Remarks of Sen. Gold­wa­ter on the Lim­ited Test Ban Treaty before the U.S. Sen­ate, Sep­tem­ber 19, 1963.

Mr. Pres­i­dent, after review­ing the remarks made in this Cham­ber, and the tes­ti­mony regard­ing the pro­posed lim­ited nuclear test ban treaty, I am impressed by three arguments–one in its favor, two in opposition.

In favor of it, after all is said and done, is a hope, usu­ally described as a faint glim­mer, that this may be the first step toward eas­ing ten­sion in the world. It is dif­fi­cult, if not impos­si­ble, to argue with a hope. It is an emo­tional thing; and in its soft and gen­tle glow, argu­ments appear harsh. The more frag­ile an illu­sion, the more rude must seem the attempts to shat­ter it.

I have warned, and will con­tinue to warn, that nuclear weapons are not the cause of ten­sion in this world; that if all were to dis­ap­pear mag­i­cally overnight, the ten­sion would remain, so long as world com­mu­nism remains ded­i­cated to aggres­sion and obsessed by its irra­tional vision of man as a mere cog in the machine of history.

But hope heeds only itself. How does one remind hope that, hith­erto, on-​​site inspec­tion has been the qual­i­fi­ca­tion of our trust of any arms con­trol scheme? How does one remind hope that the tech­nol­ogy of remote detec­tion still has not devel­oped fully to a point where it can replace such inspec­tion? Or how does one tell hope, sprung from fear, that fall­out is less a present threat than smog and fumes of every­day life? If we say these things, hope–revulsed–shrinks from our harsh words. One who says these things stands alone, a sad, somber, and unwel­come guest in a house of celebrants.

We are, appar­ently, well past argu­ing with hope. The future will shat­ter the hope and will sober the cel­e­brants. But we must wait.

For my part, and the part of the other few who must heed other voices in their con­science, there is only the time now to say why we will vote, as we must, to oppose approval of this treaty. I per­ceive two rea­sons, basi­cally; and I have based my deci­sions upon one.

First, there is the rea­son that this treaty is a polit­i­cal ambush, baited by the neces­sity of the Soviet to ease the many pres­sures upon its tyranny. This has been dis­cussed on this floor. The argu­ment impresses me; and I share, with those who have made it, bewil­der­ment at why free­dom is aided by putting salve on the wounds of tyranny. But that is not the argu­ment which, alone, moves me to vote as I must and as I will.

I will vote “no,” because of how I read his­tory and per­ceive the future. I see in our his­tory, in this nuclear age, that what peace we have had has been pos­si­ble because of our strength. I see in our his­tory the clear course of Soviet aggres­sions and breaches of the peace: They have poured through gaps in our strength. They have been stopped when those gaps are closed or were pre­cluded when our guard remained high.

I see no change in the future until or unless the objec­tives of com­mu­nism, not merely their weapons, change. And not even hope has spo­ken to us so far of a change in those objec­tives. Rather, all say that the objec­tives remain unchanged. But hope, it seems, can hear that truth and still pro­ceed, whistling past the grave­yard of experience.

Thus, if strength is the shield of peace and weak­ness the way to war and defeat, it is the impact upon our strength that con­cerns me most.

What is that impact? have we not heard assur­ance after assur­ance that our strength will be upheld under this treaty? We have, indeed.

But assur­ances are not facts, promises are not per­for­mances and I do not feel that freedom’s strength, in a time of freedom’s peril, can be armored by either. Such strength is a mat­ter of here and now, not of “if and when.” Real hope must be founded upon real strength.

There is a cat­a­log that has been laid before us of the price in strength we will pay under this treaty. Have we seen a sim­i­lar cat­a­log of a Soviet price? Hope may see such a cat­a­log; real­ity does not.

The major head­ing of this cat­a­log of America’s price, America’s strength, is that the treaty, per­haps gen­tly but nonethe­less firmly, closes the door of knowledge.

Now the Sen­ate must par­don me for speak­ing of real weapons in the real world. As I have said, the words sound harsh in the glow of hope. Truth often does.

There has been work under­way in our lab­o­ra­to­ries toward the design, devel­op­ment and test of a device with a yield of 80 to 100 mega­tons. Now the door will close on that, if this treaty is rat­i­fied. Does it close on sim­i­lar knowl­edge for the Sovi­ets? We only know that they have tested–tested, mind you, not just conjectured–devices with yields approach­ing that range, and we have not, and we will not under this treaty.

[Editor’s note: Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device ever det­o­nated, with a yield of 50 mega­tons, was det­o­nated by the U.S.S.R. on Octo­ber 30, 1961. The device had a design yield of 100 mega­tons, but was dialed back for fear of exces­sive fallout.]

We have never tested fully the sta­mina of our hard­ened mis­sile emplace­ments. The treaty will close the door against such tests. Will it close such a door for the Sovi­ets? We only know that there is evi­dence that they have tested–have tested, not theorized–hardened structures.

Not know­ing whether our mis­sile emplace­ments or mis­sile sites will with­stand a severe blast, how can we be sure of our great deter­rent, which is a second-​​strike capa­bil­ity? How can we ever be sure that any mis­siles will leave their sites with the lack of knowl­edge that we have of the envi­ron­ments to which they will be subjected?

Through the eyes of hope, of course, we see tests of major weapons and sys­tems as unnec­es­sary. Hope says that what we have is enough, that these high-​​yield devices are of min­i­mum mil­i­tary effi­ciency. Laps­ing only for a moment into the lan­guage of harsh fact, it is asked if sev­eral 20-​​megaton devices are not far bet­ter than one 60– or 100-​​megaton device. Again, the answer must be along the hori­zons of knowl­edge and not along the edges of the sta­tis­ti­cians ledger sheet.

It is the knowl­edge of the effect, the envi­ron­men­tal effect, of high-​​yield explo­sions, the sort we have not tested and will not test under this treaty–it is in such knowl­edge that we will be weak­ened by this treaty.

Prompt gamma pulses from high-​​yield explo­sions are known dev­as­tat­ingly to dis­tort elec­tronic circuitry.

[Editor’s note: A beau­ti­ful exam­ple of refusal to split the infinitive!]

We know very lit­tle about that sub­ject. We know that mega­ton yields of which the enemy is capa­ble could ren­der unus­able our entire com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tem. It would even ren­der unus­able our entire domes­tic elec­tric sys­tems at aston­ish­ingly high dis­tances. Since my col­leagues have not been to well informed in that field, at the end of my remarks I shall ask con­sent to have printed in the Record some infor­ma­tion that I have gath­ered on that sub­ject, but I shall not offer it now.

Inter­fer­ence with elec­tronic trig­gers is an area of grave con­cern. So is the effect upon mis­sile guid­ance sys­tems. so grave is the con­cern, that our mil­i­tary men must ask if the Sovi­ets do not have the capa­bil­ity, with the knowl­edge gained in their exclu­sive high-​​yield tests, of thor­oughly dis­rupt­ing our retal­ia­tory mis­sile sys­tems. They must ask if their sys­tems can sur­vive the melt-​​down of fis­sion­able mate­ri­als by neu­tron impact, the effect of X-​​rays, the dis­rup­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions and radar black­out from beta rays, from gamma rays, from fire­ball effects.

Ask the men who must man the mis­siles and they say tests are needed. Ask if the Sovi­ets have not already tested in this area and we find that we do not know–but there is ample evi­dence upon which to pre­sume that they have.

Ask the man upon whose com­mand rests 90 per­cent of the strate­gic strik­ing power of this Nation: Ask Gen­eral Power the impact of this treaty upon the strength about which he knows as much as any man. We have all heard his answer. This treaty is not in the national interest.

Ask the man whose job it has been to work with the most advanced weapons sys­tem: ask Gen­eral Schriever the impact of this treaty. We all have heard his answer. He felt he could pro­tect his coun­try bet­ter with­out the treaty.

And what of the Joint Chiefs of Staff alto­gether? Remem­ber now, if you will, only that they finally sup­ported the treaty because of many safe­guards, many promises, and polit­i­cal advan­tages of which other had spo­ken. But remem­ber every other day of your life, every day that the time bomb of Com­mu­nist treach­ery ticks closer to det­o­na­tion, that they spoke and spoke clearly of mil­i­tary dis­ad­van­tages under this treaty.

Pray God that we do not have to remem­ber that under attack, weak­ened and unprepared.

Remem­ber also their warn­ing that a state of eupho­ria would be the most deadly con­se­quence of the treaty. Remem­ber that as we now offi­cially study increased trade with the Sovi­ets. Remem­ber it when the next steps are taken, the pacts pro­posed, the agree­ments signed. It is not too late to remem­ber those things now, but other, more pop­u­lar tunes seem to dance in the air.

I shall not recite the page after page of cat­a­loging of the U.S. price in strength that this treaty exacts. Sen­a­tors know of them; they have heard or read them. They can restudy them. Let me just sum up the price: Under this treaty we close the door on sure knowl­edge of the sur­viv­abil­ity of our second-​​strike capa­bil­ity, the very capa­bil­ity which, until know, has been the shield of peace in this world. We halt the search for the widest span of nuclear know-​​how at a point where the total test yields of the Soviet are a full third greater than our own.

If I had no knowl­edge of weapons and of the enemy, then I would wish also to vote for this treaty and share the brief illu­sion that it brings. But I have lived too long with real­ity, too long with the men who are ded­i­cated to our defense, too long with the facts of the enemy’s ded­i­ca­tion, to dis­card all that I am and all that I know.
I will vote against this treaty because it will erode our mil­i­tary strength. I will vote against this treaty because it pre­serves the enemy’s advances in high-​​yield weaponry while free­ing them to over­take our lead in low-​​yield research. We pay a price; they do not.

I do not vote against the hope of peace, but only against the illu­sion of it. I do not vote for war, but for the strength to pre­vent it.

I have been told, as have oth­ers, I am sure, that to vote against this treaty is to com­mit polit­i­cal suicide.

I will vote against this treaty because in my heart, mind, soul and con­science, I feel it detri­men­tal to the strength of my country.

If it means polit­i­cal sui­cide to vote for my coun­try and against this treaty, then I com­mit it gladly. It is not my future that con­cerns me. It is my country-​​and what my con­science tells me is now best I may pre­serve it.

The Sen­a­tor then asked and was granted unan­i­mous con­sent to include addi­tional writ­ten mate­ri­als in the Record, and then responded to ques­tions from the floor.

Source: 1963 Cong. Rec. 17557–58.

Any typos are my own. I typed it rather quickly.