Word: iceland
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...President should have taken the deal because SDI was a bargaining chip, and that's the way it should have been played. It didn't have to be signed and delivered in Iceland. The President should have said he needed more time to consider everything. SDI is clearly not the almighty, towering, impregnable shield we hear described. At best, it is a small, leaky, fragile shield. I have grave doubts that it can ever be implemented. SDI should be placed in the proper perspective. But I don't think everything is lost. The important thing to remember now is that...
...President made a dramatic proposal in Iceland. It is a major step forward, a courageous and perceptive move toward going back to a non-nuclear world -- as far as that is practical." McNamara points out that the Soviet position on SDI may be more negotiable than is often supposed. "The Soviets did not propose that we sacrifice SDI. They proposed to limit the program to what they understand to be the terms of the ABM treaty. They fear that if the Americans move SDI beyond the limits of the treaty, the U.S. would have a strategic advantage that would give...
...have a difficult time believing that the President, without any consultation with Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the allies, would propose something that would end extended deterrence. Nonetheless, there was useful work done in Iceland. I look on it as an intelligence operation. We come away with a clearer vision of the alternatives. We can either have arms control or we can have a crash program to deploy defense. We can't have both. The President has always said SDI is just a research program, and the Soviets say let's limit it to research. It shouldn...
...must admit that we too would be uncomfortable about spaceships firing lasers, and particle beams circling over our heads. Still, the Russians should have gambled that SDI is just a theory, and if it does become a reality, they could then take it up again in ten years. Iceland was not a Soviet trap. It is part of a continuing process. We should not have expected more...
Amid the mysteries of Soviet motivations, one thing appears certain: Gorbachev arrived in Iceland with a detailed game plan, approved in advance by the Politburo after consultations with Warsaw Pact leaders, that would shape the events of the weekend. The concept was apparently simple. Moscow would % propose such an attractive package of offensive-arms reductions that Reagan would be tempted to pursue the dream of a grand compromise that included some resolution on the Strategic Defense Initiative, rather than stick to the original U.S. goal of a medium-range-missile deal not linked to SDI. If Reagan accepted the bait...