Word: ultimatum
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...evening of Andropov's Oct. 26 ultimatum, Negotiator Kvitsinsky and his wife were attending a dinner party at Nitze's Geneva apartment. As the meal ended, Kvitsinsky privately told Nitze that he had just learned of the ultimatum, and he noted that Andropov had also made a new bargaining offer. The gist of it was that the U.S.S.R. was prepared to reduce the number of SS-20s targeted on Western Europe from 243 to "about 140," down from a previous offer of 162, if NATO would cancel its plans for new missiles altogether. In addition, the Soviets would stop adding...
...came a surprise. During a 35-minute session, by far the shortest of the two years of talking, Chief Soviet Delegate Kvitsinsky agreed to hold another session at the neobaroque Soviet mission two days later. Then he offered what amounted to a revision of Andropov's Oct. 26 ultimatum. According to Kvitsinsky, the threatened "consequences" of NATO missile deployment would occur with the arrival "on the continent of Europe" of "short-flight-time" systems on the periphery of the Soviet Union. His statement implied that collapse of the talks would occur only after West Germany had acquired its first...
...against the offensive missile sites that the Soviets were installing in Cuba. Working in the extraordinary partnership that he had developed with his brother Bobby, the President imposed a naval quarantine on Cuba and allowed Khrushchev time to consider. When the Soviets sent two somewhat contradictory replies to his ultimatum, one hard and one more accommodating, Kennedy simply ignored the hard message and replied to the softer one. It worked. Khrushchev blinked, and in the memorable denouement, the Soviet ships turned and steamed away from Cuba. Says Harvard Political Scientist Richard Neustadt: "The Administration set a new standard of prudence...
Andropov's ultimatum was another matter. Since the planned mid-December deployment of the NATO missiles in West Germany and Britain is now a virtual certainty, Andropov was effectively signaling the collapse, for the moment, of the second track of NATO's 1979 "double-track" strategy: to pursue both the deployment of new medium-range weapons and an agreement on their limitation. Although he was careful to propose marginal Soviet "concessions" in order to achieve at least the appearance of continued flexibility, Andropov asserted that Moscow "will not retreat" from its stance that a nuclear balance now exists...
Whatever his travails, Andropov seems to have sharply limited Soviet options. After last week's ultimatum, Moscow cannot continue the arms talks, at least for a time, without losing considerable prestige. Key U.S. officials believe the Soviet move is an opportunity for the West to see to it that Moscow gets full blame for jeopardizing the arms-control process. They point out that the negotiators routinely take a Christmas-New Year's recess, and expect the Soviets to extend the break for several months. That will give the Soviets time to assess West European reaction and begin their...