PRESS CONFERENCE BY AUSTRALIA

10 April 1997

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY AUSTRALIA

19970410 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

The former Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, Admiral Stansfield Turner, and the Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations and former Convenor of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Richard Butler, held a press conference at Headquarters Wednesday to discuss steps to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons. They were introduced by Mark Schlefer, President of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security, a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., dedicated to educating the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. The Lawyers Alliance presented Mr. Butler with the W. Averell Harriman Award for his work on the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty and the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Delegates' Dining Room.

Admiral Turner, a member of the Executive Council of the Committee for National Security, an affiliate organization of the Lawyers Alliance, expressed his "sense of alarm" at what had happened since the meeting in Helsinki a few weeks ago between the Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation. With respect to reducing worldwide the numbers of nuclear weapons, "they slowed the process down" and slowed the full implementation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks Treaty (START II) by five years while setting "a very modest goal" of 2,000 warheads for each country by the year 2008. Indications were that the overall arms control process "is in real trouble today", he said.

Admiral Turner added that there were some 36,000 nuclear warheads in the world today, "so many more than was needed". Finding a new process was needed, because "the traditional process of taking years to negotiate a treaty, years to get it ratified, and then more years to get it implemented is not necessary today". There was enough consensus that nuclear weapons ought to be reduced.

Indeed, he continued, if United States President Bill Clinton tomorrow morning ordered the Commander of the United States Strategic Command simply to take 1,000 warheads off missiles and store them several hundred miles away under the watch of Russian observers, substantial reductions of nuclear weapons could be achieved. The Russians would likely follow, since they wanted to "go down almost faster than we do". The next slice would be 2,000 warheads, and so on. After all, a projected 2,000 warheads on each side in the year 2008 was only a relative improvement, not an absolute one. "Two thousand warheads aimed at the United States puts us totally out of business, same with Russia", he said. "So, we haven't made progress if that's the best we hope to do."

Such a nuclear disarmament process would be "strategic escrow", he added. Warheads would be removed and separated so that eventually there would be no nuclear weapons in the world ready to fire. The capability of assembling and firing those weapons would still exist, but international observers would monitor all activity. A programme of strategic escrow could move things rapidly, and it was important to do so. The 36,000 warheads in the world were a danger, because it was not known what was going to happen in the Russian Federation in the next 10 or 20 years, or in China. The longer the major nuclear Powers retained large numbers of weapons, the greater the likelihood of proliferation to other nations in the world. "We are on a brink here, where if the United States does not take the initiative, we could slide into a nuclear morass", he said. Mr. Butler said that the NPT in May 1995 was extended indefinitely, in perpetuity, after a quarter century of life, and after "a very torturous negotiation in this House". That decision, taken without a vote, was possible only because of the negotiation of three additional documents, or associated political agreements, one of which provided for a new review process leading to the next overall review of the Treaty in the year 2000. Two days ago, the first of the preparatory meetings began under the new review process. Extending that Treaty indefinitely, Mr. Butler continued, gave expression to the view widely held in the international community and in international law that "nobody should have nuclear weapons, nobody". Those who did not have them should never seek to acquire them, and those who did have them should progressively get rid of them. It was decided that there could be no qualified extension of such a political, legal and moral commitment. Given its very nature, the Treaty had to be indefinite. Yet, he added, there remained a "very deep concern in the House" that the part of the NPT commitment concerning the obligation of nuclear-weapon- States to get rid of those weapons had been inadequately pursued. The associated political agreements in May 1995 meant what they said. They contained the commitment by the nuclear-weapon-States that they would move farther ahead with nuclear disarmament than they had in the past. Thus, "a fundamental point of the keeping of good faith within the international community" had ben reached. However, the record and the future of nuclear disarmament was sadly in doubt. Mr. Butler noted that the five permanent members of the Security Council -- all of whom were nuclear-weapon States -- yesterday issued a statement in the context of the NPT review process indicating they were fairly satisfied with what they had done to date. But, they made no specific proposals for further nuclear arms reductions. Indeed, on the second page of their statement they said that "the other steps being taken by us in this area are also to be welcomed". What were those other steps? he asked. Although he and Mr. Turner had not met before today, Mr. Turner's proposal of strategic escrow was very similar to the proposal of the Canberra Commission in its report on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Mr. Butler continued. The Commission had recommended the following six immediate steps

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towards nuclear disarmament: take all nuclear forces off alert status; remove warheads from delivery vehicles; end the deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons; end nuclear testing; initiate negotiations to further reduce United States and Russian nuclear arsenals; and reach agreement among nuclear-weapon States of reciprocal no first-use undertakings and non-use undertakings by them in relation to non-nuclear-weapon States. Like the strategic escrow plan, Mr. Butler said, those steps would send a very clear signal that "we are on the move towards keeping our promise", a promise that had been made by the nuclear-weapon States. If the recommendations of the Commission were undertaken, everyone would be "exquisitely surprised to discover that the heavens didn't fall in", and the world could exist without being on constant nuclear alert. That should breed confidence that negotiations for further cuts could be more ambitious. A correspondent asked about the impact on the NPT of a report that one condition imposed on the Chemical Weapons Convention by United States Senator Jesse Helms was that the United States would use nuclear weapons in response to a chemical weapons attack. Mr. Butler responded that the Commission had made it abundantly plain that there was only one conceivable utility in nuclear weapons -- and that was to deter their use by others. Crossing the nuclear threshold in response to a conventional or chemical attack, in the Commission's judgement, was both militarily inconceivable and useless. Admiral Turner added that for the United States to feel that it had to rely on nuclear weapons to retaliate against any kind of attack was silly. It could handle with overwhelming conventional forces those countries that wanted to use chemical weapons. "We beat Iraq with one hand tied behind our back", he said. "We had no problem doing that, and we'll do that with anybody who uses chemical weapons against us." He added that it was terribly important for the United States finally to renounce the initiation of nuclear war. "As long as we profess that there are some circumstances under which we would have a reason to use nuclear weapons, how can we tell the North Koreans, how can we tell the Iraqis, how can we tell anybody -- you, too, are not entitled to have a nuclear weapon for some situation in which you feel you are in extremis", he said. To a question about whether the public was misguided by not worrying as much about the threat of nuclear weapons, Admiral Turner said that worrying was called for. He said his book, Caging the Nuclear Genie, to be released in September, would change everyone's perspective. Mr. Butler said that he agreed wholeheartedly with Mr. Turner that as the numbers of weapons decreased, "the relativities kick in and it gets much harder". He added that there was "a kind of moral numbness" about the issue that had to be turned around.

Asked for some clarity on the "strategic escrow" proposal regarding specific reductions and multilateral surveillance, Admiral Turner said that the actual placement of the weapons in storage had to be done on a case-by- case basis. What needed to be separated was the particular warhead from the particular vehicle, requiring a matter of days or weeks before they could be

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remounted. In the initial phase, he would not ask for international observers, but only for Russian observers. In time, it could be internationalized, perhaps to include United Nations observers or International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) observers. But, that was a distant prospect.

Asked when he had made the "transition" from Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to "advocate" for the reduction of nuclear warheads, Admiral Turner said that during his tenure as Director of the CIA he had the studies done by the CIA that "clearly indicated we had excess numbers of nuclear weapons". And, when he was an Admiral in the United States Navy, nuclear weapons were treated like conventional bombs and placed "all around the place", even while the United States was saying its war plans were not targeting cities. He saw enough of that kind of behaviour to make him "a very good sceptic" during his time in the CIA.

Referring to the statement by the permanent members of the Security Council, a reporter noted that, apparently, it was the first time China had joined such an approach by the other nuclear-weapon States. Asked to what extent that was significant, Mr. Butler said he was not sure that it was the first time China had joined in such a statement. He noted the lack of specificity in the statement and added "there are a lot of countries in the meeting in the Building today who went through real pain in the way in which the NPT was extended. Their deepest fear was that the nuclear-weapon States would pocket that extension and walk away and behave as they did in the past".

"Why don't they make a strong commitment -- five of them together, as called for in the Canberra Commission Report"? Mr. Butler asked. "Why don't they step forward and say `we jointly together recognize that the game is up for nuclear weapons; they are threatening to all humanity; they don't serve any military purpose other than deterrence -- which would go away if no one had them anyway -- and we will now take immediate steps to reduce the danger'?" There was nothing like that in their statement.

Did the position of the "permanent five" suggest that, in the end, it all came down to the will and mutual trust between them? a reporter asked. Mr. Butler said "people get as hard as nails when the subject at issue is nuclear weapons, so every step of the way is hard-fought and hard-won". The political relations among the nuclear-weapon States was a central element. But, he was reluctant to accept that studies and Commissions were irrelevant. In many respects, the business of nuclear disarmament had been driven by the people not wearing the suits.

Did the apparent lack of commitment shed some new light on India's position regarding the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty? the reporter asked. Mr. Butler said that India's opposition was "right and it was wrong". It was right in saying that more nuclear disarmament was needed. It was tragically wrong to say that a treaty that would stop all test explosions was without value.

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