Before the vote, the Post-Gazette editorialized at length on the virtue of the test ban treaty, which was first proposed by President Eisenhower. After this careless blow to the cause of nuclear nonproliferation, there is little to do but lament. Thanks to a store of knowledge and experience gained through more than 1,000 nuclear tests, the United States was able to cease testing in 1992. That's because this argument was always a convenient diversion. If we succeed in that, not only does the world become a safer place, but also our nuclear advantage is permanently sealed in.
Logic counts for nothing when a symbolic point can be made.
It goes deeper than confounding a president whom conservatives detest. In our view, it is part of the same philosophy that has left the United States in serious arrears on its financial obligations to the United Nations. It is a world view that holds the world in general contempt, a hostile insularity that believes the United States can do anything it likes with deference to nobody. The high priest of this view, of course, is Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee did his best to scuttle the test-ban treaty from the beginning. This antipathy is shown in the derisory way this treaty was considered.