THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

FACT SHEET

                Arms Control and Nonproliferation:
                The Clinton Administration Record

President Clinton has moved aggressively to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons to all Americans. Over the past four years, the Administration has made unprecedented progress in curbing the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that deliver and reducing the dangerous legacy of Cold War weapons' stockpiles.

President Clinton's agreement with President Yeltsin in January 1994 to detarget strategic missiles has assured that, for the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age, no Russian missiles are targeted on Americans.

The U.S. has ratified the START II Treaty. When ratified by Russia, START II (in combination with the START I Treaty which we entered into force in December 1994) will eliminate bombers and missiles that carried over 14,000 Russian and American nuclear warheads.

U.S. diplomacy played a critical role in securing the indefinite and unconditional extension by consensus of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- the cornerstone of our efforts to control nuclear proliferation.

      Under the U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework, North Korea's nuclear 
      program has been frozen and is to be dismantled under 
      international monitoring.  
      
      President Clinton led the international effort to conclude 
      the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and was the 
      first world leader to sign this historic agreement on 
      September 24, 1996.  By banning all nuclear explosions, the 
      treaty will constrain the development and qualitative 
      improvement of nuclear weapons, as well as end the 
      development of advanced new types of nuclear weapons.
      
      President Clinton sent to the U.S. Senate the Chemical 
      Weapons Convention and its implementing legislation, which 
      would ban an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.

      The U.S. successfully promoted Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, 
      Romanian and Polish membership in the Australia Group, which 
      controls chemical- and biological-weapon-related material.
      
      The U.S. promoted international efforts to conclude a 
      legally-binding protocol to strengthen the Biological 
      Weapons Convention.
      
      The U.S. worked with  Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan to 
      return the former Soviet nuclear weapons on their soil to 
      Russia and to forswear nuclear weapons forever.   

The U.S. signed and began to implement an agreement with Russia to purchase 500 metric tons of weapon-grade, highly-enriched uranium for dilution to safer, low-enriched uranium to be used in commercial power reactors. Nearly 600 bombs-worth of weapon-grade uranium have already been shipped to the United States under this agreement.

Through the Nunn-Lugar program, the U.S. is helping Russia and the New Independent States to transport, safeguard and destroy their nuclear weapons and to build national systems to secure and safeguard weapons-usable fissile material.

In Operation Sapphire, the U.S. airlifted nearly 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium -- enough for dozens of bombs -- from Kazakstan for safe disposition in the United States.

The U.S. is engaged in unprecedented programs of cooperation with a number of countries, including Russia, Kazakstan, Belarus, and Ukraine, to improve the security of nuclear materials and protect them from theft or diversion. In Russia alone, this program of cooperation is helping to protect hundreds of tons of weapons-useable nuclear material at more than two dozen locations. U.S. Customs Service and the FBI have placed the prevention of illicit nuclear trafficking among their top priorities. U.S. law enforcement officials are engaged in training and liaison activities with countries across eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

      The U.S. is funding projects through the International 
      Science and Technology Center in Moscow and the Science and 
      Technology Center in Ukraine to provide over 10,000 weapon 
      scientists with civilian work.
      
      Maintained strong support for IAEA and UN Special Commission 
      inspections of Iraq's weapon activities.
      
      To help combat the proliferation of ballistic missiles, the 
      U.S. has achieved stronger guidelines and expanded 
      membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), 
      including Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, South Africa, and 
      Russia.  In addition, Ukraine and China have agreed to abide 
      by the MTCR guidelines.
      
      The U.S. signed the relevant Protocols to both the South
      Pacific and African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaties in
      the spring of 1996.
      
      The U.S. played a lead role in securing a cooperative
      resolutionto the issue of the CFE Treaty flank limits. 
      The flank agreement reached in May, 1996, will ensure the 
      continued integrity and viability of this cornerstone of
      European security.
      
      The U.S. has ratified the Open Skies Treaty.  The Treaty, 
      once it enters into force, will build confidence by giving 
      all its parties, regardless of size, a direct role in 
      gathering information about military forces and activities 
      through aerial observation.
      
      The U.S. has ratified the 1980 Convention on Conventional 
      Weapons (CCW), which constrains the use of certain weapons, 
      including landmines.  The U.S. led the international effort 
      to strengthen CCW restrictions on landmine use, adopted in 
      1996.
      
      The President has proposed the negotiation of a worldwide 
      agreement to ban use, stockpiling, production, and transfer 
      of anti-personnel landmines (APL).  The U.S. already has in 
      place a moratorium on all APL exports.

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