Vote Fails to End Filibuster on ‘Star Wars’

Senate Democrats failed by eight votes Friday to quell a Republican filibuster that is holding up the defense bill in a fierce dispute over the “Star Wars” anti-missile program. They will try again Tuesday.

Sixty votes were needed to invoke a rule called cloture that would sharply limit debate and enable the Senate to begin working on amendments to the $303-billion fiscal 1988 defense authorization measure. The vote was 52 to 36, with three Republicans joining unanimous Democrats in seeking to end the 2-day-old filibuster organized by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.).

Five Democrats and seven Republicans were absent for the vote.

Arms Talks Cited

Dole charged that a provision in the bill restricting tests of weapons in the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program, would “tie the President’s hands” in arms control talks with the Soviets at Geneva. He demanded that it be removed from the bill.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), co-author of the provision with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), argued that it merely protects Congress’ right to pass on how money is spent.

The provision requires that the President obtain congressional approval if he wants to test lasers and other new defensive weapons under a broad interpretation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union. Under the narrow definition now observed, research on such weapons is prohibited outside the laboratory.