Senate Leaders Beat Retreat, Hobble Nuclear Test Ban Bill

Senate leaders Tuesday began backing away from a showdown vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, amid growing signs that the measure, one of President Clinton’s top foreign policy priorities, faces almost certain defeat.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said that they are discussing whether to delay a vote on the landmark arms proposal, which seeks to halt nuclear proliferation by imposing a worldwide ban on underground testing.

Another leading Senate Democrat, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, predicted defeat for the treaty, saying that support from moderate Republicans, which advocates had hoped to win, had “vanished into the ether.” Biden said he had reported this view to the president.

Postponement would be a stinging setback for Clinton, who had argued in a vigorous lobbying campaign this week that the treaty is urgent for national security.

Advocates contend that the treaty--backed by 154 nations but only two nuclear powers, England and France--would deter further development of nuclear weapons. They say that it would help strengthen the relative position of the United States, which has not tested weapons since 1992 and maintains its stockpile by using sophisticated computer models.

But the treaty’s detractors say that the pact would tie Americans’ hands and argue that “rogue” nations and other countries would be able to carry on nuclear weapon development without being caught by the treaty’s special network of 320 test monitoring stations.

Under pressure from Democrats to end a two-year delay in consideration, the Senate Republican leadership on Friday abruptly set an Oct. 12 vote on the treaty.

But by Tuesday, as all the senators returned from a weekend away, it had become clear that the lobbying campaign by the White House and Democrats would fall about 15 votes short of the 67 needed to win in the chamber, aides said.

Senate Democrats did not want to be on the losing side of the vote. But some GOP aides privately acknowledged that a “no” vote also has little appeal for Republicans, because signaling that the treaty is doomed could encourage some nations to develop additional nuclear weapons.

Moreover, neither side wants to be blamed for putting off the treaty vote.

Republican aides insisted that Daschle had approached the majority leader and said that the president wanted a postponement. Only if the president or the Democrats publicly ask for a delay could it take place, they said.

But Democratic aides insisted that the first overture came from Lott.

Republicans would prefer to put off any reconsideration until after the 2000 election, while Democrats in the Senate want to leave open the option of a vote within a few months, aides said.

White House officials contended they intend to keep pushing.

“As far as we know, there is a vote scheduled for Tuesday and we intend to make every effort to succeed,” said National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger.

Clinton met Tuesday evening with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House. On Monday and Tuesday, he made public appearances to push for approval of the treaty.

Defeat of the measure “would send a terrible message” to the world, Clinton said: “It would say to the whole world, ‘Look, America’s not going to test, but if you want to test, go right ahead.’ ”

Clinton is set to meet today with prominent backers of the treaty, including Nobel laureates and military commanders. Former Joint Chiefs Chairmen John M. Shalikashvili and Colin L. Powell are among those who have signaled their support.

Yet the White House and its allies have never been able to win the public support of some Republican senators who have frequently sided with them on foreign affairs issues, such as Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, John W. Warner of Virginia, and Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico.