Nuclear Club

President Clinton should seize the opportunity just before or during next week's Group of Seven summit to order a total ban on any further U.S. nuclear weapons tests unless another nation breaks the existing worldwide moratorium. This would be the most decisive action he could take to prevent a host of other countries from arming themselves with nuclear weaponry -- a prospect that would vastly complicate U.S. military planning for the post Cold War world.The argument advanced by the Pentagon and various nuclear testing laboratories that they need another series of tests -- nine would be enough if they can't have 15 -- is the repeat of an old, old song that has prevented the United States from pushing for a complete and comprehensive test ban in the past.

IF PROMISES are made to be broken, the world may one day hear a tell-tale crackle coming from Tokyo. That's because, recent assurances by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi notwithstanding, Japan - the world's only country to suffer nuclear attack - is debating the development of nuclear weapons. And the talk is getting louder. Never mind Mr. Koizumi's pledge, made on Aug. 9 in Nagasaki on the anniversary of the second atomic bomb, that Japan would "never change" its position on making or having nuclear armaments.

Hardly a week has gone by that has not brought new evidence of Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of the U.N. cease-fire agreement. Last week's standoff in a Baghdad parking lot between Iraqi soldiers and a U.N. inspection team began when the inspectors uncovered documents showing Iraq was well on the way toward building a detonating device for nuclear bombs.Earlier, U.N. inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna found that Iraq had secretly produced enough weapons grade uranium to make several nuclear bombs.

WASHINGTON -- Having destroyed Saddam Hussein's regime in less than a month of fighting, President Bush is looking at the rest of the world with a sterner eye. Administration officials hope America's decisive victory in Iraq will jolt adversaries around the globe into recognizing what Secretary of State Colin L. Powell calls a "new dynamic," in which the United States will not tolerate the threat of rogue nations seeking the world's deadliest weapons....

Westerners' distress over Iraq's prowess in developing nuclear arms is understandable, though belated. What is so stunning is how rapidly Iraq's determination to possess a nuclear arsenal overcame the practical difficulties Western experts expected to act as a natural bar.Information long in the public domain was collected, analyzed and extended. Early nuclear-age technology was updated. Suppliers of equipment, chemicals and base materials needed to produce nuclear arms were recruited, suborned or deceived into cooperating.

North Korea's proclaimed intention to withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is more than the bluster of a trouble-making rogue regime. It is a direct threat to the credibility of the most important international agreement of the nuclear age. If North Korea gets away with this, it will set a precedent that could be followed by other governments and undermine a bulwark of world stability.Since the pact to stop the spread of nuclear weaponry went into effect in 1970, 156 nations have signed on and, until now, not a single one has attempted to withdraw.

China in its perverse way has given President Clinton an opportunity to put real meaning in his promise to weave the goal of nuclear non-proliferation "into the fabric of all our relationships with the world's nations." He can do so by refusing to follow suit just because China (with France possibly to follow) has broken a year-long worldwide moratorium on nuclear testing.Beijing's action was deplorable, but it need not undermine negotiations in Geneva next January for a permanent and comprehensive ban on nuclear testing.

George Bush will not be remembered in history as th !B "education president" or the "environment" president," but he is staking a claim on the title of "disarmament president."

BOSTON -- This is only a test, as they used to say when the high-pitched hum of the Emergency Broadcast System pierced the air. Only a test.So too, when the nuclear weapons rumbled under the northwest desert of India last week, it was only a test. But the sense of alarm was palpable and this time the most dispiriting sound came from the Indian people.The Hindu government asserted its membership in the Big Boys Club five times and the people responded happily, exuberantly. Posters boasted "We Welcome N-Tests."

Washington. Sweet Saddam Hussein has raised the next important issue for humankind. He says he has nuclear weapons and is prepared to use them.Now, Mr. Hussein often lies. He occasionally tells the truth. The experts say this time he's lying, but not so long ago experts told us that you couldn't hit a missile with a missile.This time the experts are probably right. If Mr. Hussein talks nuclear stuff to CNN again, they ought to run an MJID on the screen. (That's a Modified Joe Isuzu Disclaimer, and it should read ''he's probably lying . . .'')

PARIS -- Heroic restraint is not to be expected of nations anymore than of individuals. It is edifying when it occurs, but it defied human nature and political expedience to believe that Pakistan would refrain from demonstrating that it too is a nuclear weapons power.One has only to imagine how Americans would have reacted to a situation like Pakistan's (or how it did react when the Soviet Union launched the first orbital satellite in 1957, putting the first man into space).U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy has been perfectly reasonable as an effort to limit the risk that nuclear weapons will again be used in war. It also serves U.S. national interests, as a nuclear power.

BOSTON -- This is only a test, as they used to say when the high-pitched hum of the Emergency Broadcast System pierced the air. Only a test.So too, when the nuclear weapons rumbled under the northwest desert of India last week, it was only a test. But the sense of alarm was palpable and this time the most dispiriting sound came from the Indian people.The Hindu government asserted its membership in the Big Boys Club five times and the people responded happily, exuberantly. Posters boasted "We Welcome N-Tests."

China in its perverse way has given President Clinton an opportunity to put real meaning in his promise to weave the goal of nuclear non-proliferation "into the fabric of all our relationships with the world's nations." He can do so by refusing to follow suit just because China (with France possibly to follow) has broken a year-long worldwide moratorium on nuclear testing.Beijing's action was deplorable, but it need not undermine negotiations in Geneva next January for a permanent and comprehensive ban on nuclear testing.

Until the United States and the internation al community resolve to strengthen the presumption against nuclear proliferation, the difficulties the Clinton administration has faced in stopping proliferation in Iraq and North Korea are likely to be repeated elsewhere.The run-up to the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) extension conference provides the United States with an opportunity to assume its global responsibility to lead the world in a safer direction. The United States has made clear that it wants an indefinite, unconditional extension of the NPT. By developing a comprehensive agenda for the control of nuclear weapons in a post-Cold War setting it will have taken a major step toward this important objective.

President Clinton should seize the opportunity just before or during next week's Group of Seven summit to order a total ban on any further U.S. nuclear weapons tests unless another nation breaks the existing worldwide moratorium. This would be the most decisive action he could take to prevent a host of other countries from arming themselves with nuclear weaponry -- a prospect that would vastly complicate U.S. military planning for the post Cold War world.The argument advanced by the Pentagon and various nuclear testing laboratories that they need another series of tests -- nine would be enough if they can't have 15 -- is the repeat of an old, old song that has prevented the United States from pushing for a complete and comprehensive test ban in the past.

South Africa's admission that it had developed six nuclear bombs before announcing its decision to scrap them is a stark reminder how easy it has become for aggressive or endangered nations to acquire these dread weapons of mass destruction. For years, Pretoria would neither deny nor confirm it had developed such capability -- an approach also followed by other putative nuclear powers that wish to deter or threaten their rivals.Israel, India and Pakistan, adhering to this course, have long led the suspect list.

As the Soviet Union continues its inexorable process of disintegration, there is no more vexing or perplexing question: What happens to the thousands of nuclear bombs that still lurk in the countryside of the vast territory?In a sense these weapons constitute "nuclear waste." No one really wants them, they just lie there ready to be picked up by whatever new figures emerge as leaders of the pieces of the old Soviet Union or, for that matter, free-lance mercenaries.At a conference of editorial writers at the University of Maryland at College Park this past week, the eminent Soviet scientist Roald Z. Sagdeev discussed the problematical future of this unwanted arsenal.

PARIS -- Heroic restraint is not to be expected of nations anymore than of individuals. It is edifying when it occurs, but it defied human nature and political expedience to believe that Pakistan would refrain from demonstrating that it too is a nuclear weapons power.One has only to imagine how Americans would have reacted to a situation like Pakistan's (or how it did react when the Soviet Union launched the first orbital satellite in 1957, putting the first man into space).U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy has been perfectly reasonable as an effort to limit the risk that nuclear weapons will again be used in war. It also serves U.S. national interests, as a nuclear power.

North Korea's proclaimed intention to withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is more than the bluster of a trouble-making rogue regime. It is a direct threat to the credibility of the most important international agreement of the nuclear age. If North Korea gets away with this, it will set a precedent that could be followed by other governments and undermine a bulwark of world stability.Since the pact to stop the spread of nuclear weaponry went into effect in 1970, 156 nations have signed on and, until now, not a single one has attempted to withdraw.

George Bush will not be remembered in history as th !B "education president" or the "environment" president," but he is staking a claim on the title of "disarmament president."