Word: nuclear
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...disillusioned right makes the same mistake that liberals have made for years: believing that Reagan does not really mean what he says. He came into office preaching that previous arms negotiations were "fatally flawed" because they sought to limit rather than reduce nuclear weapons. Even as he pursued his military buildup, he clung to the notion that its purpose was to force the Soviets to negotiate "real reductions." Perhaps he believed it from the outset, or perhaps (as is often the case with Reagan's verities) he said it so much that he convinced himself. Either...
...raise human rights and he would say it was an internal matter. Now the Soviets bring up the issue." To be sure, they often seek to turn it to their advantage by complaining of what they consider American abuses, including unemployment, homelessness and the imprisonment of anti-nuclear protesters...
...reduced to its essence, this mass of legalese is one of the simplest, most radical attempts in history by the leaders of two adversary nations to resolve a point of tension between them. Never before has the word elimination appeared in the heading of a nuclear arms-control treaty. It is a dramatic example of the practitioners of nuclear diplomacy taking a sword to the Gordian knot...
...best to sell it to U.S. allies in Europe. During one of his frequent missions, European leaders told Nitze that they had invested considerable political capital in accepting the American missiles. They had withstood domestic opposition by arguing that the missiles were necessary to assure "coupling" between America's nuclear forces and its defense of NATO. It would be awkward to justify the removal of all the U.S. missiles, even as part of a deal that eliminated the threat of the SS-20s. NATO strategy still required an American nuclear "trip wire" to deter a Soviet conventional attack...
Left to its own instincts and devices, the Reagan Administration might have abandoned both tracks of the 1979 decision. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, the Administration's most forceful and persistent skeptic about traditional arms control, would have preferred to let the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) negotiations languish -- the same treatment that was already in store for that other unwelcome legacy with the better-known acronym SALT (for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks). Perle doubted that the negotiating track would lead anywhere and that the West Europeans would have the gumption to follow through on deployment...