HEADLINE: REMARKS OF NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR ANTHONY LAKE BEFORE THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE MARRIOTT WASHINGTON HOTEL BODY: MR. LAKE: Thank you, Jim, very much. Let me thank all of you for coming here. Let me thank Jim for his generous introduction. I read this morning an op-ed piece by Jim on Fannie Mae and why it should be relieved from paying local taxesin the District of Columbia, and I want you to know Jim, that I enthusiasticallyendorse everything you said, on the assumption that you were about toenthusiastically endorse everything I said. MR. : Maybe I could get back to you. (Laughter.) Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 MR. LAKE: Let me also thank Sandy for all he has done for non- proliferation andthe Carnegie Endowment for hosting this event.I think this is the second greatest contribution to humanity that the CarnegieEndowment has made in it long history, the first being that it hired me manyyears ago at a moment when I was desperately in need of a salary, and Iappreciate that also. I'd like to speak to you today about an issue that is at the very top ofPresident Clinton's agenda, and that is reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. Nineteen-ninety-five is a year of decision. This year presents more thanopportunity. It is a moment of very real and difficult choice. In the coming months we can turn a corner in our efforts to combat the spread ofthese and other weapons of mass destruction. And I am here to tell you that we in this room have an obligation to work together and to get things done now.Since the end of the Cold War we have witnessed a world transformed. Today, theAmerican people worry less about nuclear war than at any time in a generation. But the weapons still exist and they can still destroy our nation and others.That's why you are here. You have devoted your lives to making people safer.As we move into the year ahead, let's not forget what is at the heart of ourefforts, ensuring that when all of our families turn out the lights at night, that they can sleep at greater safety than they ever have before. This is notultimately about the intricacies of missile throw weights or the half life of Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 fissile materials, it is about protecting people. That's why President Clinton vowed, when he took office, to do everything in his power to reduce the dangerof these weapons. And we believe we have come a long ways towards that goal. Wehave begun dismantling a huge part of the global nuclear arsenal. And at the same time we have maintained the strategic nuclear forces necessary to protectour most vital national interests.We are now at a crossroads, a point where some of the most important armscontrol goals set during the Cold War can be formally realized, and that's whytoday I want to issue a call to arms, or to arms control. We have a new andvery ambitious agenda before us, that will require a vast amount of work fromall of us, educating the public, pushing for action on Capitol Hill, and lining up support in the international community. And you and I are bound to disagree on individual points, and we should disagree on them. But we must also keep our eye on what's most important, on our fundamental goals, because if we let ourdifferences dominate the headlines, we will fail, and that won't be just an embarrassment, it will gravely weaken the safety we want for our families andfor our country, and for others. Because of the strides we've made in recent years, we are in a position to make tremendous progress. Consider this. In 1995, in this year of decision, we mustgain ratification of START II by the U.S. Senate and by the Russian Duma, sothat as President Clinton and President Yeltsin have agreed, the treaty can be Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 entered into force at their next summit. The presidents also agreed that we can then begin to remove warheads immediatelyand ahead of schedule. This year, also, as President Clinton said in the State of the Union address, America will lead the charge to extend indefinitely, thenon-proliferation treaty. This is absolutely crucial.In addition, we must pursue a comprehensive test ban treaty as well as aconvention cutting off production of fissile material and more measures tosafeguard nuclear materials in Russia and in the other newly independent states.We will push for Senate ratification of the chemical weapons convention. We willseek to strengthen the biological weapons convention, and we should aim tocomplete the ABM Treaty talks on the demarcation between theater and strategicmissile defenses all this year.We have an agenda like this because we have made real progress on these issuesover the past two years. As we were to reduce existing weapons and to prevent nations or groups from acquiring nuclear weapons or the materials to make them. Let's look at where we stand.A couple of years ago some doubted that the START I Treaty, negotiated byPresidents Reagan and Bush could ever be brought into force. When the SovietUnion collapsed, there was a genuine danger that several nuclear powers wouldemerge in its place. Today, our diplomacy has overcome that danger. The determined efforts of Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 President Clinton and Vice President Gore, as well as those of the leaders ofRussia, and Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, culminated in a ceremony last monthin Budapest at which START I entered into force. Ukraine, Belarus andKazakhstan all put their signatures on the dotted line. They all agreed toforeswear nuclear weapons entirely and to sign the non-proliferation treaty.START I will eliminate delivery systems that carry 9,000 nuclear weapons. Weare currently dismantling these nuclear weapons literally as fast as we can,2,000 nuclear weapons a year, and the Russians are also deactivating theirweapons years ahead of schedule.The ceremony in Budapest was one sign of just how much the end of the Cold War has created new opportunities to make us all safer. We are striving to take thefullest advantage we can of that change. President Clinton reached an agreement last year with President Yeltsin to stop targeting each other's territories.For the first time in a generation Russian missiles are not aimed at our cities and our citizens. If a Russian missile were accidentally launched, it would nothit our country. Our new partnership with Russia and our arms control progress over the past six years also served our security interests in allowing reduction in our strategic programs. To mention just a few, for every 10 U.S. military personnel whoseduty just a few years ago was working on strategic forces, today there are only three. The development of such programs as Midgetman, the MX rail garrison basing system, and the Lance follow-on nuclear missile could be safely Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 terminated and have been. We have cut U.S. defense budget expenditures forstrategic weapons by almost two-thirds. Pulling back from the Cold War nuclear precipice in this way, helps our citizensin their daily lives. It allows us to save some $20 billion a year on strategicnuclear forces alone. So now, we can shift our resources to needs like getting our economic house in order by paying down the deficit, boosting the readinessof our conventional forces, and putting more police on our streets. Our successin reducing nuclear arms needs a stronger and safer America.But while the post Cold War era has opened new arms control possibilities, insome ways it's made our work harder on the non- proliferation front. Thanks to technology and the collapse of the Soviet Union, nations and even terroristgroups have a better shot today than during the Cold War, at getting thematerials they need to build a bomb. Ironically, the very reductions in nuclear arsenals increased the risk thatdismantled nuclear materials -- (coughs) -- excuse me. I am recovering from acold. I cough when I have discovered, when I talk too much. This has beenwelcomed by many of my closest associates. (Laughter.) And so, I do get choked with emotion when I talk about the diversion of nuclear materials, but there is also the residue of the cough.We see in this then, a new and deeply disturbing phenomenon, nuclear smu ggling, with the greatest threat coming from the theft of bomb materials in the Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 stockpiles of the former Soviet Union. Now we face the danger that states andterrorists could try to become nuclear powers without investing in expensivedevelopment programs. One arrest has followed another, and the weight of theseized material has climbed from ounces now into pounds. This is one reason whyPresident Clinton has given non-proliferation such a high priority, and why the United States has proposed a comprehensive approach to fissile material control.We have agreed with Russia on the shutdown of its remaining plutonium productionreactors by the year 2000, and verification measures will ensure that none of the spent fuel from these reactors is used for weapons purposes.Thanks to far-sighted legislation by Senators Nunn and Lugar, we're helpingRussia and the newly independent states transport, safeguard and destroy nuclearweapons. Nunn-Lugar also implies nuclear scientists in non-military projects, and our nuclear labs have worked directly with their Russian counterparts toupgrade security at the Karchotov (sp) Institute, in a program that we will beexpanding still further. At the same time, we have reduced the total amount of material needing suchprotection. Under an agreement we reached last year with Russia, 500 tons ofhighly enriched uranium will be converted to low enriched reactor fuel that cannot be used for nuclear weapons. In a major operation called Saphire (sp),we also arranged for the airlift of nearly 600 kilograms of highly enricheduranium from Kazakhstan to secure storage in the United States. That would have been enough to make dozens of nuclear weapons. Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 For the first time ever we've also moved beyond the elimination of thousands of nuclear delivery vehicles, to eliminating the nuclear warheads that had beendeployed on those systems. And Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to pursue measures to ensure that that process is irreversible, including steps to exchange data, and to conduct reciprocal inspections of nuclear material storagefacilities. To help make the weapons dismantlement process irreversible, we've begun the process of placing nuclear material from the U.S. military stockpile under IAEA safeguards. President Clinton remains committed to strong support for the IAEA,including its vital safeguards function. The success of the regime and theadherence of additional countries to the NPT places new responsibilities on thatagencies. It needs our support and we provided this year an additional $10 million in our voluntary contribution. Even as we seek to place arms control and non-proliferation measures higher on our agenda because they can make the world safer and more stable. We must deal with some serious regional proliferation problems as well, and we will continue to integrate non- proliferation concerns intoour regional strategies in SouthAsia and in the Middle East and elsewhere. Over the past two years we have put our bilateral relationships, including thosewith Moscow and Beijing, on the line in order to strengthen the MissileTechnology Control Regime. We now have commitments from four key potential Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 missile suppliers, Russia, Ukraine, China and South Africa, to control the transfer of ballistic missiles and related technology.We have also confronted the nuclear threat from North Korea and we havestopped it in its track. Our agreement with Pyongyang freezes and then will dismantle their nuclear program. It is not built on trust. Instead theframework agreement sets up a system of international monitoring, and themonitors have already confirmed that North Korea has frozen its program.Plutonium that could have been processed into weapons materials will be put under IAEA supervision. Construction on reactors that would have produced more such material has ended. If at any time North Korea fails to meet itsobligations, we will withdraw the benefits of the agreement. This is a dealthat's good for America and it is good for the region, and that is why our allies in Japan and South Korea are committed to supporting it financially as well as politically. All of these are solid achievements, but they will mean little if we don't buildon them now in 1995. It is the year of decision. Let me outline for you theextraordinary and necessary agenda that is before us. First. We hope to raise the barrier this year against developing newgeneratio ns of nuclear weapons by negotiating a comprehensive test ban treaty.Second, we will continue work to prevent more nations from building their ownnuclear weapons by pressing for an indefinite extension of the non-proliferationtreaty. Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 Third, but by no means less important, we will also work to cut even deeper intothe global arsenal by pushing to ratify START II. And fourth, we will work on anumber, a large number of other efforts to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including a fissile material cutoff convention. Let me discuss each of these briefly. One of the administration's foremost goals is completing the negotiations on acomprehensive test ban treaty at the earliest possible date. When PresidentClinton arrived in office he declared a moratorium on U.S. nuclear testing, and in a major reversal of the policy of Presidents Reagan and Bush, he instructed U.S. delegates to take the lead in negotiating a CTB.This weekend the president made three decisions that underscore hisdetermination to achieve as much progress as possible before the NPT extension conference convenes in April.First, on the assumption that a treaty will be signed before September 30, 1996,and subject to the same understandings that govern our current moratorium, the President has decided to extend the moratorium on its nuclear tests until a CTB treaty enters into force. Second, the president has directed our CTB negotiator, Ambassador Letigar (sp), to propose that the Conference on Disarmament, remain in session through August if the negotiation is not concluded during the round now scheduled to end in April. Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 Third, the president has directed that at tomorrow's session of the Genevanegotiations, the United States will withdraw its proposal for a special rightto withdraw from the CTB treaty, 10 years after it enters into force.(Applause.) Let me also note that the CTB will contain a traditional supreme nationalinterest clause. In articulating his national security strategy last July, the president declared that the United States will retain sufficient strategicnuclear forces, sufficient to deter any future hostile, foreign leadership with access to strategic nuclear forces, from acting against our vital interests, andto convince it that seeking a nuclear advantage would be futile. In this regardthe president considers the maintenance of a safe and reliable nuclear stockpileto be in the supreme national interest of the United States. One of the most complicated and challenging issues in the CTB negotiations isthe question of what kinds of experiments and other stockpile stewardshipactivities will be permitted under the treaty, what our negotiators call treaty compliant activities.The U.S. position with regard to these activities is determined on the basis of three criteria. The CTBTreaty must be comprehensive and it must promote our vital national interest in curbing the further proliferation of nuclear weapons.The CTB Treaty must not prohibit activities required to maintain the safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpile, and the CTB Treaty must be signed by all Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 declared nuclear states and as many other nations as possible. As the negotiations proceed, the United States will continue to review its position on this issue to ensure that it meets these criteria.The non-proliferation treaty has been a key reason why there are not scores of nations armed with nuclear weapons, as many in the past imagined that there would be. But if we want to keep it that way, this year we must focus oureffo rts on permanently extending this treaty. The president, the vice presidentand the cabinet are committed to this necessary work. There are no moreimportant negotiations before us.Failure to secure permanent extension would open a Pandora's Box of nucleartrouble. Such a failure would help backlash states, isolated nations with rigidideologies and expansionist aims that are bent on acquiring the most dangerous of weapons. And other countries might seriously reconsider their own decisions to forego the nuclear option.Anything less than permanent extension will leave doubts about the internationalcommunity's resolve. NPT's extension is in our deepest security interest and inthe interest of all nations. We believe that non-nuclear nations should vote for the indefinite anduncondit ional extension of NPT -- (audio break at source) --Some of you occasionally accuse us of being disingen uous, of moving too slowly away from the Cold War, while demanding extension of the NPT to others. The United States is committed to pursue its obligations under Article VI of the Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 NPT. And as our progress in START and other initiatives show, we are moving to reduce the threat from nuclear weapons, absolutely as fast as we can. Theproblem, quite frankly, is that when some of you proclaimed the death of theNPT, every time we failed to act on other issues in exactly the way you would prescribe, you simply offer ammunition to the enemies of the NPT and risk aself-fulfilling prophecy of defeat.Certainly, let us disagree on tactics when we must. But let us not do so in aself-destructive way, and I hope all true friends of the NPT will agree withthat.In all the ways I have just discussed, we're working hard to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. But in this year of decision, we must alsoreduce the threat from the nuclear arsenals that already exist.At the president's urging, the Senate will, tomorrow, begin ratificationhearings, with testimony from Secretary Christopher, on START II, which willeliminate more than 5,000 nuclear weapons. Together with START I, that will reduce by two-thirds the number of strategic warheads deployed at the end of theCold War. We hope the Senate will move with dispatch.President Clinton and President Yeltsin have vowed to exchange instruments ofratification at their next summit, and we want to get started on implementation as soon as we can.In this year of decision we must also not lose sight of other very critical tasks. For example, we will work toward a treaty banning the production of Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 fissile materials that go into weapons. We will try to conclude negotiations toclarify the distinction in the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty between theatermissile defense and strategic ABMs.In these negotiations we are guided by two objectives, preserving the viability of the ABM Treaty, and ensuring that we can test and deploy highly effectivetheater missile defenses.We will continue to fight against international terrorism with the initiativethat the president announced in his State of the Union address, and we will redouble our efforts to stop nuclear smuggling and nuclear-related crimesthrou gh stepped up cooperation with our allies and others.We will ask the Senate to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention, which will advance us toward the goal of eliminating chemical weapons under rigorous international inspection.We will negotiate legally binding measures to strengthen compliance with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. We will continue to work forstrengthened export controls including a new regime to succeed COCOM. And wewill push for ratification of the Convention on Conventional Weapons as it isconventionally known, which will advance President Clinton's initiative to eliminate the most deadly of land mines. I want to make a plea that even as we are working hard toreduce the threat posed by the very largest of weapons, wemust not forget the terrible toll that's being taken by some of the smallest. Iwas reminded of this on a recent trip to Africa, particularly when I visited Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 Angola, which has more mines than people.I was outraged by what I saw around the once beautiful town of Quito (sp), whichnow lies in near rubble. There was not only the children I saw who had lostlimbs, terrible as that was, it seemed to me a metaphor for the terrible wasteof that war in Angola, that I could see across the fields outside the town,mangoes that no one could pick for fear of the land mines. So in this year of 1995, time is of the essence. The achievements of the past two years are truly remarkable, if not always remarked upon. But they have tobe built upon and 1995 is the year to do it. We've made real progress by weaving our goals of eliminating weapons of massdestruction into the fabric of our diplomacy. These are not separate issuesanymore. We tie our economic and political relations with scores of nations to progress on arms control issues and we will continue to do so.We can help write a new set of ground rules for the post Cold War period. Wecan strengthen our own security by negotiation, which is cheaper and safer than matching arms for arms. And we can work to create a world where nations depend on commitments to each other and to their peoples, no less than on arms. Or, wecan undermine our own cause by forgetting the things that really count, through indifference, or unnecessary differences.I believe we are present at the creation of a new era in world affairs, an era that demands full American engagement. In a world with too many nuclear, andchemical, and biological weapons, there is also a world of opportunity to do Federal News Service, JANUARY 30, 1995 something about it. President Clinton wants to press ahead to extend the NPTforever, to sign a test ban treaty, to reap the benefits of START for theAmerican people so that they may feel and be secure. And I hope all of you willhelp us make 1995 the year of the right decisions.Thank you very much. (Applause.) END