Word: deployable
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...this situation, said Joseph Biden, a Democratic Senator from Delaware, there is a vital need to maintain the credibility of the alliance so that the Soviets will realize they must talk seriously. Said Biden: "If the Russians saw God and God said, 'They're really going to deploy,' the Russians would negotiate." But West European panelists were not convinced. They feared that just as the West German election did not settle the controversy over Pershing Us in Germany, so NATO missile deployment itself, carried out gradually over a period of tune, will not necessarily persuade the Soviets...
Although there was general agreement on the need to deploy the new NATO missiles on schedule, Karsten Voigt, West German Social Democratic Party spokesman for foreign and security affairs, suggested the possibility of postponement, even without a deal with the Soviets in Geneva. Voigt called the deterrent value of the Pershing II "greatly exaggerated" and said its mission could soon be taken over by conventional weapons. Joining in the challenge, Healey questioned the overall U.S. assessment of superpower balance. The U.S., Healey claimed, was well ahead in the number of warheads, and in any case, he noted, "I doubt that...
...meeting in Guadeloupe in January 1979, Carter, Schmidt, French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and British Prime Minister James Callaghan examined ways in which to respond to the new Soviet weapons. Carter reportedly proposed to offset the SS-20s by deploying U.S. Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western Europe. Giscard and Callaghan backed the idea, but Schmidt, who by then deeply mistrusted Carter, was at first skeptical. Giscard has told TIME that it was he who proposed the formula that ultimately won Schmidt's approval: a simultaneous U.S. offer to open negotiations with the Soviet...
...March, Reagan modified the U.S. bargaining stance by suggesting an "interim agreement" under which NATO would deploy a smaller number of cruises and Pershing Us in exchange for a reduction in the number of SS-20s to the same level. This idea had begun to germinate in Western Europe when it became apparent that the Geneva talks were getting nowhere. West German Defense Minister Manfred Worner first mentioned an "interim solution" at a December 1982 NATO meeting. About the same tune, it was echoed by Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. But if the interim solution fails to produce an agreement...
What has made the question especially vexing for Western defense strategists is that on its surface the Soviet proposal seems eminently logical. According to Moscow, the U.S. idea of trading Soviet SS-20s against a NATO promise to deploy fewer Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe would still leave the Soviet Union vulnerable to a surprise strike from British and French nuclear forces. Said Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko last month: "Imagine that a terrible tragedy has occurred and that, say, a nuclear-tipped British missile is in flight. Should it carry the tag I AM BRITISH...