Word: mx
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...building" measures to lessen the danger of nuclear war by accident, like advance notification by each side to the other of all test missile launches. But those ideas only repeat suggestions that Reagan made publicly last June. The President also planned to announce a basing mode for the new MX missile, a decision that certainly would not comfort the Soviets...
...oppose the first use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. To deter the Soviets from using their superior conventional forces in an invasion of Western Europe, the U.S. has kept open the option of using nuclear weapons before the Soviets do. The bishops also criticize the deployment of new MX missiles on the ground that they would quicken the arms race. The Administration insists that the U.S. needs the MX to counter new Soviet weaponry. Surveying the broad sweep of the bishops' document, Archbishop Edward A. McCarthy, 64, of Miami said last week, "Cataclysmic threats demand dramatic responses...
...seem to be no more than rhetorical fluff, should not be underestimated. Kremlinologists say that the Politburo uses Pravda and other papers as a mouthpiece for Soviet policy; the friendly comments put to paper last week represent a positive change--however small--in Soviet foreign policy. Reagan's MX move is sure to put a chill on this new-found warmth...
...missiles] rather than we build more holes." Since Moscow is unlikely to scrap its SS-18's. Reagan would have done much better to aim at finding a mutual compromise. The SS-18 question is on the START negotiations agenda; Reagan could have emphasized that and put off the MX a while longer, at least long enough to see what else Andropov and Co. might do to better relations...
Reagan did say that he is prepared to advance new arms control proposals to the Soviets. But his periodic outbursts of hard-line language were enough to counteract any benefit his more peaceful statements might bring. The MX plan, said Reagan, "would require the Soviets to make costly new technical developments if they wish to even contemplate a surprise attack. Most of the Soviet countermeasures proposed are really no more than technical dreams on which no Soviet planner or politician would bet the face of his country...