Senator CANNON. In regard to our agreement with the SovietsChairman STENNIS. You have run over your time. Finish please. Senator CANNON. The mutual balanced force reduction has been underway since January 1973. No reduction in either NATO or Warsaw Pact forces has resulted; so I would like to ask you now, do you think we can afford to unilaterally reduce with overwhelming Soviet forces in position?

I am relating that to the troops and the tactical nuclear weapons. Mr. WARNKE. I would say, Senator, that the present time would not be an appropriate time to take our tactical forces from Europe, except for those overly exposed and which, therefore, present a risk.

Senator CANNON. When did you come to that conclusion?

Mr. WARNKE. In light of the Soviet buildup.

Senator CANNON. When? Since your nomination or

Mr. WARNKE. Well, before my nomination.

Senator CANNON. Have you made any public expression to that effect?

Mr. WARNKE. Yes, sir. What I have done is support the proposal that was tabled at the MBFR talks, which, as I recall, it called for elimination of something like 1,000 tactical nuclear weapons, withdrawal of 29,000 troops, in exchange for a Soviet withdrawal of a tank army with something like 60,000 troops. I supported that. I have supported it for at least the past year and a half.

Senator CANNON. All right. My time has run out.
Chairman STENNIS. Senator Helms.

Senator HELMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Warnke, you are an articulate and eloquent man.
Mr. WARNKE. Thank you.

Senator HELMS. Just as a matter of personal interest, sir, would you tell me, if you were a "fluttery dove" by self-characterization in January 1976, how would you characterize yourself today?

Mr. WARNKE. I do not recall the particular statement that I made at that time. I suppose I must have intended it in jest; but I would describe myself today as I would describe myself at any point during my acquaintance with the political-military era, as being one who recognizes the importance of American military strength but does not regard that as being the ultimate tool of foreign policy, that we have to find in most instances nonmilitary solutions. I would characterize myself as a dove in that respect.

Those who hold the view that what the United States has to do in order to maintain its world position is to elect the military alternative in every instance do not hold views that I hold.

Senator HELMS. In your prepared statement you said, and I quote: "Any arms control agreements must be backed up by a substantial consensus within the United States." Mr. Warnke, a nationwide poll conducted by Opinion Research Corp. indicates that 65 percent of the American people believe that the United States should be militarily stronger than the Soviet Union. Do you agree with this view?

Chairman STENNIS. Excuse me a minute. Let's get that microphone, to be sure it is active.

Mr. WARNKE. I did hear the question, Senator Helms.

The answer is, yes; I do, of course.

Senator HELMS. Very well.

Mr. WARNKE. Let me go on and say that the question, of course, is whether that is going to be feasible or whether instead you are going to have to settle for a situation of rough equivalency.

Senator HELMS. Well, since time is limited, I do not want to impose on other Senators. Let me move quickly to one other area.

Senator Schweiker has said that he has information that President Carter has privately promised you control over a new high-level interagency panel charged with evaluating any proposed strategic arms limitations agreement with the Soviets. In effect, Senator Schweiker said you will be wearing three hats-as chief arms control advocate, chief arms control negotiator and chief arms control evaluator.

Has President Carter, in fact, made such a promise to you, sir? Mr. WARNKE. He has not, Senator Helms. There is no basis for that statement whatsoever.

Senator HELMS. Has he discussed it with you?

Mr. WARNKE. He has not discussed it with me. As a matter of fact, I am informed that an evaluation panel already exists; it has already been set up; it is headed by the national security adviser, Dr. Brzezinski.

Senator HELMS. Now, you have not discussed this with any of his aides or

Mr. WARNKE. The possibility was never raised, Senator Helms. Senator HELMs. All right, Mr. Chairman, I am going to reserve the remainder of my time. I have a number of questions but I know that other Senators want to have a chance.

Chairman STENNIS. Thank you very much.

Senator McIntyre.

Senator MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, before questioning Mr. Warnke, I would like to make some preliminary observations.

Mr. Warnke, while we have been questioning you the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been voting. You might be interested knowing the committee has voted overwhelmingly to confirm you. The votes were 14 to 2 for you as SALT negotiator and 15 to 1 as ACDA Director.

Mr. WARNKE. Thank you. I am very gratified.

Senator MCINTYRE. Mr. Chairman, since this committee does not have jurisdiction per se over Mr. Warnke's nomination, our hearing today is part of the process of assessing his nomination to help each of us individually to cast our votes.

The Senate has the constitutional responsibility to confirm or not to confirm the President's nominations: however, we should keen in mind that each nominee does represent the President's choice for his family of advisers, and the burden of proof against that nominee must be very, very heavy for the Senate to reject that choice. This is the standard I have applied across the board to the hundreds of nominations of administrations of both parties during my 14 vears in the Senate.

The first judgment that the Senate must make is on the character and competence of a nominee. We must be careful not to let personal disagreement on specific issues, however, color our judgment about a nominee's character or competence.

I have heard no questions raised about either Mr. Warnke's character or competence. Indeed, as an able lawyer with an impressive rec

ord in the Department of Defense, Mr. Warnke brings the combination of experience and professional skills we need to avoid the weaknesses of SALT I.

Mr. Warnke's legal skills, his intelligence and his obvious appreciation of precise, straight forward language should insure that we bring to the American people a clear, tough contract that will command confidence and insure compliance.

Mr. Warnke has rightly criticized the interim offensive agreement for its ambiguous language and its undue dependence on unilateral declarations.

Given the absence of questions about Mr. Warnke's character or competence, I assume opposition to his nomination must stem from personal disagreements about strategic policy or from differences about specific weapon systems.

Mr. Warnke has been right from the start on the central issue of strategic policy because he has understood that the fundamental purpose of our forces must be to defer nuclear war, not to prepare to fight

it.

Mr. Warnke supports President Carter's position that to shape our strategic forces deliberately to fight a limited nuclear war is insanity. Nearly half the Senate endorsed this position in votes in 1974 and 1975 on amendments sponsored by myself and Senator Brooke to keep this classic policy alive at a time when much of our Government was distracted by other matters.

Since much of the opposition to Mr. Warnke is rooted in this basic difference on policy, let us have it out now. Let us be explicit in this nomination and I hope in every other way that our Republic rejects the bizzare notion that limited nuclear war is thinkable.

At the same time, agreed as Mr. Warnke and I are on these basic objectives, he and I may have differed on the specific methods, the specific weapon systems by which to achieve these objectives. Still, it is the burden of someone who opposed a specific weapon system to propose a reasonable alternative, and Mr. Warnke has always met his burden.

In the case of the Trident submarine, he added the phrase here that the objective was never in question.

We sought a highly survivable improvement in our sea-based nuclear capability. I advocated the development of the Trident submarine as the way to meet that objective.

Mr. Warnke, Defense Secretary Schlesinger and the so-called smallsub faction of the Navy supported the development of smaller submarines with Narwahl propulsion system, and the production of those submarines in greater numbers as an alternative which they felt would be more survivable than the Trident.

He has similarly defined alternative approaches to the modern manned bomber and has drawn thoughtful distinctions in cruise missile R. & D. These are matters of understandable differences on means or methods, not on basic policy.

I respect Mr. Warnke for his views, as he and this committee have both pursued reasonable courses to the same goals.

Now I would like to ask a question or two before my time expires. Mr. Warnke, I believe in tough standards of verification and in tight and unambiguous language for strategic arms limitation agree

ments.

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In your testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee you stated:

We would obviously have to make sure in any agreement that there is ade quate provision for verification.

I think in my opening statement I commented that it is necessary for the American public to have the assurance that there is no way in which undetected violations could undermine our security.

Then is your position that no agreement would be militarily or politically acceptable if it were highly sensitive to violation?

Mr. WARNKE. Senator, my feeling is that there are some agreements that would be considerably worse than nothing, and that we should not go into any arms control negotiations with the idea that we have to come out with an agreement. We should come out with an agreement if it improves our national security.

An agreement which is unverifiable or is questionably verifiable does not, in my opinion, comport with our national security; therefore, I would regard the verifiability of an agreement as being a sine qua non of having an agreement. I think that is one of the difficulties that we have with the SALT I Interim Offensive Arms Agreement, is that there are too many things that are left to unilateral declarations. The Soviet Union has not concurred in those unilateral declarations; therefore, the general impression of violation of at least the spirit of the accords has been spread around.

That seems to me to disserve the cause of arms control and disserves the national security.

Senator MCINTYRE. Then do you believe that the process of checking compliance with an arms limitation agreement should take place in such a way as possible in order to give the American public confidence no possible violations are undermining our security?

Mr. WARNKE. I think certainly the results of the checking should be given great publicity so the American public has confidence.

There may be some measures that we utilize in order to get that verification which are sufficiently secret that they should not be revealed to the public. I think that was the case at one point with some of our national means of detection.

Senator MCINTYRE. Is it true that you have many times criticized the SALT I agreements because of imprecise language and because of the U.S. so-called unilateral declarations which are not legally binding on the Soviet Union?

Mr. WARNKE. Yes, sir, I have, Senator McIntyre. As a matter of fact, when the SALT I agreements were first proposed I believe that on a couple of occasions, at least, I indicated some question as to whether or not they ought to be signed by the Senate, whether they ought to be approved by the Congress.

I was persuaded by some of my colleagues that it would be worse to. turn it down than it would be to accept it. As a consequence. I testified in favor of both the Interim Offensive Arms Agreement and the ABM Limitation Treaty.

I have never been terribly happy with the Interim Offensive Arms Agreement.

Senator MCINTYRE. Would it be fair to say, based on our experience, you would try to be a tougher negotiator than in the past?

Mr. WARNKE. Well, I would not want in any way to denigrate the performance of Ambassador Smith. I think he did an excellent job. I think the circumstances under which the Interim Offensive Arms Agreement was signed were not really consistent with getting the best deal. I don't think that signing an agreement of such importance to the United States ought to be timed to coincide with some sort of summit meeting, and I think, as a consequence, that I would prefer to have a situation in which the agreement could be negotiated in a thorough, complete fashion and signed at the time in which it has been thoroughly negotiated. It is one of the reasons I feel the two jobs ought to be the same, that the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency ought to be the chief negotiator at the SALT talks. I think it brings about greater coordination.

Senator MCINTYRE. You have said already you support the Triad as the base of our strategic policy? Do you support the maintenance of highly survival sea-based deterrents?

Mr. WARNKE. I do. As you know, that was one point of difference between the two of us on the Trident. That is one of the reasons I felt a smaller submarine in greater numbers might be a better hedge against the development of an antisubmarine warfare capability on the part of the Soviet Union.

Senator MCINTYRE. You supported the Trident I missile, I think you agreed with me that as an interim measure, we could retrofit, the Trident I, to our Poseidon submarines?

Mr. WARNKE. That is correct.

Senator MCINTYRE. What was your objection, if any, to the Trident II missile ?

Mr. WARNKE. I don't recall objecting to the Trident II missile, Senator Jackson raised that. There may have been some occasion on which I asked whether it was premature to develop it. I don't recall that.

Senator MCINTYRE. It might be helpful to you to know that this committee decided for the last 2 years to postpone any decision on the Trident II.

Mr. WARNKE. It seems to me I do recall a briefing that the change from a 2,000- to 4,000-nautical-mile range was more important than an increase from the 4,000 to the approximately 5,000-plus of the Trident II; so I am not sure what added capability it would give you. I may have suggested that at one time.

Senator MCINTYRE. Thank you.

Chairman STENNIS. Senator Garn.

Senator GARN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Warnke, I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before or ever hearing you speak, but I have read much of your past writings, and I compliment you on your performance here today. You are articulate and you are brilliant.

Mr. WARNKE. Thank you.

Senator GARN. You are very capable of shading and sitting there very patiently through some very tough questions.

We have talked about some specific weapon systems here, and that is where we disagree; I consider your philosophy to be very different from mine.

Looking back on much of your writings over the years, I would characterize it best as being naive. With 20/20 hindsight, looking at