Center Releases Open Letter to Senator Lott from Fifty-two Top Security Policy-Practitioners Opposing C.T.B.T.

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration, its Democratic allies in the Senate and an
array of anti-nuclear activists are reportedly threatening to disrupt legislative operations next
week. Their goal is to force the Senate to ignore the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty’s myriad,
fatal flaws and to provide its advice and consent to an accord President Clinton has called arms
control’s “longest-sought, hardest-fought” goal. An early focus of this campaign will be 14
September — which has been designated CTBT Day of Action by its
organizers — featuring call-ins and other public agitation.

On the eve of this throw-back to the tactics and substance of the discredited “Nuclear Freeze’
campaign, the Center for Security Policy released an Open Letter to Senate Majority Leader
Trent Lott (see the attached). This letter was signed by over fifty
of the Nation’s most eminent
security policy practitioners, people who have been involved for years in defining and
implementing policies of “peace through strength” the CTBT would repudiate and undermine,
perhaps irreversibly.

The Open Letter’s signatories include: former Cabinet officers (National
Security Advisors to
the President Richard V. Allen and William P. Clark and UN Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick),
retired four-star general officers (Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Louis H.
Wilson and
Assistant Commandants Gens. Raymond G. Davis and Joseph J. Went; Commander-in-Chief
Strategic Air Command Gen. Russell E. Dougherty; Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic Adm.
Wesley McDonald; Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Army, Europe Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen;
Commander of U.S. Air Combat Command Gen. John M. Loh; Air Force Vice Chief of Staff
Gen. Lawrence A. Skantze; Commander-in-Chief, Army Readiness Command Gen. Donn A.
Starry; Commanding General, Army Material Command Gen. Louis C. Wagner, Jr.);
scientist/officials with tremendous expertise in nuclear matters (former
Science Advisor to
the President Dr. William R. Graham, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy
Dr. Robert Barker; and former Assistant Secretary of Energy Troy E. Wade II); arms
control
experts (former Assistant Directors of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
Kathleen
Bailey and Leon Sloss and Ambs. Henry F. Cooper, Jr. and Robert G. Joseph) and one of the
most respected legislative leaders on military matters (the retired Chairman of
the House Rules
Committee, Rep. Gerald Solomon).

The Open Letter reads in part:

We believe that the United States will require for the foreseeable future a credible
nuclear deterrent. This requirement is one America uniquely faces in light of its need
to provide extended deterrence — a need that has not disappeared with the end of the
Cold War and that, if anything, may increase with the proliferation of weapons of
mass….We consider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by President Clinton
in 1996 to be inconsistent with vital U.S. national interests. We believe the Senate
must reject the permanent ban on testing that this Treaty would impose so long
as the Nation depends upon nuclear deterrence to safeguard its security.

The Center urges Senators to weigh carefully the arguments of these highly respected
and
accomplished authorities and, in so doing, to discount dubious appeals for the CTBT’s
ratification.