Republicans and Test Ban

Your Oct. 17 editorial, “Treaty: Bountiful Blame,” in analyzing the defeat by the Republican-controlled Senate of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, places the responsibility for the debacle equally on the Senate Republicans and the White House.

We could not disagree more with your conclusion. It is well to remember that the Senate Republicans could have scheduled debate on the treaty any time in the last three years. Your question as to why the president did not mobilize public opinion is naive. It was the Republicans, after all, who decided that the most important business of our nation was their vindictive act--the impeachment of President Clinton--placing all other business on hold, and to this end they subjected us to a costly and interminable impeachment process which was doomed from day one.

The Senate Republicans still cling to the past, the Cold War, with its Star Wars defense and nuclear shields, while the rest of the world seeks and supports efforts to stop nuclear proliferation and nuclear destruction.

IRV and RUTH WILLNER

Monterey Park

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Why is it that when most Republicans oppose a treaty it’s “partisan,” but when every Democrat marches in lock-step as if none had an independent thought, they’re not “partisan”?

RICHARD C. MORSE

Palos Verdes

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Finally it has been exposed to the whole world that our government is ruled by a small vociferous right-wing clique. The defeat of the nuclear testing treaty can be laid at the door of this isolationist group, and we have only ourselves to blame. They do not speak for the majority, but the majority, by abandoning their responsiblity to vote, left the field to this small, well-organized handful to take over.

They have managed to elect enough of their ilk that any senator or representative who, even by a whisper, shows any signs of second thoughts is threatened with losing his or her seat.

I urge Republican voters to call their senators to revoke the defeat of this treaty and restore the United States to its proper place in the world as a pro-democracy, peace-loving country.

BOBBIE CORBETT

San Clemente