U.S. START delegation and President Reagan. Maurice Eisenstein, General Donald Aldridge,
Ambassador Sol Polansky, Ambassador Edward L. Rowny, President Ronald Reagan, Michael
,
Mobbs, William Spahr, and Donald Tice.
There was a great deal of criticism that President Reagan was slow in getting back
to the negotiating table. But President Reagan was unperturbed. He was
determined not to rush into negotiations before he knew where we were going with
our force structures and what our baseline would be.
Another reason why we didn't move rapidly into negotiations was because priority
was given to INF negotiations. You will recall that earlier I said that NATO
ministers, meeting in Rome, called for a two-track approach to meet the Soviet
SS-20 threat. This two-track approach to INF meant that our departmental
bureaucracies were devoting a great deal of attention to INF. This delayed
preparations for getting the strategic arms negotiations going.
At the beginning of the Reagan administration, President Reagan made several
speeches which were to form the shape of future policies. One speech he gave
early on said it was not enough simply to contain communism but that we needed
to supersede communism.
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