By LEE N. HOWELL
Politically Speaking

The defeat last week of the latest nuclear non-proliferation treaty brings to a screeching halt — and possibly slams the door shut completely — on the long commitment by the United States to reduce the threat of nuclear war by reducing the numbers of weapons that are built or tested.

It would be easy to place all the blame for the defeat of this treaty squarely at the feet of the Republican majority in the U. S. Senate.

As a partisan Democrat, I would have little trouble doing that and I would certainly feel no guilt for doing so.

After all, it was the solid block of “No” votes — cast by the ultra-conservative members of the GOP who may have really feared the treaty weakened the U. S. position in the world and by the moderates in that caucus who put party loyalty ahead of international peace and security — which defeated the latest non-proliferation treaty.

But, there was another reason the treaty failed and that was that the people who supported it — specifically the leadership of the current administration, starting with President Bill Clinton and working on down — did not provide the leadership necessary to convince a two-thirds bipartisan majority of senators to support it.

Meanwhile, the narrow-minded leadership of the Senate steadily built their case against the treaty.

Admittedly, over the past year-and-a-half, it has been difficult to get the President and the Republicans to sit down and discuss much of anything on a rational basis.

They have been too ham-strung by partisan wrangling over a minor sexual escapade by the president which some Republicans tried to make into a constitutional crisis.

Now, never be I one to absolve the president from his share of the responsibility for creating that constitutional crisis which led to only the second presidential impeachment trial in history.

As no less an expert on such matters than actor Warren Beatty pointed out, “Anybody who expected discretion from a 21-year old, love-struck intern was a little short-sighted at best.”

A reasonable individual would have thought that once a person had achieved his life-long goal, he or she would have been able to keep their pants zipped up except in the presence of their own spouse for the four or eight years they served.

But, there is really no use in rehashing the past: The fact is that Bill didn't and our country suffered through its second “long, national nightmare” in the last quarter century.

Still, it is a shame to see the United States slip from its pedestal as the leader of the nuclear non-proliferation movement at this perilous time in history.

My generation grew up in the shadow of “the Bomb.”

We lived in fear all our young lives of ending up a pile of ashes on an incinerated planet hurtling through the silence of space.

For instance, when we were in grammar school, we were all issued those little aluminum “dog tags” with our name, address, and birthdate engraved on it.

We thought — probably because we were told — they were to help protect us in case we ever got lost.

Actually, they were supposed to make it easier to identify the bodies if there were any survivors left to do so after the nuclear war all our leaders knew was coming.

And, I can still remember my terror every Wednesday at noon when the air raid siren sounded that the banshee-like howl would not end after the sixty-second test but continue on to let us know that the missiles were on their way.

Thus, when President John F. Kennedy signed the first limited test ban treaty, I felt somewhat relieved, as I did with the signing of each succeeding nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and I knew that we were all working together to achieve real peace.

But, with the failure of this latest treaty, I feel we may have taken a step backwards.

Today, I am sad — and a little afraid about what the future holds.

[Lee N. Howell is an award-winning writer who has been observing politics and society in the Southern Crescent, the state and nation for more than a quarter of a century.]

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