Word: schmidts
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...Europeans who initially urged the U.S. to develop and deploy the new missiles reasoned that they would offset the growing arsenal of intermediate-range Soviet SS-20s while giving the U.S. bargaining strength in any future arms negotiations. Beginning in 1977, Schmidt led the campaign for the Europeans. In so doing, he was trying to ensure that the U.S. would remain faithful to its pledge, made when the alliance was formed in 1949, to defend NATO's European members...
...Schmidt insisted that at least one other continental NATO member accept a share of the 108 Pershing IIs and 464 ground-launched cruise missiles that the U.S. proposed to install. He demanded from the U.S. a commitment to new arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, designed to reduce the number of nuclear weapons within Europe. Once the U.S. agreed to this so-called two-track decision, Italy decided to take 112 cruises and Britain 160. Belgium and The Netherlands assented, but only tentatively, to take 48 each. In both countries, weak governments tried to placate domestic opposition by linking...
...S.P.D. members of the Bundestag signed a declaration supporting an antimissile demonstration that drew 300,000 protesters to Bonn. Schmidt described the defection as a "declaration of war" against his policies; he has threatened to resign if his S.P.D. opponents succeed in garnering a majority of votes against his missile policy at a national party congress. The vote's outcome is critical, and not just for Schmidt's career: if the new missiles are not deployed in West Germany, it is unlikely they will ever be installed in any other Western European nation...
While it is too early to say just how much pressure Reagan's proposal will take off Schmidt at home, it should certainly help convince the Europeans that Washington intends to negotiate seriously when U.S. and Soviet delegations meet in Geneva Nov. 30 to open the new round of arms-reduction talks...
That attitude has profoundly irritated Schmidt. "You can't make it so easy for yourselves," he told churchmen during a television dels bate. "You cannot say, when someone else builds up missiles and armaments directed against your town and other towns, 'I will hold back and God will look after...