18 October 1999
(Op-ed column from October 16 issue of The New York Times) (910) (This column by Senators Joe Lieberman (Democrat of Connecticut) and Chuck Hagel (Republican of Nebraska) first appeared in The New York Times October 16 and is in the public domain, no copyright restrictions.) Don't Give Up on the Test Ban By Joseph I. Lieberman and Chuck Hagel (Joseph I. Lieberman, a Democrat, is a United States Senator from Connecticut. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, is a Senator from Nebraska.) In this town, conventional wisdom is usually far more deadly than conventional weapons. And so it was this week with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. After the Senate's disappointing defeat of the treaty, the Beltway coroners wasted little time issuing their post-mortems -- determining the cause of death and judging the guilty parties -- and quickly cementing the prevailing notion that the test ban had been banished, permanently. We beg to differ. In fact we do differ. We voted in opposite ways on the treaty and would do so again tomorrow. But we nevertheless agree that the cause of stopping the testing and spreading of nuclear weapons did not die on the Senate floor on Thursday and that it is still possible to salvage a viable, verifiable test ban. Saying so won't make it happen. We recognize that the Senate remains deeply divided on this issue, that there are legitimate points of contention about the treaty in its current form, and that the bad taste the partisan debate left won't help in resolving the differences. But saying so will at least begin to reassure the American people and the people of the world that the United States is not abandoning its commitment to reducing the risk of nuclear proliferation or its responsibilities of leadership as the world's lone superpower. That is why we feel it is important to speak out now and dispel the misguided conventional wisdom. Our constituents and our country's allies have expressed grave concerns about our hasty rejection of the treaty and the impact of that rejection on the treaty's survival. They need to know that we, along with a clear majority of the Senate, have not given up hope of finding common ground in our quest for a sound and secure ban on nuclear testing. This is a point that has been lost amid all the post-vote re-evaluations and recriminations. Although there were not enough votes to ratify the treaty in its current form, most Senators from both parties thought it was a mistake to force a vote now. They would have much preferred to move more deliberately, with a full set of hearings and a full opportunity to air and address the serious questions that critics of the treaty have raised about verifying compliance and about its impact on the reliability and safety of our nuclear deterrent. Sadly, of course, that was not how events proceeded. The Senate, bogged down, backed itself into a procedural corner and could not find the will or the way out, leaving us to reject the first major treaty in 80 years and to undercut the long and proud tradition of bipartisanship that has governed our foreign policy. We could spend a lot of time assessing blame for this disappointing outcome, and there is plenty of it to go around. But it is more constructive to focus on tomorrow and on what it will take to build a lasting consensus. In pursuit of that goal, we would be well served to take note of the way Presidents Carter, Reagan and Bush handled the second strategic arms limitation treaty. Faced with certain defeat in the Senate, President Carter asked to have the treaty as it was first negotiated withdrawn from consideration. President Reagan opposed the treaty in his campaign but promised to abide by its conditions voluntarily and to renegotiate it. After additional negotiations, a treaty emerged; it was signed by President Bush and ratified by the Senate. Certainly there are many differences between these treaties, starting with the fact that the strategic arms treaty was a bilateral agreement and the test ban is multilateral. However, that does not mean we cannot learn from this example, set aside our political differences, and thoroughly examine the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the many arms control issues it raises. That is the test ban test. Can we pick up the pieces and start anew without partisan rancor? We believe we can, and we are encouraged by comments we have heard from many of our colleagues in both parties who do not want this vote to be the prologue for proliferation. They believe, as we do and most Americans do, that a verifiable test ban that allows us to assure that existing nuclear weapons are safe and effective would deter nuclear proliferation and improve America's national security. There is no quick fix here. We cannot offer a simple road map to resolving the differences on the treaty in its current form. But we can offer the resolve to get there, and we intend to spend the next several months reaching out to our colleagues on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, throughout the Senate, and in the Clinton Administration, in hopes of determining what steps can be taken to secure a strong bipartisan vote in the Senate for nuclear nonproliferation. (end text)