June 13, 1973
Page 19470
TEST BAN
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Senate Resolution 67, urging the President to take a new initiative to achieve a permanent halt to all nuclear testing.
I introduced this resolution on February 20 of this year with strong support from bipartisan list of Senators.
Today, the major sponsors of this resolution, which represents an amalgam of resolutions which I and Senators HART and MATHIAS introduced last year, issued a statement following the committee action. I ask unanimous consent that this statement be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
STATEMENT BY SENATORS EDWARD M. KENNEDY, PHILIP A. HART, CHARLES MCC. MATHIAS, JR., EDMUND MUSKIE, HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, AND CLIFFORD P. CASE ON SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE APPROVAL OF TEST
BAN RESOLUTION
We are pleased that the Senate Foreign Relations committee today has voted 14 to 1 to favorably report Senate Resolution 67 calling for an immediate and permanent end to all nuclear testing.
This resolution which Senator Kennedy introduced with Senators Hart, Mathias, Muskie, Humphrey and Case now has 33 Senate co-sponsors.
Ten years ago this week, President Kennedy announced a similar suspension of nuclear testing in a speech at American University and concluded the Partial Test Ban Treaty with the USSR less than two months later.
With the pending arrival of Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev, we urge the President to act now on the resolution reported by the committee by proposing to Mr. Brezhnev that both nations immediately suspend all further underground testing and undertake new negotiations for a permanent comprehensive test ban treaty.
A mutual end to nuclear testing would symbolize more forcefully than any other single action the determination by the major powers to clamp a lid on the arms race. A year ago, SALT I was concluded, placing the first ceiling on the quantitative arms race. A CTB would be the first major qualitative restriction, one which both complements and reinforces the SALT agreement itself.
The resolution sets forth the history of efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons including the adoption of the non-proliferation treaty of 1968. Adoption of Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the major powers would be the single most important element in reinforcing the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty and reducing the chance of the spread of nuclear weaponry to other nations.
The resolution does not tie our hands in any way as to the kind of proposal that should be put forward at Geneva, but it does affirm Senate support for a new initiative to be taken. New technology in the field of verification makes it feasible and desirable for a new proposal to be set forth.
The resolution urges, first, that the President propose a suspension of underground testing to the Soviet Union, a suspension which would remain in effect only so long as the Soviet Union respects it.
Second, it proposes that a new proposal be set forth to the Soviet Union and other nations for a permanent treaty to ban all nuclear tests.
The U.S. has not made a new proposal to achieve a Test Ban during the last decade. During this period of ten years, our ability to detect Soviet underground tests have improved immensely, the negotiating climate has changed dramatically, and our arsenal has grown immensely.
Now is the time for the unfinished business of arms control to be completed. The test ban is a test case as to the degree of commitment of the major nuclear powers to turn the energies of man away from the weapons of mass destruction.