Church Fears Senate Will Reject Agreement Banning Nuclear Tests

Idaho's youthful Democratic Senator Frank Church told a Quincy House audience yesterday that the Senate probably would not ratify a nuclear test-ban treaty if President Kennedy submitted one this year.

He added, however, that Senate opposition is not the principal obstacle to signing such a treaty. Rather, he maintained that the treaty has not been concluded because the Russians do not want to stop testing while the United States has superiority in nuclear weapons. Because the United States is ahead now, Church said that he personally favors strenuous efforts to conclude a treaty quickly.

Strategic Considerations

Church pointed out that Senate opposition to a test ban stems from basic strategic considerations, and not from the issue of how many inspection stations are required to prevent cheating. Many Senators believe that further testing--which might produce a decisive technical break-through--would better serve American security than cutting off the nuclear arms race at its present level.

He disagreed with this view, arguing that the United States probably would not exploit a decisive nuclear edge in the future, just as it failed to use its nuclear monopoly after World War II to bludgeon, the Russians into an advantageous general settlement. On the other hand, he felt that the Russians might use a decisive advance they made in nuclear weaponry to threaten the United States.

Later in his wide ranging luncheon conversation with members of the Young Democrats and Tocsin, Church said he feared a radical swing to isolationism within the next five to ten years, as popular opposition to the heavy cost of America's international commitments grows and Western Europe becomes increasingly independent of American leadership. He said this isolationist tide can only be stemmed by making reasonable concessions to it now. He suggested that all military subsidies to Western Europe, which total about $250 million annually, be stopped, and that the waste in foreign aid be eliminated.

The mood of the country, which he said Congress reflects faithfully, is generally conservative, Church observed. For this reason, he speculated that Sen. Barry Goldwater might make a stronger Republican Presidential candidate in 1964 than would Nelson Rockefeller. Goldwater would probably win six to eight states in the South, Church said, and would gain wide support in the Mountain states and the Midwest