It is, however, a valuable tool. And when we live in a world full of dangerous neighborhoods, we should not deprive ourselves of any reasonable means of protection. That leadership is needed, for example, on biological weapons. These are customarily grouped with chemical weapons. Measured by the potential impact on human lives, a better comparison is with nuclear arms.
Chemical weapons become less lethal as they're dispersed.
They can also mutate, and resist treatment. The Biological Weapons Convention dates to 1972. So we are now negotiating in Geneva to exploit advances in technology and in arms control techniques, to make this treaty, too, into an effective instrument. President Clinton has set that as another leading arms control priority. In 1995, for example, a member of a hate group in Ohio fraudulently ordered the bubonic plague bacillus by mail from a specialized supplier in Rockville.