Word: andropov
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Speaking at a reception in Moscow for East German Leader Erich Honecker, Andropov also warned that if the U.S. missiles are deployed, "a chain reaction is inevitable." Said he: "The U.S.S.R., the German Democratic Republic, the other Warsaw Treaty countries will be compelled to take countermeasures." If the Andropov proposal was consistent with past maneuvering in the missile game, combining offers of flexibility with threats of escalation, it nevertheless appeared to suggest that the Soviet Union was inching toward a more conciliatory stance in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) talks scheduled to resume in Geneva next week...
There was sound reason for Reagan's guarded response. Andropov's remarks reflected no change in the Soviet demand that British and French nuclear forces be included in the INF arithmetic, a possibility long ruled out by Washington and its NATO partners. Britain and France have always contended that their comparatively small forces are national deterrents that are incapable of defending all of Western Europe or of threatening the Soviet Union with a first strike and, hence, should remain outside any discussions between the U.S. and the Soviets. While praising the Soviet willingness to focus on warheads...
...response of West European leaders to Andropov's proposal was by turns hopeful and ambivalent. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl welcomed the latest Soviet move as offering promise for a U.S.-Soviet missile agreement this year. British Foreign Secretary Francis Pym described Andropov's remarks as "a step in the right direction. It is a very modest move; they are still taking a very hard line." French President François Mitterrand reaffirmed his nation's determination to be excluded from the Geneva talks. Said he: "This Soviet demand is very old. I will remain deaf...
...Andropov's offer was seen as a response to President Reagan's interim proposal, which calls for an unspecified reduction of proposed U.S. missiles in exchange for a cut in the number of existing Soviet SS-20s. But Andropov laid out the Soviet posture so loosely that any real assessment will have to depend on how Soviet negotiators fill in the blanks at Geneva. Some of the ambiguities...
...Would the Soviet Union respond to the deployment of U.S. missiles by stationing new ballistic nuclear missiles in East Germany? Andropov may have been hinting as much when he singled out East Germany for participation in any East bloc "countermeasures...