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| REJECTION OF THE TREATY | |
 October 14, 1999 
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| SENATE PRESIDENT: Not having received
the KWAME HOLMAN: With that announcement, the United States last night became the first of the world's nuclear powers to reject a formal end to nuclear weapons testing. The vote handed President Clinton a serious foreign policy setback, and predictably, it was the first issue he addressed at his afternoon press conference today. PRESIDENT CLINTON: Yesterday, hard-line Republicans irresponsibly
forced a vote against the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. This was partisan
politics of the worst kind because it was so blatant, and because of the risks
it poses to the safety of the American people and the world. What the Senate seeks
is to abandon an agreement that requires other countries to do KWAME HOLMAN: The President also complained Senate leaders didn't give administration officials enough time to lobby for support of the treaty. PRESIDENT CLINTON: Until we were given eight or ten days notice, we had no earthly idea there would ever be hearings, much less a vote on this. So this whole thing came as a complete surprise to us. KWAME HOLMAN: After hearing the President's words, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott told a different story to reporters in the Capitol. He said Senate Democrats had threatened to tie up all other legislation unless the treaty was brought to the Senate floor. |  | ||||||||||||||||||
| To vote, or not to vote? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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SEN. TRENT LOTT: So I went to Senator Biden and KWAME HOLMAN: And once again Lott made no apologies for the defeat of the test ban treaty. Last night on the Senate floor, he outlined the reasons all but four Republicans chose to vote against it. SEN. TRENT LOTT: As has been pointed out by numerous experts before the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee and by many Senators in extended floor debate, this treaty does not meet even the minimal standards of previous arms-control treaties. That is, it is ineffectual, even dangerous, in my judgment. It is unverifiable and it is unenforceable. As one of my distinguished colleagues put it: "The CTBT is not the same caliber as the arms control treaties that have come before the Senate in recent decades." This treaty is ineffectual because it would not stop other nations from testing or developing nuclear weapons, but it could preclude the United States from taking appropriate steps to ensure the safety and the reliability of the United States nuclear arsenal. KWAME HOLMAN: And Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms faulted the President for recruiting European leaders to try to pressure the Senate into passing the treaty.
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| Pleas from U.S. allies | ||||||||||||||||||||
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KWAME HOLMAN: President Clinton today had a different view of the involvement of European leaders. PRESIDENT CLINTON: The heads of the governments of Britain, France, and Germany took the extraordinary step of writing an op-ed piece -- we don't have any better allies -- they took the extraordinary step of writing an op-ed piece, asking us to ratify this treaty and in any case not to defeat it. So this was also an amazing rebuke to our allies. We say, "Okay, you guys are with every time we need you -- the Gulf War, the Balkans, always in NATO. You're there. But you ask us to do something for your common safety? Go take a hike." And, you know, I think that's a very tenuous position. KWAME HOLMAN: The President was asked about the effect of the treaty's defeat on the United States' leadership role against nuclear testing. HELEN THOMAS: Hasn't the treaty rejection really wiped out our moral authority to ask other nations around the world to stop testing? PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, let me say I
had the occasion to run into three ambassadors last night of nations that strongly
support the test ban treaty, and they were concerned. They didn't know what to
say to their REPORTER: As part of the same question, if you were the government of China and publicly stated on the record that you're looking to modernize your nuclear arsenal, why would you not take this now was a green light to test? And will you do anything to try to convince the Chinese not to do so? PRESIDENT CLINTON: All I can tell you is we're not going to test. I signed that treaty. It still binds us, unless I go in effect and erase our name, unless the President does that and takes our name off, we are bound by it. KWAME HOLMAN: Even as the charges of partisanship were exchanged today, two Senate moderates, Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska appeared together this afternoon and offered an olive branch. They pledged to seek consensus in the Senate for a compromise that might revive the nuclear test ban treaty. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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affirmative
votes of two-thirds of the Senators present, the resolution is not agreed to,
and the Senate does not advise and consent to the ratification of the treaty.
what
we have already done; an agreement that constrains Russia and China, India, and
Pakistan from developing more dangerous nuclear weapons; that helps to keep other
countries out of the nuclear weapons business all together; that improves our
ability to monitor dangerous weapons activities in other countries. Even worse,
they have offered no alternative, no other means of keeping countries around the
world from developing nuclear arsenals and threatening our security. 
said,
"Okay, you want it? We'll schedule it for debate and a vote." So when
it's argued that this was precipitous, they didn't know it was coming, they didn't
have enough time, there wasn't enough hearings, that is all baloney. I was demanded
and forced into having a debate and a vote. And so when we agreed, then they said,
"Well, wait a minute. There may not be the votes to ratify this treaty."
SEN.
JESSE HELMS: It is now apparent that the Clinton administration has been all over
the lot. They've run up a telephone bill to London and to Germany begging everybody
to send letters. And Tony Blair's a pretty good fellow, but I don't know that
he knows very much about what the issues are here. Anyway it's neither here or
there because he doesn't have a vote either. 
governments
back home. And what I told them was that we were in a battle with the new isolationists
in the Republican Party. They see this treaty against the backdrop of the failure
to pay the U.N. dues, the failure to shoulder some of our other responsibilities,
the failure to pass a bill that would meet our obligations to the Middle East
peace process and our obligations to keep working with the Russians to take down
their nuclear arsenal. But what I told them was the American people always get
it right, and we are not going to reverse 40 years of commitment on nonproliferation;
that the treaty is still on the Senate calendar, that it will be considered, that
we have to keep working forward, and that I have no intention of doing anything
other than honoring the obligations of the treaty imposed on the United States.