ANNOUNCER: "At 1545 hours, on 11th May, 1998, three devices were detonated simultaneously..."

NARRATOR: In May of 1998, India shocked the world with a nuclear blast. Pakistan, its neighbor, responded days later with a nuclear test of its own. A new arms race had begun.

Many are now working hard to see this arms race stopped and future arms races prevented. Will they succeed before another nuclear explosion stuns the world?

["America's Defense Monitor" program introduction.]

Senator DALE BUMPERS: Hello. I'm Dale Bumpers with the Center for Defense Information.

After the Soviet Union crumbled, the hair-trigger situation that had the world hanging by a nuclear thread seemed more and more remote. Then India and Pakistan suddenly shattered our reverie and we awakened to the same hair-trigger situation that had never really gone away. In fact, it threatens to get worse.

Thirty-six other countries possess nuclear technology. Will they develop nuclear weapons, too? Our program will look at this terrifying prospect.

SAMUEL BERGER, National Security Adviser:

"1998 was a troubling year, a year of living dangerously. In May, India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests that blew the lid of South Asia's long simmering nuclear rivalry. These explosions threatened to trigger a far-fledged nuclear and missile race in the region."

[Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference, January 12, 1999.]

NARRATOR: For those who thought the terror of a nuclear arms race ended with the Cold War, India and Pakistan's nuclear tests provided a sober awakening.

PAKISTANI Atomic Energy Official:

"For the first time, there has been establishment of strategic military and political parity between Pakistan and India. We have been ready to face economic fallout, we have to pay a price to preserve, protect and promote our national security and our independence, and the people of Pakistan are ready to pay the price."

NARRATOR: The Indian and Pakistan tests, together with the suspected nuclear weapons programs in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, have reignited an old debate among US policymakers: How does America best defend itself from the dangerous spread of nuclear weapons?

Joseph Cirincione is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: There's the camp that says the best way to stop the spread of nuclear weapons is to stop the testing of weapons everywhere, negotiate reductions. And there's the camp that says these treaties are an illusion, the only thing we can depend on is our own technological might, we have to build a shield around the United States.

NARRATOR: In the past, nations had to explode a nuclear bomb to be sure it worked. The proposed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, would ban testing.

RICHARD GARWIN: The philosophy is that if you had nuclear weapons and you don't test, you cannot develop advanced nuclear weapons.

NARRATOR: Richard Garwin is a nuclear physicist and senior fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. GARWIN: A country could make a primitive nuclear weapon. After all, the one that we used to destroy Hiroshima had never been tested. They could make a primitive nuclear weapon like that, but they can't make a thermonuclear weapon, a hydrogen bomb, without testing.

NARRATOR: A test ban would have two purposes: First, to keep new countries from acquiring advanced nuclear weapons. Second, to keep established nuclear powers from improving their stockpile with smaller, more powerful weapons.

For a long time, the "nuclear club" consisted of the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China.

Mr. CIRINCIONE: If a country can't physically test a nuclear weapon, their military commanders are not going to have the confidence that that weapon will really work and they're not going to want to get into a military showdown with another country with the fear that their trump card is actually a joker.

NARRATOR: Proponents of a test ban are urging the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban all nuclear tests. But senators who support the treaty are stymied by senators who don't.

Mr. KIMBALL: If the Senate were allowed to vote on the treaty tomorrow, this Senate would support the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by at least the two-thirds majority that's necessary to achieve Senate ratification. But the problem is that one man, Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is holding the test ban treaty hostage.

NARRATOR: Daryl Kimball is the executive director for the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers. His group commissioned a poll on public support for the treaty.

Mr. KIMBALL: Over three out of four American voters support Senate approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and that's because the American public is very smart.

NARRATOR: A recent bipartisan national survey showed that 73 percent of the public support Senate approval of the treaty, 16 percent oppose.

Nancy Gallagher is a scholar-in-residence at the State Department. She is working on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty's ratification.

NANCY GALLAGHER: The American people recognize that the Cold War is over, that the United States has no reason to continue conducting nuclear weapons tests, and that it's in our national security interest and the world's security interest that other countries also refrain from conducting nuclear tests.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: I would definitely support a treaty that would ban nuclear weapons. I think we've lived in the shadow of nuclear weapons way too long.

MAN-on-the-Street: We have been testing nuclear weapons for over 40 years and I just don't see any further need for it.

NARRATOR: Efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons through a ban on test explosions is almost as old as nuclear weapons themselves.

Mr. KIMBALL: The nuclear weapons scientists, dating back to the Manhattan Project, and even the weapons scientists today know better than anyone else what it takes to make a nuclear bomb, what it takes to maintain a nuclear bomb, and most of all, they know what a nuclear bomb can do. They have seen the devastating effects of nuclear weapons.

NARRATOR: Richard Garwin worked with Enrico Fermi, one of the original designers of nuclear weapons.

Dr. GARWIN: Enrico Fermi died in 1954. He was only 53 years old. I visited him on his death bed and he asked me what I was doing. So, I told him what I was doing in physics and that I was looking into some ways of limiting nuclear weapons. And he said he wished he had paid more attention to that. He wished he had put more time in the limitation of nuclear weaponry.

NARRATOR: In the 1950s, President Eisenhower first proposed a ban on nuclear testing to slow down the dangerous nuclear arms build-up between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nuclear testing had changed nuclear weapons from simple bombs delivered by airplanes to missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads across an ocean in mere minutes.

Bob Bell is the special assistant to President Clinton for National Security Affairs.

BOB BELL: President Eisenhower said towards the end of his presidency that his greatest regret as president was that he failed to get a comprehensive test ban treaty.

NARRATOR: When President Kennedy came into office, he followed Eisenhower's lead and implemented a treaty with the Soviets that banned above-ground and underwater nuclear test explosions.

President JOHN F. KENNEDY:[Speech at The American University, June 10, 1963.]

"To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on this matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so."

BELL: And then John F. Kennedy, before his assassination, said that the thing he was most proud about as president up to that point, in an interview, was that he had secured the negotiation and ratification of the limited test ban treaty.

NARRATOR: Thirty years passed before an effort was made to ban underground tests, as well -- this time by a Soviet leader. In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced a one-year unilateral moratorium on Soviet nuclear testing, which turned out to be the prelude to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

In 1996, the treaty was opened for signatures at the United Nations and President Clinton was the first to sign. Under the terms of the treaty, the United States only becomes a full participant when the US Senate ratifies the treaty.

Dr. GALLAGHER: The president submitted the treaty to the Senate for its advice and consent in 1997. He's repeatedly called on the Senate to take action. But the rules of the Senate basically give the chairmen of committees inordinate power and Senator Helms has indicated that he considers this treaty to be a low priority.

NARRATOR: Senator Helms and a few other senators believe the best way to protect the United States from any potential new nuclear threats is to resurrect the Cold War era Star Wars concept and build a national missile defense system.

John Luddy is the senior legislative assistant for national security affairs for Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire. MR. Luddy is frank about the politics of the debate.

JOHN LUDDY: I think for the CTBT to be considered by the Foreign Relations Committee and then by the full Senate, the administration will have to move forward with action on the ABM, or Anti-Ballistic Missile, treaty and the Kyoto Protocols.

NARRATOR: The Kyoto Protocols, however, deal with global warming, not nuclear testing. In this January, 1998 letter to the president, Senator Helms writes:

From Senator Helms' letter:

"MR. President, let me be clear: I will be prepared to schedule Committee consideration of the CTBT only after the Senate has had the opportunity to consider and vote on the Kyoto Protocol and the amendments to the ABM treaty." [January 21, 1998.]

NARRATOR: Senator Helms wants President Clinton to submit a new memorandum of understanding which would state that the building of a national defense system would not constitute a violation of the ABM treaty.

However, the Russians have made it clear that in their opinion, a national missile defense system would abrogate the treaty.

Mr. LUDDY: It's also, frankly, considered to be leverage against the CTBT. We're not going to consider a treaty that's much less significant in the minds of at least the conservative senators in the Senate before we consider this other treaty, which we think the administration does care about.

NARRATOR: Some proponents of the treaty believe that a national missile defense and the CTBT are compatible.

TOM COLLINA: If we're really worried about this, the test ban plays very well into this context because nuclear tests are just the kind of thing you want to use to get smaller, lighter, more powerful nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles and shoot them over here.

NARRATOR: Tom Collina is the director of the Arms Control and International Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

COLLINA: So, if the American public or the American Congress and Senate is concerned about ballistic missile threats, the test ban is priority number one.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: I prefer the banning of testing, test bans, as opposed to creating Star Wars.

MAN-on-the-Street: Creating greater and more costly defense systems, the end result of which is to annihilate everybody on the planet, is not the way to achieve nuclear non-proliferation. The best way to do it is to stop the testing right now and not build more elaborate defense systems that take more taxpayers' dollars and just represent more money down the drain of a bankrupt policy.

NARRATOR: But opponents of the treaty say its ability to prevent nuclear weapons testing is questionable.

Mr. LUDDY: One of the principal problems with this treaty is that it cannot be reliably verified around the world. We will know that we are not testing because we would adhere to the treaty, but we will not know if a country like North Korea, for example, is adhering to the treaty.

NARRATOR: How is it possible to tell if someone has exploded a nuclear weapon?

The main problem of past arms control treaties has been catching violators. Sophisticated sensors used to monitor earthquakes have been very effective in detecting nuclear tests, which many professionals think will ensure the treaty's success.

Seismologist Greg van der Vink, of the Incorporated Research Institute of Seismology, explains:

Dr. VAN DER VINK: When a nuclear weapon is detonated underground, it creates seismic signals that travel through the earth. So, when you see the seismic signal of an explosion and that of an earthquake, they differ. The explosion is compressional and has large compressional waves and relatively small shear waves; earthquakes are just the opposite.

NARRATOR: In August of 1997, seismic technology determined that a suspected underground Russian nuclear explosion was, in fact, an earthquake.

Once the CTBT is ratified, there will be more than 300 seismic recording stations around the world. These stations make up the treaty's International Monitoring System, or IMS. The IMS system is also supported by thousands of civilian seismic monitoring stations across the world. The CTBT bans nuclear tests that are a magnitude of 4.0 or higher on the Richter Scale. Critics are concerned that countries will still be able to test nuclear weapons below that threshold in what are called sub-kiloton explosions.

Mr. LUDDY: It's important to understand that at a certain level, tests can be conducted that will simply slip below the noise level of the ability of seismological sensors to pick them up. So, it's quite possible that low-level testing can take place and we won't even know about it.

Dr. VAN DER VINK: In terms of monitoring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, you have to ask, well, what is the function or what is the role of such sub-kiloton tests. In the United States, most of those tests have been of the sub-kiloton range, have been done to look at the effects of nuclear weapons, and also to look at design elements that relate to the safety of the system. Those are not typically the types of tests that you see for the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons.

COLLINA: Any nation who's considering cheating under the treaty will know that the chances of getting caught are quite great and the benefit of their violation would be quite small. Because if they wanted to succeed in their cheating, they would do only a small number of tests and very low-yield tests, and those aren't the kind of tests that's going to take their program dramatically different from where it may be.

NARRATOR: Even if the monitoring system is capable of ensuring that nations comply with the treaty, critics are more concerned about how the CTBT will affect us here at home. They believe testing is needed on a regular basis to determine whether our weapons still work and that without testing, our nuclear deterrent is effectively handcuffed.

Mr. LUDDY: As these weapons age, they're like any other piece of hardware: Parts are going to age and deteriorate. Historically, we've always taken a look at that situation and determined we're not sure about this weapon, we're going to conduct a low-level nuclear test to be certain about it. Both by law now and in the future by treaty, if we agree to this treaty, we would simply not be able to reassure ourselves, our allies, or our potential enemies about the adequacy of our nuclear weapons, and that's destabilizing.

NARRATOR: But Richard Garwin thinks that testing to find out if a nuclear weapon still works is rarely needed.

Dr. GARWIN: When I was working at Los Alamos in the 1950s and 1960s, I had a lot to do with the design of nuclear weapons and of the early hydrogen bombs, and also worked out a good many of the techniques that have been used over the years in above-ground tests and underground nuclear tests. Now very rarely did we take a nuclear weapon from the stockpile and test it to make sure that it worked.

NARRATOR: The principal reason for testing is to develop new designs of nuclear weapons, exactly what the CTBT is designed to prevent.

RAY KIDDER: If you don't think we need a CTBT, do you think that we need more nuclear weapons, perhaps of advanced design and light weight?

NARRATOR: For maintaining old designs, the government has set up what is called the Stockpile Stewardship Program. Garwin describes how the program will maintain our nuclear weapons.

Dr. GARWIN: It's to test all those non-nuclear parts. It's to analyze and understand their behavior. It's to replace them when they don't work. And it's to get information on the possible degrading of the parts that cannot be tested.

NARRATOR: Most scientists say that determining which part needs replacing is no longer sufficient justification for nuclear weapons explosions. They have found cutting edge computer technology to be sufficient. They use computers to analyze the viability of different parts of a nuclear weapon.

This technology, however, comes with a hefty price tag: $4.5 billion a year. According to those who believe a ban on testing holds great promise in halting the spread of nuclear weapons, the price is amply justified.

COLLINA: It's way more than we need. And some people that as a result, it should be opposed because it's excessive. In my view, I agree, it's way more than we need, but it's going to get the job done, and that's the important thing.

Dr. KIDDER: A properly balanced and conservative Stockpile Stewardship Program will be able to maintain the stockpile of nuclear weapons that we have into the indefinite future.

NARRATOR: While Congress is eager to fund the Stockpile Stewardship Program, the CTBT is still mired in politics, effectively held hostage until a memorandum of understanding on the ABM treaty and the Kyoto Protocols are submitted to the Senate. As the Senate is denied the opportunity to deliberate the CTBT, the rest of the world watches.

For the treaty to become law, the 44 nations that possess nuclear technology, whether for power or weapons, must sign and ratify. So far, only a third have done so. Supporters of the treaty believe most of the remaining nations will ratify after the United States.

Mr. CIRINCIONE: Once the United States ratifies a treaty, it's the equivalent of saying, "Gentlemen, start your engines." Every other parliament in the world that's considering this treaty will race to get their ratification in on time and to be able to join the international body that's set up to enforce this treaty.

NARRATOR: If any one of the 44 countries fails to ratify, the treaty is effectively dead. In an ironic twist, India and Pakistan have both indicated a willingness to sign the treaty.

BELL: Before, the argument against the treaty was, there's no point in the Senate acting or the United States ratifying because India and Pakistan are never going to adhere to this. And if they don't, under the treaty's own terms, it can't enter into force. Now that India and Pakistan are on course to adhere to this, it seems to me that it's all the more incumbent and would be all the more tragic if the United States stumbled and didn't get our part of this done.

NARRATOR: When he signed the treaty at the UN, President Clinton said it was the hardest fought and the longest sought arms control treaty. And the fight isn't over yet.

President BILL CLINTON: [State of the Union Message, January 19, 1999

"It's been two years since I signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. If we don't do the right thing, other nations won't either. I ask the Senate to take this vital step: Approve the treaty now to make it harder for other nations to develop nuclear arms and to make sure we can end nuclear testing forever." (Applause.)

Mr. KIMBALL: Because time is short on the test ban treaty, the historic opportunity to achieve Senate ratification is here and upon us and it may escape our grasp.

NARRATOR: If the treaty is not ratified by all 44 nations by September of 1999, a special conference will be convened to push for the treaty's ratification. If the Senate fails to ratify the treaty by then, the United States faces significant consequences.

Dr. GALLAGHER: The treaty says that any decisions that are taken would be taken only by the ratifying states, hopefully by consensus, and if it came to that, then a country that was there as an observer would not have a formal voice in the decision-making power.

NARRATOR: If the United States fails to ratify the treaty, it will find itself in a strategic no-man's land. The United States will be bound by a treaty it can't enforce, incapable of calling for inspections of possible violators, and denied any say in how the treaty is implemented.

BELL: Our intelligence community is going to have to put priority over monitoring the nuclear test activities or the nuclear programs activities of proliferant states or rogue states whether or not there is a CTB. So, defeating the CTB might make some opponents feel better the next day, but in the long run we pay a price. Because with the treaty, we get extra tools to do that which we're going to have to do anyway.

Dr. GARWIN: But it's up to the publics, and the decision makers, and the opinion leaders to understand that it is their responsibility to see what nuclear weapons can do, to limit their numbers, to keep them safely, and to look out for the national security and the international security by keeping these destructive forces to a minimum.

NARRATOR: Nuclear scientists like Richard Garwin saw the awesome destructive power of nuclear weapons first hand. One senator showed that this kind of first-hand exposure is capable of making treaty critics think again.

Former Senator James Exon was a treaty skeptic until he visited the Nevada test site for the first time.

Mr. KIMBALL: He was a defense hawk and he was skeptical about the test ban, and then he looked across the Sedan crater, which is this nearly one-eighth mile wide, almost eighth-mile deep crater that was created in 1962. And he looked across that crater and wondered what in God's name are we thinking about doing conducting more nuclear test explosions. And he came back here to Washington and became the foremost advocate for the test ban and he worked with Republican Senator Mark Hatfield and others to pass the Nuclear Test Moratorium legislation of 1992, which has set us on this course towards the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

NARRATOR: If enough senators follow former Senator Exon's example, seek a bipartisan solution and persuade those senators opposed to the treaty to bring it to a vote, then many think the threat of nuclear war will be dramatically reduced.

Dr. KIDDER: I strongly favor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And the reason that I favor it, two reasons: Number one is that it would greatly restrain the proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional countries, countries beyond those that already have them. And it also would restrain the development of nuclear weapons by the powers, the nuclear powers that do have nuclear weapons.

Mr. KIMBALL: Well, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is supported by a wide variety of Americans. Not only does the general public overwhelmingly support the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but military leaders support the test ban treaty, scientists support the test ban treaty. Just as an example, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shelton, supports the test ban treaty, as to do four out of the last five chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including General Colin Powell.

Dr. GARWIN: When you're able to find a bargain, you ought to take advantage of it.