DATE: Thursday, April 24, 1997              TAG: 9704240005

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   49 lines

RATIFY THE TREATY PARTICIPATING TO IMPROVE AN IMPERFECT ACCORD IS BETTER THAN SHIRKING THE LEADERSHIP ROLE.

The Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday on a controversial chemical-weapons convention. It isn't a perfect treaty, but it is a first step toward international cooperation in limiting the proliferation of these gruesome weapons, and it should be ratified.

The administration and thoughtful legislators like Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., have argued that it is far better for the United States to join the process and work for improvements rather than boycott the treaty and have no voice in its implementation and improvement. In fact, the treaty originated under the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but it has been opposed by elements of the GOP antagonistic to international agreements - Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., foremost among them.

Helms is now head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has encouraged dozens of amendments to the treaty. Some - so-called killer amendments - would require renegotiation of the entire package. Helms has also held the legislation hostage in committee to gain leverage in his attempt to force a restructuring of the State Department.

To his credit, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., has rebuffed Helms and has authorized a vote. But Lott needs to do more. An admirable tradition of bipartisan internationalism that has prevailed since the Eisenhower administration is in jeopardy. Lott must vote for the treaty himself and rally wavering GOP members.

Critics argue that the treaty will be difficult to verify and might actually have the unintended consequence of making it easier for nonparticipating nations to get away with chemical-weapons programs.

Lott and others have worried that a provision requiring signatories to share anti-chemical-weapons information could reveal military secrets. Finally, some concern has been voiced that strictures on sales of chemicals useful in weapons could hurt legitimate sales of chemicals used in fertilizers, pesticides and for other purposes.

Some concern on these points is justified, and it must be acknowledged that curbing chemical weapons is a work in progress. Endorsing the treaty may be a close call, but the alternative is worse.

Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright persuasively assert the need for the United States to be engaged on this issue, to take a leadership role and to shape the next steps in the effort to control weapons that pose a grave threat. Joining in the treaty framework is the only viable course to achieve that end.

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