Forbes Castigates Clinton on Foreign Policy

Republican presidential hopeful Steve Forbes blamed the Clinton administration’s “political hubris” for this week’s Senate rejection of a global treaty banning nuclear testing, adding that previous presidents--including Democrats such as Jimmy Carter--might have convinced the Republican Congress to ratify the accord.

“The administration didn’t treat it seriously,” Forbes said Friday at a meeting with Los Angeles Times editors. “If Clinton was serious about a test ban treaty, he could have taken what were perceived . . . as the flaws and plugged those holes.”

“They [Congress] don’t trust the man,” he added. “And if you had Carter or [Democratic President Harry S.] Truman in there, they would have took him at his word. This guy [Clinton] has burned his bridges on that.”

The publishing magnate likened Clinton’s foreign policy failures to that of President Wilson, who presided 80 years ago when Congress rejected the Versailles Treaty, an agreement that many believe laid the groundwork for Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

“You don’t need a disaster; you don’t need an enemy abroad to reach a consensus on what the role of the U.S. should be,” Forbes said.

Like other Republicans in the presidential race, Forbes said he opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that the Senate rejected Wednesday because he believes the accord is flawed with language that makes it difficult to verify the compliance of other countries.

But Forbes also left open the possibility that, as president, he would resume underground testing in the U.S., which has been stopped in recent years while the treaty has been under consideration by the 44 countries that have some degree of nuclear capability.

“We need to preserve the right to test,” he said. He added, however, that tests might not be necessary to keep U.S. nuclear weapons effective and operational.

Forbes said that building a U.S. arsenal of anti-ballistic weapons is the best way to curb nuclear proliferation in the post-Cold War era. With a big-stick approach--with offensive nuclear weapons and a defensive anti-missile system--he said he believes other nations will not escalate the arms race with more testing of their own because they’ll find it too costly and ineffective.

Forbes, who is campaigning as an “independent outsider,” said his platform will be one of “choice”: choice for workers on how to invest their taxes for retirement money; for parents on where to send their children to school and for patients on whom to select for their doctor.

He also defended the right of school boards to remove evolution theory from students’ science curriculum, as was recently done in Kansas.

“I would devise a curriculum different from what they do and probably every other school board,” he said. “They have the right to do it, and that’s why I want parents to have choice.”

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Times Web editor Matt Stodder contributed to this story.

Audio excerpts of a Times question and answer session Friday with GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes is available on The Times’ Web site:

http://mediakit.nohib.com/politics