DISADVANTAGE/PLAN CAUSES MISSILE DEFENSE

THERE IS DIVISION NOW ABOUT WHETHER TO DEPLOY NMD

DEMOCRATS DO NOT WANT EARLY DEPLOYMENT BECAUSE IT RISKS ABM TREATY ABROGATION

JOHN M. BRODER  The New York Times March 18, 1999, SECTION: Section A; Page 22;  HEADLINE: Clinton's Flip-Flop // lnu-acs

Administration officials and Democrats in the Senate denied that they had flipped on the issue to deny Republicans a political platform plank. Instead, they said, the growing threat of a missile attack by a rogue state and promising technological developments persuaded them to support aggressive research on missile defense. Having ceded that ground, they fought a holding action on the ABM treaty in hopes of keeping Moscow at the negotiations.

DEMOCRATS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE BECAUSE OF FEARS OF ABROGATING THE ABM TREATY

JOHN M. BRODER  The New York Times March 18, 1999, SECTION: Section A; Page 22;  HEADLINE: Clinton's Flip-Flop // lnu-acs

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said today that he agreed to support the missile defense bill only after an amendment was approved to reassure the Russians that the United States would not unilaterally withdraw from the ABM treaty.

"The key issue to me, the one I put so much time on, was what is the effect of this policy on nuclear arms reductions," Mr. Levin said in an interview. "That to me was the big gorilla. Without that amendment I was going to vote against it, and I thought we could sustain a veto."