Senate OKs Treaty Giving 3 Ex-Foes Entry Into NATO

WASHINGTON —  The Senate approved a historic treaty late Thursday to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the fearsome Western alliance that faced down the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War, by admitting three of its former enemies: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

The vote was 80-19, well past the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution for approval of a treaty. Both California senators, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, backed the treaty.

Approval of the expansion, which changes the face of Europe by moving the alliance eastward toward Russia, came after supporters, galvanized by the leaders of both political parties, defeated numerous attempts during four days of debate to water down or place new conditions on the treaty.

The vote represented a striking foreign policy victory for President Clinton, who told a news conference earlier in the day that through NATO expansion, “we come even closer than ever to realizing a dream of a generation--a Europe that is united, democratic and secure for the first time since the rise of nation-states on the European continent.”

The NATO expansion--endorsed in July by its 16 current members--is expected to transform the alliance in ways that would have been unthinkable when it was formed 49 years ago and then stood guard against the Soviet Bloc.

The Soviet Union and its satellites were the enemy--joined in their own alliance as the Warsaw Pact--and the three new NATO members were, willingly or not, among the staunchest cold warriors of the Eastern alliance. Now, under the terms of NATO, the United States and its allies will come to the aid of Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic should any enemy attack those nations.

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, in his speech supporting the treaty, recalled some of NATO’s history. Noting that the late Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R-Mich.) had predicted in 1949 that NATO would become “the greatest war deterrent in history,” Daschle said: “History has proven him right. Because of NATO, a region that produced two cataclysmic wars in this century has known a half-century of peace and stability.”

But, the Democratic leader went on, “it is time for us to redefine NATO to match the new map, the new reality, of this post-Cold War world,” a reference to the breakup of the Soviet Bloc and its embrace of democracy.

By all accounts, the plan to expand NATO by admitting the three most prosperous Eastern states now and adding others in the years ahead was a Clinton initiative. His campaign was supported enthusiastically by many Americans of Eastern European descent and many experts of European affairs.

Clinton, however, had to contend with the admonition of many Russian specialists in U.S. think tanks and universities who said expansion of NATO would frighten Russia and endanger its incipient democracy.

The Russian government itself made clear its opposition to NATO expansion, largely because of concern that a redrawn alliance would at some point pose a political threat. The threat would become even more dire if NATO expanded even further to accept the three Baltic states that border Russia.

But Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Czech-born Russian specialist herself, countered that expansion would enhance democracy in the former Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe and that to fret over Russian feelings about this would, in effect, be giving that country a veto over U.S. foreign policy. To ease Russian concerns, however, Albright worked out an agreement with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin that would set up a system of consultations between Russia and NATO.

Clinton hailed the four days of NATO debate in the Senate this week as “a model of bipartisan action.”

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the committee, led the arguments in favor of the treaty, which also had the support of Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi as well as Daschle.

For several weeks, it had been clear that opponents had little hope of preventing the two-thirds vote for approval of the expansion, but they sought to weaken the plan with amendments that needed only a simple majority to pass.

The most serious was a failed proposal by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) to forbid the addition of any more members to NATO for the next three years. A dozen other countries, including Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic nations--Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania--are hoping to join the alliance after the first three are absorbed.

Warner said his amendment would delay the decision on additional members for “a reasonable period of time” until a new president and Congress could take it up. But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that the delay would work against the spirit of “what we fought the Cold War for”--opening NATO to the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.

The Warner amendment was rejected Thursday, 59-41.

Under the terms of the expansion, the three new members will officially enter the alliance next year after the treaty is ratified by all current members: Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the United States.

There has been a good deal of controversy and confusion over the potential cost to the United States of adding the new members. But Daschle told the Senate that the latest analyses put the cost to the U.S. at an estimated $400 million over the next 10 years.

Just before the final vote on ratification, Warner told the Senate, “If it is the will of the U.S. Senate that this ratification go forward, I will do all that I can to make it work. I think it is going to pose a mighty challenge to make it work.”

To fit the historic occasion, the senators remained in their seats as each voted yea or nay as the roll call was read. Usually, senators mill around during a vote.

But, at the urging of Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), Lott implemented an old Senate rule that they vote from their seats. The usual way, Byrd said, makes the Senate “look like a stock market.”