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On Thursday, 5 December 1996, retired U.S.A.F. Gen. Lee Butler joined with some 60 former generals and admirals from around the world in calling for the near elimination of nuclear weapons. Butler is a retired 4 star general, and is a former CINCSAC, or Commander in Chief of the Strategic Air Command -- the U.S. Air Force nuclear strike force. Among those signing the appeal to reduce existing arsenals to "the lowest verifiable levels" were Russian President Boris Yeltsin's ousted security chief, Alexander Lebed; Boris Gromov, former commander of Russian forces in Afghanistan; Charles A. Horner, the American commander of coalition air forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War; and Michael Carver, a former chief of Britain's defense staff. In anticipation of the appeal's release, on Wednesday 4 December, Butler was joined by retired Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, a former supreme allied commander in Europe, at an address to the National Press Club on the dangers of nuclear war. "A world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons," declared Butler. "With the end of the Cold War, these weapons are of sharply reduced utility, and there is much to be gained now by substantially reducing their numbers and their alert status, meanwhile exploring the possibility of their ultimate complete elimination," the two generals said in a joint statement. They appealed to the Clinton administration and to Russian leaders to cooperate in reducing their nuclear arsenals. As a first step, they suggested cutting by one-third the 3,500 warheads that each nation is permitted to keep under the START II arms limitation treaty. "Taking the lead, U.S. and Russian reductions can open the door for the negotiation of multilateral reductions capping all arsenals at very low levels," the joint statement said. The joint statement was organized by Goodpaster, co-chair of a group that promotes U.S.-European relations, retired British Brig. Michael Harbottle and former senator Alan Cranston (D-Calif.). Signers include Gen. John R. Galvin, another former supreme allied commander in Europe, and Gen. Horner. Butler is the most distinguished military figure in recent memory to propose the abolition of nuclear weapons. He describes his conversion from being a committed supporter of maintaining a nuclear arsenal as a "long and arduous intellectual journey". He made it clear that his intimate acquaintance with the realities of nuclear weapons was instrumental in leading him to his present position. "Nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous, hugely expensive, militarily inefficient and morally indefensible," Butler says now. After being appointed to command of SAC in January 1991, Butler ordered a complete revision of the nuclear target list for the former Soviet Union and its former East European allies. Reviewing the nuclear targets one-by-one, Butler was able to eliminate roughly three-quarters of those that then existed, confining any future attack to Russian soil and designating just a few thousand remaining targets. He also ordered that all U.S. strategic bombers be taken off alert, vastly reducing the risks of a nuclear accident. After spending the last 27 years studying every aspect of America's nuclear policy, Butler said he became deeply troubled by its staggering cost -- which he put at more than $4 trillion -- the "grotesquely destructive" war plans and the immense risks associated with routine daily operations. Responding to the plea for nuclear cuts, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Wednesday said the administration had given high priority to curbing the threat of nuclear weapons. Defense Secretary William J. Perry rejected the notion of unilateral reductions, stating that further cuts in U.S. nuclear weapons should depend on Russian ratification of the START II treaty. "I do not believe in unilaterally eliminating our nuclear weapons," Perry said. "You cannot uninvent the nuclear bomb. . . While I push for very deep and very fast reductions, I want to do them in a way which takes into account the nuclear weapons of other nations . . . certainly the nuclear weapons in Russia." Compiled from wire service reports - Carey Sublette, 5 December 1996