Word: reagans
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...date, Reagan has shown no inclination to bargain away SDI to accept any limits on it. At their summit in November, Reagan tried in vain to convince Gorbachev that large-scale strategic defenses were in the interests of world peace; Gorbachev tried just as unsuccessfully to interest Reagan in an offense-defense trade-off. Because of the President's very personal--and at the same time very public--commitment to the dream that someday space-based defenses might render nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete," it is politically dangerous for any member of his Administration to advocate compromise...
Still, some members of the Administration are hoping that Reagan will eventually go for a deal. He is due to meet Gorbachev at a follow-up summit in the U.S. later this year. This time around, such a meeting cannot be a success unless there is concrete progress in arms control, and progress will almost certainly depend on some give in the U.S. position. Reagan may decide, or be convinced by his more moderate aides, that restricting SDI to research does not mean killing the program or giving up the hope that what is discovered in the lab may someday...
Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger predicts that even if Reagan decided to go for a trade-off, he would have difficulty with his conservative constituency: "The President's big dilemma is that after the 1984 election, he legitimized SDI as a symbol of the true faith. He has jettisoned five years of rhetoric about the Evil Empire; he has restored a climate of détente. But the right wing still regarded the summit as a triumph. Why? Because he didn't give away SDI. That means if he moves to trade it away in the next year...
Another former Pentagon official, William Perry, who was in charge of military research during the Carter Administration, is concerned about what will happen if the Soviets decide that Reagan is irrevocably committed to SDI. Perry is concerned that if the U.S. uses the space shuttle to carry out a demonstration of a laser weapon in the next year, "we may have pushed ourselves beyond a point of no return with the Soviets so that they'll start acting as though we have such a system. Instead of concentrating on diplomacy, they'll pull out the stops in their military programs...
Already an American classic, the painting Saying Grace is destined for even more fame. Last week Ronald Reagan, part of whose appeal lies in his ability to look around him and view the world in a Rockwell sort of way, proclaimed this picture his favorite one by the artist. The President also has a special fondness for a portrait Rockwell did in 1968 for Look magazine in a series on presidential possibilities: Ronald Reagan...