GORE GOES BALLISTIC

Vice President Al Gore, at the United Nations to lobby dozens of non-nuclear nations to approve permanent curbs on nuclear weapons technology, told them the U.S. ultimately wants to eliminate its arsenal, too. Although the U.S. has a 90-vote majority in hand to extend the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proloferation Treaty, TIME United Nations correspondent Bonnie Angelo reports, Gore is trying to persuade the largest possible margin to side with him for credibility's sake. Otherwise, as Gore said in his U.N. speech, "it will encourage would-be proliferators to lie low and to clandestinely pursue their objectives." So how's Gore doing? Gore told Angelo today: "The debate is moving in our favor." To make sure, Angelo says, the vice president held a lunch with 20 ambassadors, hoping to persuade fence-sitting nations to tip and opponents to keep a low profile.