Word: mx
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Reagan was amply rewarded for not standing on presidential prerogative. In the first place, he secured congressional backing for the MX missile. He is also able to present Moscow with a START proposal that enjoys strong bipartisan support. Said Kenneth Duberstein, the presidential assistant who helped to put the package together: "It gives a signal to the Soviets that we are united." Not least of all, Reagan may have been able to dispel his image as an inflexible hard-liner and defuse the arms-control issue before the 1984 elections. Said one of his senior advisers: "This is what...
...Geneva, also seemed likely to remain stalemated. Their prospects not only were shaken by the Andropov blast, but Reagan is having almost as much difficulty negotiating with Congress, his State Department and the Pentagon as with the Soviets. Some key legislators still threaten to vote against final funding for MX-missile deployment in the U.S. unless the Administration takes a more flexible position in START, as it has now done...
...ONLY SANE POLICY this country can adopt is one that promotes the power of the Soviet civilian government at the expense of the military. Increased defense spending, the MX missile system, rhetorical duels and the like will serve solely to give the generals a boost. Detente--which didn't work simply because it was never really tried--is the solution. Increased economic, scientific, cultural and educational exchange, all mutually beneficial propositions, certainly won't make the current Soviet-American relationship worse. And these policies might just help any moderates that exist within the Soviet power structure to assert themselves...
...Reagan's moderate response served to counter critics who fear he is too trigger-happy in dealing with the Soviets, while lending support to his view of them as part of an "evil empire." This is likely to translate into less opposition to his plans to build the MX missile and increase military spending. An indication of the changing congressional mood came last week when the House reversed itself and voted to end a 15-year moratorium on the production of chemical weapons...
...arms control, it is clear that this latest East-West crisis has been a boon to Reagan, slowing the nuclear freeze movement and weakening the Democrats' resolve to criticize the Administration's performance in Geneva. And it will give the Defense Department's desire for dollars--and the MX missile system--added credibility in Congress. Said one White House official: "We've been saying all along that the Russians play by a different set of rules... Most of this detente talk will die down and rightly so. The Soviets have given us a timely warning about themselves...