Despite the Doubts

There were still plenty of doubts about the test ban treaty. Republican Barry Goldwater indicated he was against it unless the Russians, as evidence of good faith, pulled their troops out of Cuba. And, in heavily censored testimony released last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it became clear just how much the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been nagged by questions, even though they had cast their votes for the treaty.

Even J.C.S. Chairman Maxwell Taylor, one of the Pentagon's foremost treaty advocates, predicted that the Russians would cheat by clandestine tests. But he denied that the "gains that might come from this kind of testing would have any great bearing upon our relative position."

"Manageable Risks." Far more deeply doubtful was Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay, who worried that the Russians, as a result of their 1961-62 atmospheric test series, might already be ahead of the U.S. in nuclear weapons development. "This bothers me," said LeMay. "And one of the things that I don't like is that, if this is true and they do know more than we do, they may know something that is vital. They may be able to pick up a weakness in our defense system that they can exploit." Insisted LeMay: "There are risks and no amount of talking is going to make them go away." But he had gone along with the other Joint Chiefs, said LeMay, because, "I think that the risks can be held to man ageable proportions."

On the Senate floor, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield kicked off the debate about ratification. Even while strongly supporting it, Mansfield made no extravagant claims about what the treaty might achieve. Said he: "Do not look for miracles from this treaty. There are none. This nation, the Soviet Union, and the world are destined to live for a long time with feet dangling over the grave that beckons to the human civilization which is our common heritage. Against that immense void of darkness, this treaty is a feeble candle. It is a flicker of light where there has been no light." When he finished, Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois walked across the aisle and shook Mansfield's hand. Dirksen told reporters that his long-held doubts about the treaty were diminishing. Said he: "My inclinations now are in the direction of backing the treaty."

"Entirely Satisfied." The Foreign Relations Committee, which had earlier backed the treaty with a resounding 16-1 approval, issued a 30-page synopsis of testimony by 44 witnesses. In answer to a question raised by former President Eisenhower about whether the treaty would outlaw U.S. use of atomic weapons in a war, the report said: "The Senate should be assured that the committee is entirely satisfied that the treaty in no way impairs the authority of the Commander in Chief in time of crisis to employ whatever weapons he judges the situation may require."

The committee said that "the nuclear strike forces of the U.S. are superior in number and variety to those of the Soviet Union." It argued that the treaty would not hurt "to any appreciable degree" the development of an effective anti-ballistic missile, "if indeed an anti-ballistic missile system can be developed with sufficient effectiveness to justify the .enormous cost of deploying it."

But at week's end Georgia's Richard B. Russell, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, disagreed flatly: "I find that I cannot conscientiously support this treaty." Mississippi Democrat John Stennis, another influential member of the Armed Services Committee, also announced that he would definitely vote against ratification. Despite such opposition, the treaty still seemed likely to win solid--if not overwhelming--Senate ratification.

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