Test Ban Treaty

So, unless there is 100% verifiability, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and the rest of the herd cannot accept the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Not too many things in life are 100% verifiable. Heck, even if one life could be saved by a gun control bill, such a bill is good enough for me. But then again, Lott’s against gun control bills as well, so what’s the significance to a few million people that could be saved by the CTBT?

GARY COYNE

South Pasadena

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Re “The Loser Will Be the Human Race,” by Robert Scheer, Commentary, Oct. 12: I am appalled at the ill-informed opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty formulated by Sens. Lott and Jesse Helm et al. This partisan tactic borders on an insane obstacle to the treaty, signed and supported by over 150 nations.

Is there not a rational voice of leadership in the Senate to stem this partisan and docile submission, following these two fossils to poor judgment and toward the brink of nuclear destruction? When a treaty lacks but the ratification of the U.S. Senate, where is the voice of reason to lead our elected representatives to a position of sound judgment, instead of partisan rhetoric?

SEAN F. HOLLAND

Los Angeles

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Scheer seems to place a great deal of faith in signatures on treaties, as did Neville Chamberlain. The tyrants we are forced to confront today are as capable of mischief as Hitler was. Words on paper mean nothing to despotic leaders who would gladly destroy or enslave the stupid people who would sign and then live by this treaty.

Recall the words of Ronald Reagan when he said, “Trust but verify.” In the case of this treaty we cannot verify so we dare not trust. We are at peace because of our established strength, not due to any treaties we may or may not sign.

JAMES R. HOHIMER

Newbury Park

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It is clear that the Republicans in Congress are putting their hatred of Bill Clinton above their love of country.

DOROTHY MELVILLE

San Juan Capistrano

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Robert E. Hunter of Rand repeats the canard that “the root causes” that drove the nuclear weapons tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 were “regional insecurity, political tensions and rivalries and national ambitions” (Commentary, Oct. 12). Those detonations were motivated primarily by South Asian impatience with what they call “nuclear apartheid”--the refusal of the five nuclear weapon states to make any serious effort to comply with their obligation under international law, undertaken 29 long years ago in Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to move toward abolishing their atomic arsenals.

We can move toward a world of zero nuclear weapon states, or we can expect a world of many dozen nuclear weapon states. But as Abraham Lincoln said about a nation half slave and half free, a world with a few “nuclear haves” and a great many “nuclear have-nots” cannot forever endure.

TAD DALEY, Associate Director

Nuclear Weapon Elimination

Initiative, State of the World

Forum, Los Angeles