Word: sart
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...want to make a correction in the etymology of the term START given in your story on arms policy [WORLD, June 25]. You say, "Pipes and Allen wanted to call the new talks SART." In fact, this was the term that first cropped up in the Administration after President Reagan decided to press for reductions of nuclear weapons. I thought this acronym unattractive and at a meeting of the National Security Council staff held early in the Administration suggested START as an alternative. This suggestion was accepted...
...future. The idea of a new acronym that substituted an R for reduction in place of the L for limitation in SALT came from Richard Pipes, a Harvard history professor and leading hawk who had joined the NSC staff. Pipes and Allen wanted to call the new talks SART. That did not catch on. White House Chief of Staff James Baker passed a note to Allen during a meeting: "How about 'Faster Arms Reduction Talks...
...SART had become START. Reagan liked the initials because they suggested a new beginning, and he put a brief plug for START in a speech. But the Administration was still a long way from having a proposal to go with the word. Not until early 1982, when the White House became concerned about the growing nuclear arms freeze movement and congressional opposition to the MX-a longstanding program to develop a new, large, ten-warhead ICBM-did the Administration buckle down to serious, high-level consideration of its options for START. By then, Allen had been replaced as National Security...