The White House,
Washington, August 4, 1995.
Hon. Thomas A. Daschle,
Democratic Leader, United States Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Leader:

On July 31, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) on S. 1026, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996. In that SAP, the Administration warned that S. 1026 raises serious constitutiona l, national security, budget and management concerns, and that the President will not support the bill unless those concerns are addressed.

As I made clear in my remarks to the Democratic Senators policy lunch on Tuesday, first and foremost among our concerns about the bill are the unacceptable provisions relating to the ABM Treaty and National Missile Defense (NMD). In our view, thes e provisions, if enacted into law, would effectively abrogate the ABM Treaty by mandating development for deployment by 2003 of a non-compliant, multi-site NMD and unilaterally imposing a solution to the on-going negotiations with Russia on establ ishing a demarcation under the Treaty between ABMs and theater missile defenses (TMDs). The effect of such actions would in all likelihood be to prompt Russia to terminate implementation of the START I Treaty and shelve ratification of START II, t hereby leaving thousands of warheads in place that otherwise would be removed from deployment under these two treaties. For this reason, Secretary Christopher, Secretary Perry and General Shalikashvili have made their objections to these provisions clear in separate letters to the Senate.

On Thursday, the Senate voted on an amendment offered by Senator Levin and cosponsored by Senator Nunn and many other Democrats that would have struck the ABM and NMD provisions in the bill that are the most objectionable. On behalf of the Preside nt, I would like to commend Senator Levin, Senator Nunn, and all the other Democratic and Republican Senators who made such cogent speeches in support of the amendment. Regrettably, it was defeated 51-49.

I understand that debate on S. 1026 will continue today and perhaps into next week and that other amendments relating to ABM and NMD may be offered. I hope that our serious concerns about these issues as well as others outlined in the Statement of Administration Position may yet be addressed. But let me be clear: unless the unacceptable missile defense provisions are deleted or revised and other changes are made to the bill bringing it more in line with administration policy, the President's advis ors will recommend that he veto the bill.

Sincerely,

Anthony Lake,

Assistant to the President

for National Security Affairs.