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...equalize once more at zero: we will get rid of all our European shorter-range missiles if the U.S. pledges not to bring any such weapons into the Continent. He implied this would be done within a year of Senate ratification of a treaty on INF (intermediate-range nuclear forces) weapons...
Nonetheless, Shultz asserted in Brussels that "we have before us the prospect for a good INF agreement, and we have the basic elements in place." At week's end White House sources were speculating about a Gorbachev visit to the U.S. to attend a summit conference with Reagan in September or October. That would imply a pact ready for signature: Gorbachev would not come otherwise...
...Europe from the U.S. politically." To other Americans, this fear is exaggerated. They point out that plenty of American nuclear weapons, carried by bombers or launched by submarines, would be left for the defense of Europe. The independent British and French nuclear forces, which are not involved in the INF negotiations, would be left intact. Further, these experts argue, the presence of 325,000 American troops in Western Europe guarantees that the U.S. would fight a Soviet invasion, with nuclear warheads if necessary. Says former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger: "Denuclearization of Europe is a false issue...
While the Prime Minister told Gorbachev of her public support for the "zero option" proposal for complete withdrawal of INF weapons, she insisted that any agreement would have to be accompanied by a buildup of U.S. short-range nuclear missiles, a category in which the Soviets currently hold a 9-to-1 advantage. Thatcher pulled no punches. "A world without nuclear weapons may be a dream," she declared at a state dinner in the Kremlin's richly paneled Hall of Facets. "But you cannot base a sure defense on a dream. A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable...
...responded to her views bluntly. "It is beyond our understanding how one can heap praise on nuclear arms," he said. The Soviet leader dismissed nuclear deterrence as a "safety fuse attached to an explosive device capable of annihilating our civilization." Gorbachev said he saw "no serious obstacles" to an INF agreement with the U.S. Even so, he complained, the West seemed to be asking for a "whole new package of additional conditions and demands" that threatened to bog down U.S.-Soviet INF negotiations...