Senate passes MX cash vote

Press, 27 May 1983, Page 5

Senate passes MX cash vote

NZPA Washington The United States Senate yesterday approved start-up funds for President Ronald Reagan’s MX missile plan. It approved, 59 votes to 39, a resolution releasing SUS62S million (SNZ944 million) for the MX plan and sent it back to the House of Representatives for final action.

The House approved a similar resolution, 239 to 186, on Wednesday so final approval seems assured. Mr Reagan plans to put 100 of the 10-warhead, highly accurate MX missiles in existing silos in the western United States, beginning in 1986, and develop a small er single-warhead missile for deployment as early as 1993.

The House Speaker, Mr Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, said that Congress could still cripple Mr Reagan’s MX plan even though it approved the initial funds yesterday.

He said that the House could turn against Mr Reagan’s basing plan next week by rejecting in a separate defence bill some or all of the SUS4.B billion (SNZ7.2 billion) needed to buy the missiles.

That would keep the plan alive as a study but the missiles could not be built or installed until he obtained Congressional approval for production money. Mr Reagan won the larger-than-expected House approval with heavy lobbying and with written assurances to Congressmen two weeks ago that the MX would not interfere with arms control. He greeted the Senate approval as “a decisive, historic contribution to our nation’s security.” “My fondest wish is for the eventual elimination of

nuclear weapons,” he said. “In this spirit, I urge the Soviets to join us at Geneva in taking that first giant step — an equitable and verifiable agreement that substantially reduces the level of nuclear arsenals on both sides.” At a symposium near Bonn an official Soviet representative said yesterday that the Soviet Union was preparing “spectacular” arms reduction proposals. Radomir Bogdanov, deputy director of Moscow’s Institute on the United States of America and Canada, said that the Soviet Union was ready to follow earlier disarmament offers if it received a more encouraging response from the West. “We are very ready to make many more proposals, many spectacular proposals, in that field,” he said. He was disappointed with the suspicion with which previous Soviet arms reduction proposals had been received in the West. “If we abolish all arms, throw all our tanks in the sea, and destroy all our nuclear weapons, Europe will say there is something ominous behind it,” he said.