Word: pact
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Defenders will try to protect the pact by making sure that any refinements are expressed in the form of "declarations" or "understandings" that do not require negotiating a revised treaty with Moscow. California Democrat Alan Cranston, who will be a leader in the fight for ratification, says Senate approval will ultimately depend not on "who's for or against it" but on "who will withstand the killer amendments...
Conventional force levels. Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn will hold hearings in the Armed Services Committee on steps the West should take to reduce the Warsaw Pact's superiority in non-nuclear weapons. Nunn and others believe that imbalance may be more threatening with the elimination of Euromissiles. He is said to be considering a unilateral declaration of objectives that NATO should achieve after passage of the treaty. INF opponents may push for a more lethal amendment that would bar the President from carrying out the treaty's provisions unless the conventional-arms imbalance in Europe is redressed. Senate Majority Leader...
Verification. The INF pact has precedent-setting provisions that allow the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to inspect each other's missile sites for evidence of cheating. Some conservative Senators, however, may want an amendment providing for the investigation on demand of "suspect sites" not enumerated in the treaty. That would be strongly opposed by both the White House and the Pentagon. In fact, the Soviets agreed to this idea in principle earlier this year, but the U.S. rejected the notion after defense officials realized it would work both ways; they did not want Soviet inspectors poking around classified facilities...
Compliance. Opponents' best hope might be an amendment requiring the President to certify Soviet adherence to all other arms-control agreements before the INF pact could be carried out. "The beauty of this kind of amendment is that it is very easily understandable to the average American," says Dan Casey, head of the American Conservative Union. "You don't sign contracts with people who have not honored past contracts." Reagan has been backpedaling on this thorny topic. In a report to Congress on arms-control negotiations last March, the President cited compliance with deals in the past as an "essential...
...treating that ABM accord. The Administration insists that what the Senate was told by + Government witnesses during ratification hearings is not relevant to what the treaty really means on the subject of space-based defense. This outrages Nunn, who threatens to review the entire negotiation record of the INF pact unless the President and his advisers abandon the notion that they can reinterpret a treaty after the Senate has ratified...