
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 10, 1993                   TAG: 9305100297
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ONE WAY TO RESIST PROLIFERATION

PRESIDENT Clinton has often cited John Kennedy as one of his heroes. Now Clinton faces an opportunity to complete one of Kennedy's most important legacies: the nuclear test ban.

It was 30 years ago that Kennedy negotiated the Limited Test Ban treaty with the Kremlin, a pact prohibiting nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in space and under water. The young president called this treaty a "first step" toward a comprehensive ban on all testing. Clinton should strive now to take the last step.

Rendered more practical by the end of the Cold War, and more urgent by the growing threat of nuclear proliferation, a comprehensive ban would be a major contribution to world peace.

Too, it would conform with a statement Clinton made last June, during the presidential campaign.

Said the candidate: "I think it is time for a nuclear test ban treaty and I think the United States should take the lead in that. It should be a part of our efforts to reduce or dismantle as many nuclear weapons as possible in the former Soviet Union" and part of "a very tough stance against the expansion of nuclear capacity into dictatorships like Iran and Iraq."

Clinton was correct to note a connection between weapons testing and efforts to stem the proliferation of nuclear arms. A comprehensive ban is considered crucial to the extension and strengthening of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1995.

If the Limited Test Ban treaty were amended to bar all tests, that would be a show of leadership by members of the nuclear club, and would put pressure on other nations to sign the treaty. Under a comprehensive ban, no country seeking to develop nuclear weapons could know for sure if they worked. And once adopted by half the signatories to the original treaty, the amendment would become international law.

A good deal, right? Yet not, apparently, for some senior officials in the Pentagon, the Department of Energy and national weapons laboratories. They're reportedly urging Clinton to allow a resumption of nuclear testing. They also want a loophole in any treaty to permit an unlimited number of "safety" and "reliability" tests for nuclear devices under one kiloton of explosive force.

Such testing isn't needed, and Clinton should tell the nuclear establishment to forget it. Transparent hypocrisy is simply not a good position from which to negotiate a comprehensive ban or resist nuclear proliferation.

As Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, notes: "The world wants U.S. leadership on non-proliferation. That leadership will be undermined if the United States insists on making an exception for itself and legitimizes testing."

Last year Congress imposed a temporary moratorium, through June, on underground testing, after Russia and France suspended their testing programs. Now it's up to President Clinton to continue this moratorium, and to bargain for an international, comprehensive test ban treaty that could prove one of his greatest achievements.

by CNB