ACCESSION NUMBER:294664
FILE ID:POL303
DATE:07/14/93
TITLE:U.S. TO ADHERE TO "NARROW" ABM INTERPRETATION (07/14/93)
TEXT:*93071403.POL
U.S. TO ADHERE TO "NARROW" ABM INTERPRETATION

(Graham outlines ACDA plans to Senate committee) (XXX)
By Paul Malamud
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- The Clinton administration will adhere to the so-called
"narrow" interpretation of the Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty with the
Soviet Union and its successor states, says Thomas Graham Jr., acting
director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA).

In a letter presented at a July 14 Senate Foreign Relations Committee
hearing on ACDA's budget request for Fiscal Year 1994, Graham made plain
that "it is the position of the Clinton administration that the 'narrow' or
'traditional' interpretation of the ABM Treaty is the correct
interpretation and therefore that the ABM Treaty prohibits the development,
testing and deployment of sea-based, air-based, space-based and mobile
land-based ABM systems and components without regard to the technology
utilized."

Administration officials at the hearing explained that, in effect, this
makes it more likely that the United States will negotiate with the former
Soviet states before deploying ABM technology.

Graham also said the administration is strongly committed to the
"re-invigoration and re-vitalization of ACDA," as well as to arms control.

The Clinton administration wants ACDA to achieve "full participation...in
executive-branch policymaking," he declared, noting that one priority of
this policymaking will be "a comprehensive (nuclear) test-ban treaty."
1
Graham called President Clinton's decision not to continue U.S. nuclear
tests as long as no other nation tests an "historic watershed....I believe
there is a reasonable chance that (this) moratorium will hold."

Graham said he hoped the United States will have negotiated a complete test
ban by 1995.

Asked how the administration hopes to "re-vitalize" ACDA, Graham said "We
expect to have more influence over the management and conduct of
negotiations...non-proliferation policy...presenting effectively the arms
control perspective."  In addition, he said, his aim was to make sure that
"all arms-control implementing bodies will be led by ACDA officials."

ACDA, Graham said, will be leading the U.S. delegation to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty extension conference in 1995 and hopes to "garner
support for" indefinite extension of that treaty.

However, both Graham and Ted McNamara, principal deputy assistant secretary
of state for politico-military affairs, said they oppose provisions of
legislation sponsored by Senators Paul Simon and Claiborne Pell that would
turn ACDA into a quasi-independent authority with broad power to prohibit
exports of sensitive U.S. technology.

McNamara told Senators there is "some concern" at the State Department that
the new bill could "abrogate" the authority of the secretary of state.

But Simon replied that, in his view, there is "not much substance" to the
proposed "re-vitalization" measures.  He charged that ACDA has been largely
a component of the Pentagon and relegated to routine functions.  Simon said
his proposed bill would help create an ACDA "with some strength" of its own
in the bureaucratic maze.

Graham also told the senators that ACDA is requesting a budget of $62.5
million for FY '94, a $16 million increase over its 1993 appropriation, to
carry out its programs.

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