The Company You Keep

Today has been designated by proponents of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to be the “CTBT Day of Action.” The plan apparently is to use this occasion to flex the muscles of the unreconstructed anti-nuclear movement with phone calls barraging the Capitol Hill switchboard, a demonstration on the Capitol grounds, Senate speeches and other agitation aimed at intimidating Majority Leader Trent Lott and Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms into clearing the way for this treaty’s ratification.

An insight into this strategy was offered last Friday by Sen. Byron Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat, who suggested in a colloquy with Mr. Lott that he intended to tie the Senate into knots if hearings and action on the CTBT’s resolution of ratification were not promptly scheduled. The
majority leader responded by indicating he had already spoken to Sen. Helms about scheduling such hearings. He added portentously, however, that “I cannot wait to hear how Jim Schlesinger describes the CTBT treaty. When he gets through damning it, they may not want more hearings.”

Mr. Dorgan responded: “Mr. Schlesinger will be standing in a mighty small crowd. Most of the folks who are supporting this treaty are the folks who Sen. Lott and I have the greatest respect for who have served this country as Republicans and Democrats, and military policy analysts for three or four decades, going back to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

This, then, is how the fight over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is shaping up. It will be one in which the pivotal block of senators – mostly Republicans but possibly including a number of “New Democrats” – decide how they will vote less on the basis of the merits of this accord than on the company they will be keeping when they choose sides.

This is not an unreasonable response to a treaty that deals with a matter as complex as nuclear testing. Such testing is, after all, an exceedingly esoteric field, mostly science but with a fair measure of art thrown in. For the best part of the past 55 years, it has been recognized to be an indispensable methodology for ensuring the reliability, safety and effectiveness of America’s nuclear deterrent.

Now, though, the Clinton administration would have us accept that it is no longer necessary, that our nuclear arsenal can continue to meet these exacting standards even if none of its weapons are tested via underground explosions ever again. This represents a stunning leap of logic (if not of faith), given the contrary argument made by many CTBT advocates in other contexts – notably, with respect to the F-22 and missile defenses. These weapons, we are told, cannot be tested enough; they should not be procured, let alone relied upon, the party line goes, unless and until the most exacting test requirements have been satisfied.

Whom is a senator to believe? The answer will not only determine his or her stance on the CTBT. It will also say a lot about the senator is question.

My guess – like Sen. Lott’s – is that, at the end of the day, sufficient numbers of senators will be guided by James Schlesinger on a matter that threatens to propel the United States inexorably toward unilateral nuclear disarmament. Few people in the nation have more authority and
credibility on this topic than he, the only man in history to have held the positions of chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, director of central intelligence, secretary of defense and secretary of energy. Mr. Schlesinger’s career has been made even more influential in the Senate
by virtue of his service in both Republican and Democratic Cabinets.

Then there are the 50 or so senior security policy practitioners who last week wrote Mr. Lott an open letter advising him that “the nation must retain an arsenal comprising modern, safe and reliable nuclear weapons, and the scientific and industrial base necessary to ensure the
availability of such weapons over the long term. In our professional judgment, the zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is incompatible with these requirements and, therefore, is inconsistent with America’s national security interests.

Among the many distinguished signatories of this letter are: former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick; two of President Reagan’s National Security Advisers (Richard Allen and William Clark); former Attorney General Edwin Meese; and 10 retired four-star generals and admirals
(including the former commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Louis Wilson). When these sorts of men and women challenge the zero-yield CTBT, as Mr. Schlesinger has done, on the grounds it will contribute to the steady erosion of our deterrent, will be impossible to verify and will make no appreciable contribution to slowing proliferation, responsible senators cannot help but be concerned.

To be sure, the Clinton administration and its arms control allies have generated their own letters offering “celebrity” endorsements of the CTBT. Senators weighing these endorsements, however, would be well-advised to consider the following, obviously unrehearsed statement of
support for the Treaty given by one such prominent figure – the serving chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton. It came last week in a congressional hearing in response to a softball question from Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, about why Gen. Shelton thought the CTBT is in our national interest. The chairman responded by saying:

“Sir, I think from the standpoint of the holding back on the development of the testing which leads to wanting a better system, developing new capabilities, which then leads you into arms sales or into proliferation. Stopping that as early as we can, I think, is in the best interest of the international community in general, and specifically in the best interest of the United States.”

Stripped of the veneer of this sort of support, the zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban can be seen for what it is: the product primarily of the decades-long agitation of the looney left who, in their efforts to “disarm the ones they’re with,” have made themselves the kind of company few thoughtful senators should want to keep – on CTBT Day of Action or when the votes on this treaty ultimately get counted.