Word: optioning
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...aide to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put it, "We would have preferred to leave a token deployment of American missiles in Europe. Nitze's own walk-in-the-woods scheme would have been a far better outcome than the zero option from a strategic point of view. If, however, the U.S. allowed itself to be snookered by the Soviets into the damn-fool zero option, then we told Nitze in no uncertain terms that we wanted it to be a version of the zero option that extracted the maximum price from the Kremlin...
...Reagan Administration was reluctant to back away from the zero option, partly because it had been Reagan's proposal to begin with. Glitman instead proposed a modification of the interim solution: an immediate reduction of INF missiles on both sides combined with a schedule for achieving the "global" elimination of INF missiles by the end of 1989. Obukhov replied dryly: "We'll study this more carefully, but on initial consideration, it looks like the zero option...
...Reagan Administration, to the relief of some of its own members as well as numerous Europeans, saw an opportunity to retreat from the controversial zero option and to reinstate the interim solution, with token missile deployments in Europe. U.S. negotiators tabled a response that seemed quite close to the Soviet proposal: each superpower could keep 100 INF warheads in Europe, but with some Pershing IIs permitted...
...official on the powerful Central Committee Secretariat, Georgi Kornienko, said in Moscow, "We feel it is important to make progress somewhere, and INF appears to be the only area of opportunity." All indications were that the deal the Soviets had in mind was the interim agreement, not the zero option...
...finishing touches on an INF treaty, he found himself confronted instead with yet another Gorbachev blockbuster. Gone was the offer of an interim INF agreement that would allow the U.S. to maintain some missiles in Europe for a limited period. In its place was the zero option, which would meet the long-standing Soviet objective of keeping all American missiles off the Continent. As before, having originally proposed the zero option, the Administration felt it could not reject it at Reykjavik...