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

DATE: THURSDAY, July 15, 1993                   TAG: 9307150196
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

CLINTON KILLS STAR WARS, STRICTLY INTERPRETS TREATY

President Clinton has reversed an 8-year-old Republican policy that permitted development of a space-based defense against a nuclear missile attack.

In a letter to Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., the administration said it endorses the "narrow or traditional" interpretation of the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The letter was released Wednesday.

Former President Reagan had broadly interpreted the treaty to allow development of space-based weapons as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative program, commonly known as Star Wars.

Reagan also sought to amend the treaty to permit deployment of such a system.

The Bush administration also favored a change in the treaty.

In the letter, the Clinton administration said "the correct interpretation . . . 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."

Pell, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had questioned Thomas Graham, acting director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, on the issue at a May 18 hearing.

The letter was Graham's response.

The treaty 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty prohibits missile defenses, whether in space or on land, beyond a single-site battery of 100 ground-launched interceptors.

by CNB