Word: zeros
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Previously, U.S. negotiators at the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) talks in Geneva had stressed the zero option: if the Soviet Union scrapped all its medium-range missiles, the U.S. would deploy no missiles at all in Europe. But, said the President, in 16 months of negotiations it has become obvious that the Soviets will not agree to that plan. Thus the U.S. was willing to accept a less ambitious solution on the missiles. Said Reagan: "It would be better to have none than to have some. But if there must be some, it is better to have few than...
...will you reduce?" The only Soviet offer so far has been to reduce the SS-20 force-in Europe, not Asia-to 162 missiles, matching the British and French arsenal, if the U.S. cancels its European missile deployment completely. Both the U.S. and its European allies call this proposal "zero on one side...
...Europe and perhaps not until after deployment has actually started. The reason: the Kremlin must first be convinced that demonstrations by the European antinuclear movement will not be strong enough to block the installation of the U.S. missiles. In other words, Moscow is hoping for a different sort of zero-zero outcome: no American missiles, no concessions from the U.S.S.R...
Within the U.S. Government, all factions quickly agreed that the Administration could not simply stand pat on the zero option. But the Pentagon tried to stay as close to it as possible, while the State Department sought to move away from it. The dispute came to a head at a secret meeting of the National Security Council on March 18. Pentagon representatives argued that Reagan should propose limits on warheads only if the Soviets agreed, as a precondition, to eliminate them entirely eventually. The State Department not only opposed that idea but argued for a specific proposal limiting warheads...
Largely at the urging of National Security Adviser William Clark, Reagan, as he does so often, settled on a kind of minimal compromise: he rejected both ideas. He would retain the zero option only as an ultimate goal, not a condition for any agreement. And he would make the offer general rather than specific. Reagan provided some clues to his thinking in a speech late last week to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. In remarks that were directed specifically against nuclear-freeze proposals, but that also seemed applicable to the INF bargaining, he asserted, "If one side seems...