Senate Backs Final Tests of Anti-Satellite Weapon

The Senate voted Friday to let the Pentagon go ahead with the final tests of an Air Force weapon designed to destroy Soviet satellites.

The Senate gave 74-9 approval to a proposal by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) to allow three final-stage tests next year, as long as President Reagan tells Congress that the tests won’t wreck negotiations aimed at banning the weapons.

That vote came minutes after the Senate had rejected, 51-35, a testing ban proposed by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).

Kerry supported the ban as “a signal of our good faith and willingness to restrain the arms race and keep it out of space.”

But Warner opposed the limit as “a unilateral concession which would erode the U.S. position” at the Geneva talks with the Soviet Union on trying to limit a wide range of weapons.

The three-test plan was attached to a bill authorizing a record Pentagon budget of $302 billion next year. The Republican-controlled Senate has already trimmed Reagan’s defense buildup as part of the bill, including cutting in half his proposed MX nuclear missile program.

After considering dozens of amendments to the bill, the Senate was unable to finish it late Friday afternoon before leaving for a weeklong Memorial Day vacation. It will take up the measure again when it returns June 3 with amendments still pending on “Star Wars” research and aid to anti-Nicaragua rebels.

The Democratic-controlled House is considering a smaller Pentagon budget, and differences between the two chambers will be ironed out later in a conference committee.

Earlier Friday, the Senate gave voice-vote approval to an amendment requiring a mandatory life sentence in prison for people convicted of espionage involving the Soviet Union or other communist nations in cases where no death sentence is imposed.

The amendment was offered by minority leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who said a person convicted of espionage who is not given capital punishment could be given probation or parole under current law.

The latest debate centered around anti-satellite weapons, or ASATs, which are designed to destroy the orbiting eyes and ears that both superpowers depend on for spying, communications, and early warning of attack.

Although ASATs are different from Reagan’s call for “Star Wars” research into a futuristic shield against nuclear attack, both systems share similar technology.

The U.S. ASAT is a small warhead atop a rocket that is carried to the edge of space by a high-flying F-15 jet and then released to slam into its target. By contrast, the more cumbersome Soviet ASAT is less technologically advanced and is a small bomb-like device launched from atop a large rocket.

The U.S. weapon has been tested in stages but has not yet been fired at a target in space. That final round of testing is scheduled to start within the next few months.

Meanwhile, ASATs are among the space weapons that are part of the three-subject Geneva talks, that also cover long-range and medium-range nuclear weapons. The Soviets seek a halt to ASAT tests; the Reagan Administration is open to such a proposal but has refused to halt ASAT testing as a precondition to the talks.

Congress last year banned the final tests of the U.S. system in the hope that the pause might help negotiations, which had not then started.

“We have a extraordinary opportunity in Geneva to promote the continued protection of our satellites and other valuable space-based assets by negotiating a treaty on ASAT weapons,” Kerry said.

The Soviets have not tested their system since 1982, he told his colleagues, and their system is inferior to the U.S. weapon.

Testing the U.S. system would “be letting a far more dangerous genie out of the bottle,” Kerry said. “It would jeopardize the chances for a treaty that prevents either side from threatening the other’s satellites.”

Warner responded that halting the U.S. program “would concede ASAT supremacy to the Soviet Union” and would “be seen as a unilateral U.S. concession” in Geneva.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) said he opposed the ban because “the Administration should have a free hand” to propose a testing halt.