Senate backs weapon tests

Press, 14 June 1984, Page 10

Senate backs weapon tests

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The Senate has voted to allow the testing of United States anti-satellite weapons, but only if the White House can show it is trying to negotiate an agreement with the Soviet Union to limit their use.

The 61 to 28 vote yesterday represented a modest victory for President Ronald Reagan, who pushed for anti-satellite weapons trials, but it also set up a clash with the House of Representatives, which wants a one-year moratorium on testing. The Senate vote, on an amendment to the SUS29I billion (SNZ44B billion) 1985 defence bill, would only allow American anti-satellite weapons to be tested if the White House met certain conditions.

Among other restrictions, the Administration would have to show Congress it was genuinely trying to ne-

gotiate a mutual and verifiable agreement with the Soviet Union “with the strictest possible limits” on anti-satellite weapons. “We’d prefer to have no restrictions but we believe these are reasonable restrictions and we can live with them,” said a Republican Senator, John Tower, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a White House ally on the testing issue.

Another condition in the Senate amendment would require Mr Reagan to determine that any testing of anti-satellite weapons would not be an “irrevocable step” endangering prospects for negotiations with the Soviet Union.

On May 23, the House voted 238 to 181 to continue for a year a 1983 moratorium which banned testing against objects in space as long as Moscow also refrained.