INF: Senate Approves Major Arms Treaty in Time for Opening of Moscow Summit : Senate Ratifies INF Arms Treaty : Will Be Sent to Reagan in Time for Opening of Summit

The Senate Friday overwhelmingly approved a treaty eliminating U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles, ratifying the first major arms pact between the two superpowers in 16 years.

The final vote was 93 to 5. Ratification requires the approval of two-thirds of the members present and voting.

Approval of the treaty came in time for it to be presented to President Reagan at his summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, which begins today in Moscow.

It also gave cause for optimism to those who see the relatively modest INF accord as paving the way for a more ambitious treaty making deep cuts in the two sides’ arsenals of long-range nuclear missiles.

“We are making a breakthrough,” said Senate Majority Whip Alan Cranston (D-Calif.). “It is not a substantively significant treaty. . . . But it lays the foundation” for future treaties “that can substantially reduce the scale, cost and dangers of this arms race.”

Senators voting against the treaty were Republicans Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Steve Symms of Idaho, Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming and Democrat Ernest Hollings of South Carolina.

Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and John Glenn (D-Ohio) did not vote.

The pact was the first U.S.-Soviet weapons treaty to be approved since the 1972 accord on Anti-Ballistic Missiles.

White House officials in Washington issued a statement from the President after the vote in which Reagan said: “I am very pleased with the action of the United States Senate in consenting to ratification of the INF treaty. In two days I will arrive in the Soviet Union to meet with General Secretary Gorbachev to discuss our four-part agenda. Today’s action by the Senate clearly shows support for our arms reduction objectives.”

As it moved toward approval, the Senate adopted strong language governing future interpretations of the medium-range missile treaty and turned aside a series of Republican amendments that would have undermined that provision.

“I think we’ve closed all the loopholes we know about in this treaty, and it’s a much better treaty than when it was sent” to Congress, said Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.).

Thursday’s session had ended on a testy partisan note, with Byrd threatening to let the treaty languish if Republicans continued to seek what he saw as debilitating amendments.

Approval of the treaty was considered certain because it requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate, or 67 votes, and as many as 90 senators had expressed support for it. But the possibility of delay remained alive.

Byrd warned GOP senators that they risked embarrassing their own President by failing to deliver the approved treaty in time for start of the summit today.

“This is no empty threat,” Byrd admonished senators. “If we’re going to continue to have Mickey Mouse amendments like this, the President is not going to have his treaty before he leaves the summit.”

Byrd and GOP leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) informed Reagan of the decision during a telephone call to Helsinki moments after the vote. The two leaders accepted Reagan’s invitation to come to Moscow Tuesday and bring the ratification documents with them.

One amendment, an attempt by Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) to make any Soviet violation grounds for U.S. withdrawal from the treaty, was defeated on a 66-30 vote. And a move by Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) to require Reagan to certify at the summit whether the Soviets are living up to their human rights obligations also was defeated, 86 to 10.

On Thursday, Byrd had won overwhelming bipartisan passage of an amendment stipulating that the White House will be bound in the future by the interpretation of the treaty as expressed by Administration officials during congressional hearings.

Any effort to change that interpretation would have to be approved again by the Senate before becoming valid, said the amendment, which passed on a 72-27.

“The Senate has clearly made visible that it is an equal partner with any President in the making of treaties,” Byrd said after the provision was adopted, “and I hope that will be a sobering impact on this President and on Mr. Gorbachev when they sit down and discuss another agreement” on limiting long-range nuclear weapons.

The provision grew out of a dispute with the Reagan Administration over White House efforts to redefine the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with the Soviets to allow greater latitude for testing of Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense program.

But a few hours after the vote on the Byrd amendment, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) came close to undermining the provision by proposing a change stipulating that the United States could not be bound by any interpretation of the treaty “that is not equally binding on the Soviet Union.”

Wilson’s proposal was killed, 53 to 45, and an angry Byrd sent the Senate home for the night. The vote was virtually a party-line division.

Two similar attempts by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) were defeated Friday by wider margins.

The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in Washington on Dec. 8, requires the elimination within three years of all nuclear missiles with a range of 300 miles to 3,400 miles, and would result in the destruction of 867 U.S. missiles in Europe and 1,752 Soviet missiles.

Although those numbers represent a relatively small slice of each side’s total nuclear arsenal, the pact is regarded as particularly important because it breaks a long drought in arms-control agreements between the two sides and sets the stage for progress on a much larger goal: massive cuts in each side’s long-range nuclear missile fleet.

It was also important because it would be the first treaty to actually require the destruction of weapons, rather than simply slowing growth in their numbers. And its far-reaching verification provisions include the first on-site inspections allowed by either superpower.