51.   Clinton and Putin will also take up the issue of nuclear arms reductions.

52.   Critics fear the custodians might get carried away, begetting new designs and perhaps even new classes of nuclear arms.

53.   Curtailing the proliferation of nuclear arms is certainly a legitimate and desirable goal for the United States and for the world.

54.   Countries with nuclear arms replied that their weapons are not inherently illegal and that their use may be banned only through negotiation, not by judicial order.

55.   Delays in ratification of the treaty had made it uncertain when the next round of cuts in nuclear arms would begin.

56.   Disagreements over nuclear arms treaties and the increase in espionage cases have not helped the atmosphere, either.

57.   Disarmament experts have said that the ABM treaty served as the under-girding of treaties that followed to reduce nuclear arms up to the present time.

58.   Defenders of Turnbull note that Russia has often cheated on arms-control treaties, and that top Russian experts are arguing for new nuclear arms.

59.   Driven by such logic, the administration made public masses of generalities about nuclear arms, even as specific weapon designs were kept secret.

60.   During the election campaign, George W. Bush signaled that he would push for deeper, perhaps one-sided cuts in long-range nuclear arms.