Suddenly last Wednesday it seemed that the world became very unsafe. The day after the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the New York Times headline thundered that the vote "Evokes Versailles Pact Defeat." In a front-page "news analysis," staff writer R.W. Apple continued the history lesson, explaining that the Senate's spurning of the League of Nations in 1919 had made World War II more likely.

Last Thursday, U.S. President Bill Clinton picked up the theme, railing against "the new isolationists" who are saying to the world: "Go take a hike." He painted the specter of a "bleak, poor, and less-secure world" in which countries will stop worrying about poverty and infant mortality and start spending money on nuclear, biological and chemical arms races. Wow! All this because the Senate would not approve an arms-control treaty?

These grim analogies distort the facts not only about the CTBT but also about Versailles.

Had the Senate voted "aye" last week, the result would have been -- precisely nothing. The treaty would only go into force if 44 specific "nuclear capable" countries signed on; 21 have not, including Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan. So it's fair to say that CTBT was not likely to move anytime soon, whatever the Senate did. Like most arms-control documents, this one would have had a marginal effect on the problem it hoped to solve.

Meanwhile the U.S. remains committed -- with strong bipartisan support -- to maintain the freeze on its own testing and to bring considerable pressure on other countries to follow suit. The real engine of global nonproliferation -- American power, not pieces of parchment -- remains alive and well. Men like former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and former CIA chief John Deutsch were concerned that the treaty might impair America's ability to continue monitoring and deterring proliferation.

Just as the Senate's rejection of the test-ban pact wasn't so disastrous, neither was its refusal in 1919 to ratify the Versailles Treaty. Although Versailles has become a catchword to describe the rise of American isolationism in the 1920s, the historical record is more complex. The Versailles Treaty was a deeply flawed document that should have been amended precisely as leading Senate Republicans suggested. The treaty's defeat in 1919 owed more to President Woodrow Wilson's grandiose proposal and uncompromising nature than to Republican objections.

The debate over Versailles was not between Democratic internationalists and Republican isolationists. The Democratic Party, with the important exception of Wilson, was not particularly outward-looking. By contrast, the leading Republicans at the time -- Elihu Root, Henry Cabot Lodge, Charles Evans Hughes and Theodore Roosevelt -- were committed to a much greater American role in the world. In fact, these Republican had urged greater "war preparedness" in 1916, for which they had suffered at the polls. In any event, both Wilson and the leading Republicans shared a belief in an open world economy and in America's duty to help liberalize the world. They differed on the specific matter of the terms of American entry into the League of Nations.

Wilson's vision was of a universal, law-based system of collective security in which all countries -- or at least all the members of the League of Nations -- would act against aggression, wherever and whenever it took place. The crux of the debate was Article 10 of the Versailles Treaty, the triggering clause that guaranteed the integrity and security of all states. Almost all internationalist Republicans had serious reservations about the open-ended nature of this commitment. They also believed that such an elaborate and legalistic scheme was bound to be worthless in practice because nations would not respond equally to every act of aggression. And they worried that this would reduce America's flexibility to protect itself in its own hemisphere.

The Republicans had a more tangible goal than universal peace -- peace in Europe. For this, they believed, the U.S. should enter into a straightforward alliance with France and Britain. After making a specific commitment to its European allies, Washington could certainly enter the League of Nations, as long as this involved no further ongoing military commitments.

Root, a former secretary of state and of war, summarized the Republican proposal: "If it is necessary for the security of Western Europe that we should agree to go to the support of France if attacked, let us agree to do that particular thing plainly, so that every man and woman in the country will understand that. But let us not wrap up such a purpose in a vague and universal obligation, under the impression that it really does not mean anything is likely to happen."

The Republican plan would have been far more effective at preventing World War II than the League of Nations, even with American participation. Germany needed to be deterred; the league could not do it.

Wilson's refusal to consider deterrent measures -- because they smacked of old-fashioned balance of power -- worsened the terms of Versailles. During the negotiations, the French proposed a version of the Republican plan -- an American-British-French alliance. When it became clear to them that Wilson would never accept the idea, they turned their efforts to pressing and humiliating Germany. Had Wilson been willing to consider more practical proposals to ensure stability in Europe, Versailles might have been a less vengeful and more effective treaty.

But for Wilson, this Republican proposal gave up the visionary and idealistic nature of his League of Nations. He would rather have nothing. Once his plan failed to garner even a simple majority in the Senate, he could have thrown his support behind the Republican plan for U.S. entry into the league. Instead Wilson urged his supporters to oppose it. Thus even though most senators were comfortable with the Republican plan, it failed to get the necessary two-thirds vote on March 19, 1920. With Wilson having framed the debate between his plan and isolationism, the Senate chose isolationism.

Mr. Clinton has none of Wilson's obsessive idealism -- mercifully. But in the hope of gaining political advantage, he too has begun framing America's foreign-policy debate as between his policies and isolationism. It is a false choice and a dangerous one.

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