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[Page: S11419]

Mr. PELL. Mr. President, today marks the 35th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the first year of John F. Kennedy's Presidency.

The groundwork had been laid earlier in the Eisenhower administration, and the effort reached fruition in 1961. I was privileged to be part of that process as a new Senator in his first year of service.

I had become quite interested in the new processes of arms control, and I went with my more veteran and most distinguished colleagues, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania, to argue the case that the new agency would have more weight and authority if it were established not by Executive order, but by the Congress as a statutory agency of the Federal Government. Fortunately, our friends in the White House agreed, and, over the next several months, the agency was created.

The Agency was started with much hope and high expectations. Some even feared that the Director of the Agency would be too powerful and might take steps that endangered the national security by moving too precipitously to control arms. In the process of compromise, the statute was worked out so that the Agency could fulfill high expectations, but the nation would be protected from precipitous arms control.

As matters have worked out, it is clear that those who feared that ACDA would go too far have had their fears unrealized. Those who hoped that the Agency would soar to new heights of arms control have had their dreams only partially realized. Nonetheless, the 35 years have been marked by many solid arms control achievements that have helped to ensure the protection of the national interests of the United States and that have served to demonstrate to the rest of the world that the United States is willing to continue on the course of arms control.

The achievements during the period of ACDA's existence include: the Limited Test Ban Treaty, Outer Space Treaty, Protocols to the Latin American Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty, Non-Proliferation Treaty, Seabed Arms Control Treaty, Biological Weapons Convention, Incidents at Sea Agreement, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the SALT I Interim Agreement, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty, Environmental Modification Convention, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, START I Treaty, START II Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention to be considered a-new by the Senate next year, and the recently signed Comprehensive Test Ban.

The ACDA involvement has varied among the treaties--some were achieved by Presidential envoys, and some by officials of the Department of State. In other cases, the Agency had the lead. But, in almost all cases of significant agreements, the Agency provided much of the necessary technical and legal expertise and provided the continuing backstopping that was necessary for success in negotiations year-in and year-out. The Arms Control Agency has provided an arms control perspective and expertise whenever needed by others in the executive branch. In the most successful times for the Agency as in this administration, the President and the Secretary of State have turned to the Director and to his staff as principal advisers on arms control and, often, nonproliferation. This experience has demonstrated the wisdom of President Kennedy and the Congress in their decision to give arms control a real boost by creating the only separate agency of its type in the world.

Now that the cold war is over, some question the continued need for an arms control and disarmament agency. Some ask whether the essential tasks of arms control and disarmament are not done. In recent rounds of budget cutting, the Agency has indeed become beleaguered. It is fighting even now for a budgetary level at which it can successfully accomplish the tasks assigned to it. I hope very much that the effort to have ACDA adequately funded will be successful. Should we not adequately fund ACDA--with a budgetary level equivalent to the cost of a single fighter aircraft--I believe that we will rue that decision when we come to realize that the Agency made a great difference to our true national security interests.

One can legitimately ask whether there are any truly significant challenges ahead. The able and dedicated current Director, John Holum, gave a chilling look at the challenges that truly face this country in the area of nonproliferation alone when he said in February at George Washington University:

`Meanwhile, the Soviet-American arms race has been overshadowed by a danger perhaps even more ominous: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction--whether nuclear, chemical or biological, or the missiles to deliver them--to rogue regimes and terrorists around the world.

By reputable estimates, more than 40 countries now would have the technical and material ability to develop nuclear weapons, if they decided to do so.

More than 15 nations have at least short range ballistic missiles , and many of these are seeking to acquire, or already have, weapons of mass destruction.

We believe that more than two dozen countries--many hostile to us--have chemical weapons programs.

The deadly gas attack in Tokyo's subway last year crossed a fateful threshold: the first use of weapons of mass destruction not by governments but terrorists, against an urban civilian population.

Revelations about Iraq have provided a chilling reminder that biological weapons are also attractive to outlaw governments and groups.

And recalling the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, we must ponder how even more awful the suffering would be if even primitive nuclear, chemical or biological weapons ever fell into unrestrained and evil hands.'

Mr. President, I commend the Arms Control Agency and its excellent staff. I hope very much that the Congress of the U.S. will have the wisdom to provide the necessary support and backing to the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency as it serves us and all Americans in the future in helping to find ways to deal with the threats to peace and security, the United States, its friends, and its allies will face in the period ahead.