Word: pentagon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...nomination comes in the middle of a concerted effort by an assortment of Pentagon admirers to assert the cause of higher defense spending at the outset of the Carter Administration. The opening of the current push to expand America's nuclear arsenal was signaled during Ronald Reagan's campaign against former President Ford in the Republican primaries last spring. From New Hampshire to Texas, Reagan charged that the Soviet Union had opened up a dangerous numerical lead in strategic weaponry, a lead that could only be erased by substantial increases in American defense spending. After gaining his party's nomination...
...Pentagon supporters in the Congress wasted little time in launching a determined and vehement assault on the Warnke nomination, led by Senate hawks like Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) and Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) of the Armed Services Committee. Although the Pentagon camp has often distorted Warnke's views (as in the anonymous memorandum circulated earlier this month in the Senate), there are two clear positions at the heart of the disagreement. First, Warnke has questioned the utility of numerical military superiority in the nuclear age. While conceding that deterrence requires a perceivable ability to retaliate effectively in response...
These positions have long been held in academic arms control circles, but they have never had an able, influential advocate in government. It is not surprising, then, taht Pentagon lobbies have spared little effort in seeking Warnke's defeat. But even if Warnke survives the confirmation process in the Senate, he will face obstacles on two fronts upon assuming office...
...first and most immediate problem will be the achievement of worthwhile settlement at the SALT II negotiations. While President carter has expressed strong support for both Warnke and armament reductions, there will be equally strong opposition from the Pentagon and its true-believers in the Congress to any imaginable SALT II agreement. In addition, Warnke may have reason to fear the sort of backdoor diplomacy practiced by Nixon and Kissinger in the SALT I negotiations. Such an approach would leave his own position in the talks essentially meaningless...
...million President Carter seems ready to add to the $1.5 billion previously approved by former President Ford. Israel would also like speedy delivery of the extraordinarily lethal CBU-72 concussion bombs that Ford had promised; delivery is now in doubt because Carter has asked the State Department and Pentagon "to analyze the political and military consequences of the sale...