Gore's Retaliatory Strike
Addressing the graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Saturday, Vice President Al Gore said America needs to take the "right approach" to further reducing its nuclear arsenal, CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports.
Despite the end of the Cold War, there are still thousands of warheads poised and ready in the U.S. and Russia—enough to destroy each country a hundred times over.
Now, the two major presidential candidates are jumping on the arms control issue as a way to destroy each other. It is an unexpected turn in a race many expected would revolve around domestic issues.
Talk of nuclear arms forced its way into the presidential race earlier this week when likely Republican nominee George W. Bush proposed making drastic cuts in the U.S. arsenal, to levels far below those targeted by military leaders.
Gore's commencement address seemed crafted to respond to the Texas governor.
"We need to continue on a course of deeper reductions, but it is critical we have the right approach in doing so," the vice president said.
Returning to Washington, Gore insisted his speech to the cadets was not political and that he was speaking as vice president on issues President Clinton will raise next week in his first summit with new Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
"It is destabilizing to try to argue for missile reductions and at the same time go for a big massive total defensive system," Gore said. "That is our national policy that I have to articulate on the eve of the president's departure for Moscow."
On Tuesday, with retired Gen. Colin Powell and former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger at his side, Bush said more nuclear weapons should be taken off hair-trigger alert.
"It's time to leave the Cold War behind and defend against the new threats of the 21st century," he said. "I will pursue the lowest possible number consistent with our national security."
"We should not keep weapons that our military planners do not need," he declared. "These unneeded weapons are expensive relics of dead conflicts. America should lead by example."
Bush wants to bring America's nuclear arsenal below the levels in the START II treaty with Russia, which calls for each side to reduce warheads from 6,000 to between 3,000 and 3,500. The United States and Russia are now negotiating a START III treaty that could cut warheads by an additional 1,000. But, Bush added, there is still a need for a strong missile defense system.
CBS News Correspondent Phil Jones reports a TV ad now airing in Washington, D.C. is meant to pressure President Clinton before he meets with Russian arms negotitators next month. It's evidence of how conservative coalitions behind Bush are attempting to turn the topic into a major campaign issue.
"Dangerous nations like North Korea and Iran will have nuclear missiles that can hit our cities," runs th ad. "But America has no defense against missile attacks. Clinton and Gore have left us unprotected."
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After the governor's speech, Bush's chief foreign affairs adviser, Condoleeza Rice, said that the United States would make its missile cuts whether or not Russia agrees to the reductions. Yet Rice also seemed to link reductions to development of a missile defense system - something which could be years in the making. She said Bush would determine the U.S. nuclear arsenal level after reviewing national security needs and capabilities, including a missile defense system's feasibility.
Asked if reductions would be contingent on such a system, Rice said, "It's difficult to answer. I think he would hope those would proceed in parallel."
Gore has called Bush's ideas reckless and irresponsible.
His campaign issued a news release on Tuesday accusing the Republican of trying to radically rewrite or abolish the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with his missile defense plan. Gore said Bush's position shows he "lacks the depth of experience to keep America safe and secure."
Also Tuesday, Gore attacked Bush's father, the former president, on, of all things, foreign policy.
Gore said when he and President Clinton took over the White House from President Bush in 1993, "unlike our immediate predecessors, we chose to get intimately involved" in the Middle East peace process.
"But we also established a firm new rule, and we have followed this rule faithfully, that we must not and would not in any way try to pressure Israel to agree to measures that they themselves would not seek," Gore told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington.
Never mentioning either Bush by name, Gore recalled his tenure as a U.S. senator from Tennessee at the time the elder Bush was president.
"In 1991, I vividly remember standing up against a group of administration foreign policy advisers who promoted the insulting concept of linkage, which tried to use loan guarantees as a stick to bully Israel. I stood with you and together we defeated them. We stopped them," said Gore, to loud applause.
The vice president also underscored his experience in foreign policy—something the Gore campaign says Bush lacks.