Word: inf
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That, at least, is the theory. But it is also true that some of Reagan's advisers made the mistake of thinking that the Soviets would not walk out of the INF talks in the first place. Some officials take seriously the possibility that the Soviets will not return to the bargaining table at all. Even if they do, the continuing chill in superpower relations poses at least three serious dangers...
...Offer to merge the START and INF talks. For the moment, the White House has decided against doing so, in the belief that the Soviets will soon resume the INF talks on Reagan's terms, namely by accepting deployment of some new U.S. missiles in Western Europe. Moscow scoffs at the idea of a merger for precisely the opposite reason. "One can only merge something that really exists," says First Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Korniyenko...
...long as intermediate-range missiles were under discussion, the U.S. would be burdened by the necessity of representing the position of its European allies, supposing those often disunited nations could agree on one. But the alternative could be a prolonged suspension of the START as well as the INF negotiations, a breakdown of what remains of the SALT treaties, a completely unrestrained arms race, and considerable damage to NATO...
Moreover, Reagan's closest aides say he consistently speaks exactly this way in private. At one National Security Council meeting in September 1982, Reagan advised Negotiator Nitze on a way to present an American position in the Geneva INF talks that both men knew the U.S.S.R. would find unacceptable. Said he: "Well, Paul, you just tell the Soviets that you're working for one tough son of a bitch...
...thread of negotiations must not be broken. The START negotiations must stay alive. In Stockholm, a conference is to open on conventional disarmament in Europe, which has great political importance. There is no justification for the Soviet Union's walking out of the INF negotiations. We would view a return to the negotiations not as a defeat for the U.S.S.R. but as a reasonable exercise of responsibility by its leaders...