Senate puts off vote on test ban treaty

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate put off action on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) until Wednesday as senators moved closer toward reaching an agreement on delaying the vote indefinitely.

"The vote will not occur in any event before some time during the day tomorrow," said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. "We don't have an agreement at this point to do anything but to go forward with the vote, but we're exploring all kinds of possibilities and that's where we stand."

However, an agreement seemed closer after Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said Tuesday that he was ready to promise both in writing and in a statement on the Senate floor that he would not seek for a vote on the treaty until 2001, when there would be a new president and a new Congress.

Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said he had discussed language of an agreement with other GOP senators and was dealing with some objections. "So far we don't have an agreement but we're working on it," he said.

Under the proposed compromise, Lott would make a motion for the Senate to return the treaty to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said GOP and Democratic aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity. That motion would only require a simple 51-vote majority.

"Everybody's looking for a peaceful exit," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut).

The Republicans wanted President Bill Clinton to say in writing that he would not bring up the treaty before the end of his term but the president so far has refused to do so. The Republicans don't want the issue revived as a presidential-year election issue.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Clinton had gone as far as he could and isn't going further. Lockhart said that for Clinton to promise not to bring up the treaty -- in writing -- would send a "destructive message" to the rest of the world.

It would suggest "we're out of the nonproliferation business until 2001," Lockhart said. "That is not a responsible position for a president of the United States to take, and he will not take it."

Supporters of the treaty spent the day trying to avoid a vote. Democratic leaders had suggested a procedural move that would have sent the Senate to other business and, in effect, indefinitely postpone action on the pact. The move would only require a 51-vote majority while the treaty requires a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, and the Democrats hoped that they could get enough Republican moderates to prevail.

But Republicans agreed during a closed-door meeting that the Democratic tactic would violate Senate custom and usurp from Lott a calendar-setting authority that traditionally is the majority leader's.

Sen. John Warner, a treaty opponent, and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York), who supports the treaty, also circulated a letter asking senators to delay the vote. Warner suggested to senators that if the letter gained more than a majority of 50, it would make it easier for Senate leaders to put off the vote.

"I find on both sides of the aisle are senators of a like mind who feel that, in the interests of national security, now is not the time, today, to vote for that treaty," the Virginia Republican said in a Senate speech.

The letter also recommends that the Senate not take up the treaty until after next year's presidential election.

As negotiations to delay the treaty continued, so did the debate over the treaty itself. Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the Senate should not approve the treaty because it would be gambling with the nation's nuclear deterrent capability.

"Simply put, the CTBT at this point and time jeopardizes our ability to maintain the safety and reliability of our nuclear arsenal," he said. "Perhaps not right away, but almost certainly over the long run."

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) also argued that the Senate should continue debate on the issue but delay its vote.

"I hope we will consider the consequences of defeating this treaty -- not on its merits but really because of the political box we find ourselves in," he said. "This treaty cannot fall victim to politics. The consequences of its defeat will be felt from Moscow to New Delhi, from Beijing to Baghdad, and this body, the greatest deliberative body in the world, would be sending the message that we did not want to spend more time on one of the most important issues facing the world today."

But others called for the Senate to defeat the treaty. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) said the Senate's constitutional responsibility was to perform the equivalent of quality control.

"We in the Senate are entitled -- indeed, we are obliged-- to second-guess the president's national interest calculations regarding treaties," he said. "Inevitably from complaints from aboard, including from friends, if we upset the CTBT apple cart but that unpleasantness would be minor and transitory, especially in light of permanent harm the CTBT would do to our national security. The embarrassment for the president for buying into such a flawed treaty in the first place is not desirable but the Senate cannot avert it at any price."

On Monday, Clinton formally asked the Senate's majority leader to postpone a vote on a nuclear test ban treaty rather than face a significant public defeat on the issue. The administration is well short of the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, needed for ratification.

But a spokesman for Lott called the president's letter only "a first step," since Lott wanted Clinton to agree to drop the issue for the duration of his term.

In a brief letter to Lott, Clinton said a public defeat of the treaty could "severely harm the national security of the United States, damage our relationship with our allies, and undermine our historic leadership over forty years ... in reducing the nuclear threat."

National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, in an interview with CNN, said the president made the formal request because it was clear the treaty would be defeated if a vote were held, and the administration believes a public defeat would significantly undermine U.S. leadership in the area of nuclear non-proliferation.

"What's wrong for the United States is to defeat the treaty and to lose our moral leadership here," he said.

Berger also said the Republican demand that Clinton not bring the treaty back up was a mistake.

"I think it's a mistake for the president to say to the world that the United States can't do business in an election year," Berger said. "The president of the United States simply can't say that without, I think, harming the United States."

But Warner, in an interview with CNN, said the Senate should take up the issue in a non-election year when its total attention can be focused on the "merits and demerits of this treaty,"

Some conservative critics have demanded an up-or-down vote on the treaty. But White House officials believe that the president's letter will make it difficult for the leadership to press ahead with a vote.

The vote's outcome will not affect the United States' moratorium on nuclear testing, which dates back to 1992.

But the president's hopes of adding the ratification of the test ban treaty to his personal legacy appear dashed and administration officials say a failure will make it more difficult for the United States to convince nations such as India and Pakistan to give up their nuclear weapons programs.

CNN's John King and The Associated Press contributed to this report, which was written by Douglas S. Wood.

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Clinton writes letter seeking delay of nuclear test ban treaty vote (10-11-99) White House presses case to delay test ban treaty vote (10-10-99) Senate Democrats move to postpone test ban vote (10-8-99) Test ban treaty in limbo; U.S. nuclear policy on the line (10-7-99) Senators try to find exit strategy on nuclear test ban treaty vote (10-6-99) White House fights to save nuclear test ban treaty (10-3-99) Senate leaders close to agreement on vote for nuclear test ban treaty (10-1-99)

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Tuesday, October 12, 1999