Word: sdi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...come to a critical juncture in its rivalry with the Soviet Union. With Reagan's firm advocacy of SDI, the U.S. stands poised to embark on the most extravagant military project ever conceived, perhaps the most far-reaching since the Bomb was born in the desert near Los Alamos 40 years ago. It could change forever the nature of the nuclear threat; it could force the Soviets into serious bargaining. It also has the potential, at least for the foreseeable future, to cripple any efforts at arms control...
When they rejoined their advisers after an hour, the two sides were once again bedeviled by Star Wars. Hoping that he might use the enticement of large cuts in offensive weapons to extract a concession from Reagan on Star Wars, Gorbachev declared, "Something has to be done about SDI before we can get to the subject of reductions." Reagan was not buying. "SDI," he countered, "is long term enough that it ought not to be the thing to make strategic-missile reductions impossible now. Can we afford to let this moment go by when both of us are talking about...
Gloom hung over the American team's working lunch that day. White House Spokesman Larry Speakes raised the prospect of facing headlines that read SUMMIT BREAKS UP OVER SDI. He wondered anxiously how it would play back home. Badly, suggested Arms Control Adviser Paul Nitze, who noted that SDI does not enjoy overwhelming public support in the U.S. Speakes took the precaution of ordering press aides to prepare experts who could fan out over Geneva that night to put the right spin on news of a breakup...
...fact that the statement addressed other issues as well, however fleetingly and blandly, was regarded as something of a victory for Reagan. For the first time, the Soviets had agreed to call for substantial cuts in offensive weapons without simultaneously insisting on a ban on Star Wars. Indeed, SDI was barely alluded to in the joint statement. The aim of the arms-control negotiations, it declared, should be "to prevent an arms race in space and to terminate it on earth." The words were the exact ones first used last January by Shultz and former Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko...
Some of the U.S. officials who came to Geneva with Reagan had hoped the final document would include another reaffirmation, that of the antiballistic-missile (ABM) treaty of 1972. Advocates of arms control within the Administration want to seize every opportunity to commit the U.S. to keeping SDI within the bounds of that treaty. Doing so, they hope, might allay Soviet concerns and induce concessions. Why was there no mention of the ABM treaty in the joint statement...