Word: inf
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Soviets have been accelerating their acceptance of such verification procedures since the 1987 INF treaty, which eliminated intermediate- and short-range nuclear missiles, set up procedures for monitoring their destruction. Soviet inspectors have been present in the U.S. during the demolition of 326 missiles, and Americans have witnessed the destruction of 1,088 Soviet missiles. More than two dozen Americans stationed permanently in Votkinsk, west of the Urals, keep tabs on a plant that once built SS-20 missiles, and a similar number of Soviets in Magna, Utah, monitor what was formerly a Pershing engine plant. Michael Krepon, a Washington...
Verification of an accord limiting strategic weapons (START) will be even more challenging. The INF category is comparatively simple to check. Since all missiles of a given type are to be destroyed, any such weapon spotted later would be in obvious violation. START will be far more complex. It will only reduce the numbers of various missiles, and inspectors will have to determine how many small cruise missiles are carried aboard bombers and possibly even submarines. Differentiation must be made between nuclear-tipped and conventionally armed cruise missiles, even if they look alike. A method will have to be found...
...like Gorbachev, Shevardnadze sometimes shows a glint of iron teeth. Thanks, in part, to Shevardnadze's diplomatic labors, Soviet tanks and troops have been withdrawn from Afghanistan and are being partially withdrawn from Eastern Europe. A whole class of nuclear weapons has been marked for destruction under the INF treaty signed in 1987. As the Soviets and their allies disentangle themselves from conflicts in Namibia and Cambodia, they are making diplomatic inroads in the Middle East and China. "Shevardnadze has mastered the foreign policy agenda," says Robert Legvold, director of Columbia University's W. Averell Harriman Institute of Soviet Affairs...
...concentrate on the key points of difference. If the "Grim Grom" stubbornly claimed that his country was not guilty of human rights abuses, Shevardnadze admits that such problems exist but emphasizes what the Kremlin is doing to improve the situation. To the surprise of American negotiators at the INF talks, the Foreign Minister quickly accepted the principle of verification, then negotiated hard to cut the best deal for Moscow. Says U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock: "Shevardnadze is firm, but if you do not agree on an issue, he moves on. He approaches most things in a nonideological...
...Matlock finds Shevardnadze a shrewd negotiator, so do the Foreign Minister's own countrymen. According to Deputy Minister Vorontsov, when Shevardnadze informed Soviet generals that the INF treaty required on-site verification of nuclear missiles, "they told us we were selling them out." In pressing military officials for a reason why U.S. inspectors could not visit these sites, the Foreign Ministry discovered "ridiculous explanations, like 'We don't have hotels there.' We said, 'Come on, we'll build them.' " The Soviet brass eventually gave...