THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 27, 1997 TAG: 9701270068
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 47 lines
Defense Secretary William Cohen said Sunday he will carry out administration policies on missile defense and gays and women in the military while, as a former Republican senator, work to bring the GOP-led Congress on board.
Cohen, who took office on Friday, also urged the Senate to ratify a treaty banning chemical weapons, saying failure to join other countries in the international convention could isolate the nation and result in serious economic losses.
Cohen, on ABC's ``This Week,'' and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' made their inaugural appearances on the Sunday talk shows after breezing to Senate confirmation last week.
Albright, who replaced Warren Christopher, made clear that U.S. relations with Russia and China must be seen in a broader framework, going beyond the health of Russian President Boris Yeltsin or China's human rights problems.
``While we really wish Boris Yeltsin well and we have a very good relationship with him,'' Albright said, ``it's important that people understand that our relationships with Russia are based on where they are going, other people in the government and the possibility that we will be able to work better and better together.''
Cohen, a three-term senator from Maine, said he would promote a ``three-plus-three'' formula on an anti-missile system worked out by his predecessor, William Perry.
Under that, the Pentagon would research the concept of a national defense system until 2000, and then decide whether the threat warrants deployment by 2003, ``which is precisely the year that members on the Hill wanted.''
Republicans have demanded immediate efforts to erect a national anti-missile defense system, a new version of the Strategic Defense Initiative sought during the Reagan presidency. The administration has countered that it would be inordinately expensive, unnecessary and a violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
Cohen said he was not sure if it was technically possible to install a system by 2003 and that it would not be designed for all-out nuclear war but ``to give us protection against limited, isolated or perhaps accidental missiles.''
On the ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy toward gays in the military, Cohen said that whether one feel uneasy about it or not ``it remains in place and should be our policy.''