The defeat last week of the

latest nuclear non-proliferation treaty brings to a

screeching halt - and possibly slams the door shut

completely - on the long commitment by the United

States to reduce the threat of nuclear war by reducing

the numbers of weapons that are built or tested.

It would be easy to place

all the blame for the defeat of this treaty squarely at

the feet of the Republican majority in the U. S. Senate.

As a partisan Democrat, I

would have little trouble doing that and I would

certainly feel no guilt for doing so.

After all, it was the solid

block of "No" votes - cast by the

ultra-conservative members of the GOP who may have really

feared the treaty weakened the U. S. position in the

world and by the moderates in that caucus who put party

loyalty ahead of international peace and security -

which defeated the latest non-proliferation treaty.

But, there was another

reason the treaty failed and that was that the people who

supported it - specifically the leadership of the

current administration, starting with President Bill

Clinton and working on down - did not provide the

leadership necessary to convince a two-thirds bipartisan

majority of senators to support it.

Meanwhile, the

narrow-minded leadership of the Senate steadily built

their case against the treaty.

Admittedly, over the past

year-and-a-half, it has been difficult to get the

President and the Republicans to sit down and discuss

much of anything on a rational basis.

They have been too

ham-strung by partisan wrangling over a minor sexual

escapade by the president which some Republicans tried to

make into a constitutional crisis.

Now, never be I one to

absolve the president from his share of the

responsibility for creating that constitutional crisis

which led to only the second presidential impeachment

trial in history.

As no less an expert on

such matters than actor Warren Beatty pointed out,

"Anybody who expected discretion from a 21-year old,

love-struck intern was a little short-sighted at

best."

A reasonable individual

would have thought that once a person had achieved his

life-long goal, he or she would have been able to keep

their pants zipped up except in the presence of their own

spouse for the four or eight years they served.

But, there is really no use

in rehashing the past: The fact is that Bill didn't and

our country suffered through its second "long,

national nightmare" in the last quarter century.

Still, it is a shame to see

the United States slip from its pedestal as the leader of

the nuclear non-proliferation movement at this perilous

time in history.

My generation grew up in

the shadow of "the Bomb."

We lived in fear all our

young lives of ending up a pile of ashes on an

incinerated planet hurtling through the silence of space.

For instance, when we were

in grammar school, we were all issued those little

aluminum "dog tags" with our name, address, and

birthdate engraved on it.

We thought - probably

because we were told - they were to help protect us

in case we ever got lost.

Actually, they were

supposed to make it easier to identify the bodies if

there were any survivors left to do so after the nuclear

war all our leaders knew was coming.

And, I can still remember

my terror every Wednesday at noon when the air raid siren

sounded that the banshee-like howl would not end after

the sixty-second test but continue on to let us know that

the missiles were on their way.

Thus, when President John

F. Kennedy signed the first limited test ban treaty, I

felt somewhat relieved, as I did with the signing of each

succeeding nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and I knew

that we were all working together to achieve real peace.

But, with the failure of

this latest treaty, I feel we may have taken a step

backwards.

Today, I am sad - and

a little afraid about what the future holds.

[Lee N. Howell is an

award-winning writer who has been observing politics and

society in the Southern Crescent, the state and nation

for more than a quarter of a century.]

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