Paul Warnke

Paul Warnke "a leading advocate of arms control and a longtime director of the Arms Control Association"

About

Paul Warnke was one of the leading Arms Control experts under Democratic administrations in the 1970s and '80s.

Warnke’s most notable contribution to arms control was his service as chief U.S. negotiator to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with the Soviet Union. Nominated in 1976 to head the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) by President-elect Jimmy Carter, Warnke led the U.S. delegation to the SALT II negotiations, which aimed to replace the SALT I Interim Agreement with a more permanent treaty to cap the number of U.S. and Soviet strategic weapons and lay the groundwork for eventual reductions. President Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed SALT II in 1979.

Although Warnke played a key role in bringing the treaty into being, he resigned as head of ACDA in October 1978, before SALT II was signed, under pressure from defense conservatives who claimed he was too soft on the Soviets. His detractors cited a 1975 article that Warnke had published in Foreign Policy titled “Apes on a Treadmill,” which criticized the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race. In the article, Warnke argued that both sides should cease building new nuclear weaponry and reduce stockpiles, and he proposed that Washington negotiate with Moscow to encourage “reciprocal restraint.” “We can be the first off the treadmill,” he wrote. “That’s the only victory the arms race has to offer.”

The United States never ratified SALT II, but the United States and the Soviet Union both committed to observing its limits anyway. James F. Leonard, a career U.S. diplomat who was a colleague of Warnke’s, called the treaty a “major step forward” and said that “to get it as far as he did and have it observed…was a major achievement.”

Council for a Livable World

As at 1982, Paul Warnke served as a Director on the board of the Council for a Livable World. The Council was founded in 1962 by nuclear physicist Leo Szilard and other scientists. Its purpose is to campaign against the proliferation of nuclear weapons through lobbying and by supporting candidates who share their vision.

Pubic "wants test ban"

April 17, 1986, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy said a poll it commissioned with Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, N.J., also showed that 60 percent of U.S. citizens believe the United States should halt nuclear weapons testing as long as the Soviet Union stops its tests.

The poll shows beyond a doubt that the vast majority of Americans want President Reagan to stop nuclear testing, especially before any second summit meeting, said David Cortright, executive director of the group.

The poll results were announced as several members of Congress pushed for House consideration of an amendment to cut off money for nuclear weapons testing until the president certifies that the Soviet Union has conducted another test.

The House Rules Committee agreed Thursday to allow consideration of the amendment in conjunction with a $1.7 billion supplemental spending bill scheduled to come up next Tuesday. The committee said debate and amendments to the testing cutoff would be limited to two hours.

What we're trying to do is break the administration's testing habit - cold turkey, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said at a news conference with officials from the anti-nuclear group.

Markey said he and Reps. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., and Tom Downey, D-N.Y., had planned to offer their amendment cutting off nuclear test funds Thursday on the House floor. But their vehicle, the supplemental appropriations bill, was pulled off the floor Wednesday after an unusual parliamentary maneuver.

According to the organization, governors or legislatures in five states - Washington, New York, Hawaii, Ohio and Rhode Island - have adopted test ban resolutions. More than 60 communities in 13 states have passed similar resolutions, the group said, while 25 Nobel laureates signed an April 8 letter to Reagan urging him to stop testing until a summit or until the Soviet Union resumed testing.

SANE also released a nuclear test ban endorsement signed by five former high-ranking government officials including former CIA director William Colby; former arms control negotiator Paul Warnke; former scientific director Jerome Weisner; former deputy secretary of the Air Force Townsend Hoopes; and former deputy assistant defense secretary Adam Yarmolinsky.

Institute for Policy Studies

In 1993 Paul Warnke was listed among former "Trustees" of the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington DC.

Warnke has served on the IPS board, has taught at the IPS educational organization, The Washington School, and was the toastmaster at the IPS Twentieth Anniversary celebration.

IPS "who's who"-20th anniversary celebrations

By its second decade the Institute for Policy Studies had built up considerable influence in the U.S. government.

According to Information Digestthe Institute for Policy Studies celebrated its 20th anniversary with an April 5, 1983, reception at the National Building Museum attended by approximately 1,000 IPS staffers and former staff.

In addition to 1960s folk songs by Josh White, Jr. and a bluegrass band, consisted of an underdone "roast" of IPS leaders Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnet hosted and chaired by IPS trustee Paul C Warnke, head of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and chief SALTII negotiator for the Carter Administration. Zoe Mikva, wife of Congressman Abner Mikva handled arrangements . The "roasting" was urdertaken by former Senator George McGovern, Rep. Ron Dellums, Ralph Nader, lesbian activist and author Rita Mae Brown, Village Voice cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Harry Belafonte and Cora Weiss, substituting for IPS board chairman Peter Weiss.

Many of IPS's current and former Capitol Hill friends attended or were represented by members of their staff. Among those serving on the IPS 20th Anniversary Comittee chaired by Paul C. Warnke were Senators Chris Dodd {D-CT} and Gary Hart (D. CO) with an endorsement provided by Senator Mark Hatfield {R OR}.

Former Senators on the committee included James Abourezk, recently an IPS Trustee, Birch Bayh, Frank Church, William Fullbright, Eugene McCarthy and Gaylord Nelson.

The Congressional IPS comittee members included Les Aspin {D. WI}, George E Brown, Jr. (D.CA}, Philip Burton (D.CA), George Crockett (D-MI}, Ron Dellums (D.CA}, former Texas Congressman Robert Eckhardt, Don Edwards {D.CA}, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Tom Harkin {D-IA}, Robert Kastenmeier (D. WI}, Chairman of the Subcomittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice, George Miller (D-CA}, Richard Ottinger {D-NY}, Leon Panetta (D-CA}, Henry Reuss (D.WI}, Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, Patricia Schroeder {D.CO}, John Seiberling (D.OH} and Ted Weiss {D.NY}.

Among those attending were Victor Navasky and Christopher Hitchens of The Nation, Abner Mikva, appointed by president Carter to the U.S. Court of Appeals, philanthropist Philip Stern and Rep. Robert Kastenmeier. Among the well-advertised "no shows" were Bianca Jagger, who has been lobbying Congress with the assistance of the Washington Office on Latin America and the CISPES-Committee in Solidarity with the Peoples of El Salvador, against U.S. aid to El Salvador and for aid to the Sandinistas; and Atlanta Mayor and former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young.

Members of the IPS 20th Anniversary Comittee included:

David Aberswerth, Gar Alperovitz, David Baltimore, Mayor Marion Barry, Norman Birnbaum, Conrad Cafritz, Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Charles Caldwell, Lillian Calhoun, David Carley, Lisle Carter, Jr., Noam Chomsky, Dr. Mary Coleman, Catherine Conover, Dr. Franklin Davis, Diana DeVegh, Dr. James Dixon, Leonard Dreyfus, Celia Eckhardt, William Fitzgerald, Nancy Folger, Yolande Fox, Dr. Jerome Frank, Robert Freedman, Clayton Fritchey, John Kenneth Galbraith, Cherif Giellal, Mark Green, Dean Charles Halperin, Sidney Harman, W. Averell Harriman, Terry Herndon, Seymour Hersh, Karl Hess, Sonya Hoover, Richard Hubbard, David Hunter, Ivan Illich, Christopher Jencks, Vernon Jordan, Jr. Patricia King, Gabriel Kolko, Adm. Gene LaRocque, Dr. E. James Lieberman, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Philip Lilienthal, Sally Lilienthal, Edgar Lockwood, Franklin Long, Dr. Reginald Lourie, Ira Lowe, Dr. Bernard Lown, Michael Maccoby, Harry Magdoff, Louis Martin, Hilda Mason, Anthony Mazzochi, Dorothy McGhee, Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr., Sidney Morgenbesser, David Morris, very Rev. James Parks Morton, Stephen Muller, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Ara Oztemel, Grace Paley, Charles Peters, Dean Ronald Pollack, David Ramage, Jr., Earl Ravenal, Cary Ridder, Mitchell Rogovin, Florence Roisman, Maurice Rosenblatt, Charles Savitt, Andre Schiffrin, Stephen Schlossberg, Mark Schneider, Herman Schwartz, Herbert Semel, John Sewell, Richard Sobol, Ralph Stavins, Ben Stephansky, Philip Stern, Studs Terkel, Michael Tigar, Michael Trister, Dr. George Wald, Peter Weiss, Stanley Weiss, Jerome Wisner, Gary Wills, William Winpisinger, Andrew Young and Anne Zill.