TO: Speaker J. Dennis Hastert
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott
FROM: The Congressional Policy Advisory Board
DATE: March 1, 2000
RE: Ballistic Missile Defense
At our quarterly meeting today, the Advisory Board extensively discussed the ballistic missile threat to the United States and our friends and allies. In the course of our discussion, we reached the following conclusions:
1. It is vital for our national security and that of our allies and friends that we develop and deploy an effective missile defense against the missile threats that are now increasingly clear to all.
2. We cannot adequately develop, test or deploy such defenses as long as we adhere to the ABM treaty, which prohibits effective missile defense.
3. The President should promptly either invoke Article XV of the treaty and give notice of withdrawal, or clearly announce that the treaty is no longer legally binding on the U.S.
4. Any further attempt to seek Russia's permission to defend ourselves and our allies and friends should be abandoned. Any new agreement with Russia on demarcation or multilateralization of the ABM treaty is a treaty amendment requiring the advice and consent of the Senate. The Senate should reject any agreement containing such amendments. Any new agreement that restricts U.S. ballistic missile defense research and development, testing or deployment must be opposed by Congress.
5. U.S. research and development and testing programs for either national missile defense or theater missile defense must no longer be restricted by limitations in the name of the ABM Treaty.
These conclusions represent the unanimous view of the Board members in attendance at the meeting in Washington (and by teleconference at Stanford University). Participants in this meeting were: Congressional Policy Advisory Board Chairman Martin Anderson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior White House adviser under Presidents Nixon and Reagan; Annelise Anderson, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Associate Director of OMB under President Reagan; Larry Arnn, President of the Claremont Institute; Michael Boskin, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush; John Cogan, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Deputy Director of OMB under President Reagan; Christopher DeMuth, President of the American Enterprise Institute and Administrator for Regulatory Affairs at OMB under President Reagan; Thomas Duesterberg, President of the Manufacturers Alliance and Assistant Secretary for International Trade at the Commerce Department under President Bush; Edwin J. Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation; Fred Iklé, Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Under-Secretary of Defense under President Reagan; Jeane Kirkpatrick, Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and Ambassador to the United Nations under President Reagan; James C. Miller, III, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Director of OMB under President Reagan; John Raisian, Director of the Hoover Institution; Peter Rodman, Director of National Security Programs at the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom and Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs under President Bush; Donald Rumsfeld, Chairman of the Board of the RAND Corporation, formerly U.S. Representative from Illinois, and White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense under President Ford; John Taylor, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers; Edward Teller, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Director of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory under President Eisenhower; Darrell Trent, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Acton Development Company and Acting Secretary of Transportation under President Reagan; Caspar Weinberger, Chairman of Forbes Magazine, Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, and Director of OMB and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Nixon; and Walter Williams, Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and Distinguished Scholar at the Heritage Foundation.
|