January 23, 1973
Page 2006
ARMS CONTROL
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, for the last several weeks, I have been deeply concerned about the commitment of the second Nixon administration to curtail further the arms race. A few days ago I made a statement on the floor of the Senate describing in detail the sources of my concern. Some of these same points were made most forcefully this morning by Marquis Childs in his column in the Washington Post. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Childs' column be printed
in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Jan. 23, 1973]
UNSETTLING SIGNS FOR ARMS CONTROL: WILL MOMENTUM BE LOST?
(By Marquis Childs)
To return to this capital from even a brief absence is to feel like Rip Van Winkle confronting a world utterly changed. Questioning those who have lived through the Nixon upheaval is of little help.
Why has so much of the government been turned upside down? We don't know. Only the secretive man in the White House, now entered on his second four year term, knows the answer. And, in a voice dropped to a whisper, we're not sure he knows.
The most dismaying change, in many ways the most mysterious, is the dismantling of the disarmament and arms control apparatus. Inaugural rhetoric cannot conceal the damage done to the effort that for a decade has made increasing progress toward controlling and to some degree scaling back the vast mountain of nuclear armaments with the judgment of life and death over all mankind.
What makes this more mysterious is that one of the great achievements of the Nixon first term was the nuclear arms agreement culminating in the President's mission to Moscow. With a limit on defensive missiles and a five year agreement to restrain further building of offensive weapons, it was a small beginning hailed around the world.
A dedicated public servant, Gerard C. Smith, with 20 years experience in the nuclear jungle, worked tirelessly for four years as chief American negotiator in the SALT talks at Vienna and Helsinki. When he went back at the start of SALT II he was without any clear and finally arrived at position approved by the White House. On returning from Geneva, the new site of the talks, Smith resigned.
In his place the President appointed U. Alexis Johnson, under secretary of state for political affairs. Johnson is a career diplomat with no experience in nuclear matters. Grievously overworked, suffering from ill health, he is within a year of retirement age. The private word is that his will be a temporary appointment.
But this can mean that the momentum growing out of the modest success of last year will be lost. It can also mean that the Joint Chiefs of Staff who have reluctantly gone along with arms limitation will have the dominant voice. Arms control specialists with long knowledge of the tortuous process of arriving at agreement with the Soviet Union are dismayed by the Johnson appointment, they say that he has been in the lap of the JCS for 10 years.
A further handicap is that Johnson will not be head, as was Smith, of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). The semi-autonomous agency created in 1961 has played an important part in developing programs and conducting research on the techniques of control and the verification of limitation agreements. A recent agency study showed that in 120 countries surveyed $207 billion was spent in 1970 for military purposes as against only $168 billion for education and $80 billion for health care.
The Arms control agency now seems in the process of being dismantled. A budget slash of 30 per cent will cut the agency back to $6.7 million. Division heads with long experience in disarmament were asked to submit their resignations. They have thus far had no response.
Happening throughout government, this is a sure fire prescription for demoralization.
Members of the General Advisory Commission on disarmament also were asked to submit their resignations. The commission includes distinguished men concerned over the years with the growing nuclear burden, one of them being William C. Foster who for seven years was head of the arms control agency. Chairman of the commission is John J. McCloy, a Republican with long time credentials in public life. McCloy has been trying in vain for several weeks to see the President and present the commission's view.
The President has made plain his intention of paring down one domestic program after another – education, poverty, welfare. But these parings will not bring the budget into balance. The only real economy can come out of defense with a total somewhere above $80 billion including all the costly new toys for the three services. The only way is a verifiable agreement with the Soviet Union to scale back this appalling burden.