Word: moratorium
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...symbolic day of Easter Sunday, Gorbachev made his move. In an interview with Pravda, he announced a freeze on Soviet deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe until November and invited the U.S. to do the same. He also proposed a freeze on strategic offensive arms and a moratorium on the development of space weapons while arms negotiations are under way in Geneva. Almost as an aside, he mentioned that both powers had expressed "a positive attitude" toward a summit. "Confrontation," Gorbachev said, "is not an inborn defect of our relations...
...visit by a U.S. congressional delegation. It came, as well, just two days before the arrival of the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, the one NATO country still deciding whether to install U.S. missiles. If the Dutch proceed, deployment would begin Nov. 1; Gorbachev's unilateral moratorium on SS-20 missiles, naturally enough, is in effect until November...
...Administration reacted with annoyance. Snapped White House Spokesman Larry Speakes: "At first blush, the proposal for a moratorium seems to revive prior Soviet efforts designed to freeze in place a considerable Soviet advantage." The Soviets have deployed some 414 triple-warhead medium-range SS-20 missiles, two-thirds of which are aimed at Europe, while NATO has installed only 104 of the 572 single-warhead cruise and Pershing II missiles that it hopes to put in by 1988. Paul Nitze, Reagan's special adviser on arms control, said Moscow's new proposal was worse from the American standpoint than...
While Gorbachev's tactics last week somewhat flummoxed the Administration, the impact in Europe was muted. The center-left French daily Le Monde headlined its story A SETBACK FOR GORBACHEV: EUROPEANS REJECT THE MISSILE MORATORIUM. As usual, Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was quick to line up with Reagan. Said she: "The place for negotiations was across the table in Geneva, not in the pages of newspapers." A few peace groups took heart from Gorbachev's message, but even some of them seemed disappointed. Said Pierre Galand, head of a Belgian organization opposed to nuclear weapons: "The moratorium...
...will use this moratorium to bring all parties to the negotiating table," she said earlier this week...