Clinton to Push Passage of Nuclear Test-Ban Pact

WASHINGTON —  The Clinton administration announced Tuesday that it will make ratification of a global treaty banning nuclear testing a priority for 1999, a move that launches President Clinton on a collision course with key Republicans already sworn in as jurors in his Senate impeachment trial.

Speaking at an international conference on nonproliferation here, National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said Clinton will press the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

“This treaty is in America’s national interest,” Berger said. “If the Senate rejected, or failed to act on, the test-ban treaty, we would throw the door open to regional nuclear arms races and a much more dangerous world.”

The United States signed the pact in 1996, and Clinton submitted it to the Senate for ratification the following year. It has languished there since, largely because of opposition from powerful Republicans, including Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

Conservative Republicans oppose the treaty, much as they have resisted other arms-control conventions, in part because they are convinced that other nations will circumvent its restrictions, leaving the United States at a disadvantage.

In another move aimed at reducing proliferation, Berger announced Tuesday that the United States has imposed economic sanctions against three Russian institutions accused of assisting Iran in its quest for weapons of mass destruction.

The trio--the Moscow State Aviation Institute, the Scientific Research and Design Institute of Power Technology and the D. I. Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology--reportedly have supplied Iran with technology and training that could be used for weapons development.

White House spokesman David Leavy said Clinton will make “a forceful presentation” for ratification of the test-ban treaty during his State of the Union speech later this month. Senior members of Clinton’s foreign policy team will then try to increase pressure on the Senate by pushing for ratification in speeches and in testimony on Capitol Hill.

“The message will be that not to ratify would damage national security,” Leavy said.

But in a speech Tuesday to the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, former Vice President Dan Quayle, a possible presidential contender in 2000, underscored the opposition to the pact, calling on the Senate to reject it.

With polls showing public support for a test ban running as high as 75%, however, there are signs that congressional Republicans risk ending up yet again on the wrong side of a fight with Clinton in the court of public opinion.

The urgency for ratification increased last year after nuclear tests by longtime foes India and Pakistan raised the prospect of a regional arms race in one of the poorest, most densely populated parts of the world.

Berger said the Clinton administration is pressing for ratification by September, the date of a planned inaugural conference among the nations that have signed the treaty. Because only those nations that have ratified the pact can make decisions at the conference, failure by the Senate to act would leave the United States on the sidelines.

So far, 26 nations, including nuclear powers Britain and France, have ratified the convention. Arms control specialists argue that many others, including Russia and China, are waiting for the United States to decide. The accord will not become binding until it has been ratified by all 44 nations that conduct nuclear research or have nuclear reactors.

Arms control specialists, most of whom favor the treaty, say the stakes are extremely high.

“Without U.S. leadership by example to ratify, we’ve got no chance whatsoever of bringing India and Pakistan into the [treaty] and halting a dangerous trend,” said Darryl Kimball, director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, an alliance of 17 Washington-based arms control organizations.

Two years ago, Senate Republicans stalled an international convention banning chemical weapons for months before an administration-led political offensive managed to win approval. But analysts question whether a wounded president has the ability to turn the tide again.

“It’s naive to ignore that as a factor,” said Alton Frye, who studies congressional politics at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Berger admitted that ratification will not be easy. “We have some formidable opponents in the Senate,” he said. “But I think the important thing here is to make it clear . . . that the American people want this treaty ratified.”

For Clinton, the tactic appears to echo administration strategy on impeachment: Appeal beyond Congress to the public.

The sanctions Berger announced against the three Russian institutions accused of assisting Iran in its weapons development programs were largely symbolic. Only one of the facilities, the power technology institute, conducts any business with the United States. It is believed to have a small contract with the Energy Department to aid in the decommissioning of Russian nuclear submarines.

Arms control specialists tended to dismiss the move as insignificant.

“These are window-dressing sanctions that do nothing to address the real issues,” said Henry D. Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington.

In Moscow, reaction to the sanctions was muted. None of Russia’s three national news networks mentioned it on the nightly broadcasts. But an official at one of the targeted institutions expressed dismay.

“These charges sound totally ridiculous,” said Pavel S. Lukyanov, an official on duty at the aviation institute. “We are a higher educational establishment and are in no position to officially or secretly trade with Iran, let alone sell it any weapon technology.”

Times staff writers Ronald Brownstein in Washington and Maura Reynolds in Moscow contributed to this report.