments to protect threatened allies. At the same time, pressures on the United States and other nuclear powers to foster or tolerate selective proliferation would be negated by reciprocal commitments blocking the further spread of nuclear weapons.

Second, the treaty's safeguards provision offers a major breakthrough in the principle of international inspection of arms limitations agreements. This is of utmost importance as a working precedent for the kind of reciprocal verification necessary for effective arms control.

When international atomic energy agency safeguards are applied to nonweapon states, major acceptance will have been achieved of the principle that arms reduction requires meaningful verification. The United States has long asserted that principle, but the Communists have rejected it, providing the major stumbling block to all efforts toward negotiated arms controls.

International inspection will, in turn, make possible the exploitation of the atom for peaceful purposes at the fastest pace technology will realistically permit, without the fear that peaceful projects will serve as the cover for nuclear weapons. I, for one, am fully satisfied with the assurances forwarded to the Senate that American participation in these peaceful nuclear activities can be conducted on a sound and practical basis.

Finally, the treaty embodies a unique pledge shared by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union to work to control the arms race between the major powers. In the words of the Foreign Relations Committee, the treaty "formalizes the mutual concern" of these major powers "in containing the spread of nuclear weapons," embodying "a commitment to pursue with good faith and urgency new arms limitations agreements."

The distinguished Senator from Tennessee (Mr. GORE) has most appropriately highlighted the importance of article VI of the treaty as a quid pro quo, between the nonweapons powers on the one hand, who are asked to give up their options for nuclear status, and the nuclear signatories on the other, whose nuclear competition represents a constant threat to world peace. The treaty's pledge to good faith negotiation comes at a welcome time. The effort to line up nonweapons powers to complete the Nonproliferation Treaty will benefit from early negotiations by the major powers, and the prospects of meaningful agreements in these negotiations will, in turn, be strengthened by the climate of trust and give-and-take which the success of the Nonproliferation Treaty can help create.

What we are undertaking to do, Mr. President, is to create what cannot be created unless each country is willing to take some risk -- in a climate of mutual trust and risk-taking.

It is my earnest hope that the shared commitment of the Nonproliferation Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union can now be broadened into other fields. Getting on with the Nonproliferation Treaty, after almost 5 years of effort, has thus become a desirable, and even necessary basis on which to strengthen this promise of United States-Soviet cooperation -- in strategic arms talks, and perhaps too in such other related areas of vital U.S. concern as Vietnam and the Middle East.

One would not dare predict what a single step in the way of cooperation might lead to, but he can surely hope that a single step can lead to other steps which might include a resolution of the Vietnam and Middle East crises.

Mr. President, it has been a long, long time since John F. Kennedy called on the Senate to ratify the limited nuclear Test Ban Treaty and "let history record, that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step."

The next step, I submit, is the agreement before us today.

I urge the Senate to act promptly and favorably upon the Nonproliferation Treaty, in the interest of moving on to the further efforts and opportunities for peace that lie ahead.

Mr. President, the question was raised a few moments ago, in colloquy between the distinguished Senator from Colorado and the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, as to why a similar commitment for additional reduction of arms has not been implemented in the 5 years which have elapsed.

In part, this is so, I am sure, Mr. President, because both sides got tangled up in the emotionalism of the Vietnam issue and lost their sense of self-restraint and their limited feeling of trust and confidence in the other's intentions which was gained when we ratified the Test Ban Treaty.

Here is an opportunity to reinstate it in a limited way. We cannot hope to break down the walls of suspicion, distrust, and hostility with a single step, but we can move in that direction.

It is for that reason above all, Mr. President, that I intend to vote for ratification of the treaty and urge my colleagues to do likewise.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield?

Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. I join the Senator in his remarks and compliment him on the eloquent way he has expressed what he believes to be the most important part of this treaty. That is the most important aspect of this treaty, to move toward the reestablishment of some degree of confidence and trust between the two great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

I think that is really the essence of it. The details, with regard to peacetime use, and so forth, are important, of course, but subsidiary to all these points is the objective which the Senator from Maine has expressed so well.

While I am on my feet, would the Senator allow me to make reference to the statement made by the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. GORE). The Senator from Tennessee, more than any other member of the Foreign Relations Committee, has spent time in this field and has made a greater contribution to the successful negotiations on this treaty, and prior matters in this area, than any other member. He has taken a great interest and spent long time and effort in representing the committee at the meetings in Geneva and elsewhere.

He made a fine speech a moment ego. I cannot see how either of the arguments of the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Tennessee can be refuted. I congratulate them both.

Mr. MUSKIE. May I take this opportunity to compliment the Senator from Arkansas for focusing on article 6 in the course of the hearings on the treaty. If the Soviet Union is listening, and I am sure that it is, and it will focus upon this fact, and focus upon article 6 as a contributing influence in the ratification of the treaty by the Senate, we might very well, in this way, contribute to some move in the direction of negotiations on missile control.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. I appreciate that. I think the Senator is quite correct. This is a matter, as the Senator from Tennessee so well described, which has been under consideration for several years. I think it is the No. 1 thing: the desire to move toward a limitation of the arms race. To me, that is the most important single element of anything here. If any progress can be made in that direction, then we are moving in the direction the Senator said; that is, of reestablishment of some limited degree of confidence which is so essential to making progress toward a more peaceful world. I think that the Senator is quite right.

Mr. GORE. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield?

Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.

Mr. GORE. I ask the Senator to yield to me so that I might express appreciation to the able chairmen of the Committee on Foreign Relations for his generous remarks.

In that connection, let me express my appreciation also for the practice which the able chairman permits himself, of giving members of his committee opportunities and providing latitude and encouragement for individual contribution.

The case in point is the hearing now underway by the Disarmament Subcommittee. Tomorrow, there will be another session. The full committee is invited and, indeed, all Senators are invited.

It will be en educational hearing. Once again, tomorrow, we will have the benefit of testimony before us of three of the most distinguished intellectuals who could be invited, each of whom graciously accepted our invitation, not to prove my point or the point of some other member of the committee, but objectively to analyze the problem, which is an overwhelming one.

Mr. President, this may be the first major decision in the overwhelming issue of the next decade; how the resources, the talents, and the energies of our people shall be allocated, between its defense forces, on the one hand, and all the other needs of the American people, on the other.

It may be one more step -- as the Senator says, one step hopefully leads to another -- in building a bridge of coexistence.

Mr. MUSKIE. I might at this point appropriately refer to something the Senator said earlier -- that, in order to build these bridges, we must find common areas of interest which represent the vital interests of each country. Each time we do that, we can build a bridge. I agree with his very apt phrase that we have a mutuality of self-preservation in all these matters.

I compliment both of my senior colleagues for their interest and their effective leadership end statesmanship.

Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I rise briefly to support the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and those Senators who have spoken for the ratification of the Nonproliferation Treaty. We had many hearings. We thought about the matter very deeply. Some of the arguments that have been made against the treaty have been sensible, but, in general, the arguments in favor of its ratification would seem to me to far outweigh the arguments against it.

Last fall, on the floor of the Senate I commented on a recommendation of the majority of the Foreign Relations Committee in regard to deposit of the instrument of ratification of the treaty.

The committee report suggested that after ratification by the Senate, formal deposit of the ratification could be delayed as a tactical move. At that time, I objected that formal deposit of the ratification was a ministerial act and that sanctioning discretionary delay by the executive branch would constitute a bad precedent. I am delighted that the suggestion of discretionary delay does not appear in the committee report this time. I continue to believe that, if the treaty is ratified, the instrument of ratification should be promptly deposited.