How Good Was the Deal?

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George

Ball

Under Secretary of State during the Johnson Administration:

"I think a real opportunity was missed in Reykjavik. SDI is not only a fantasy, it is a fraud. If the President persists in his SDI fantasy, there is no possibility of success in arms control. All the President is doing with his fixation on Star Wars is to make arms control more difficult to achieve. He is escalating the arms race, as the Soviets build more weapons to block SDI. The Soviets will not consent to limitations on their strategic missiles without receiving something in return. I'm appalled that the Administration did not understand what was at stake. It is sheer nonsense for the President to be talking about Star Wars. In the talks, he should be concentrating on ICBMs, which are an absolute with regard to arms control." But Ball agrees that the elimination of nuclear arms cannot be achieved overnight, and would in any case alarm other NATO members. "The Europeans believe that World War III would be inevitable if there were no strategic deterrent protecting them. The idea of relying exclusively on conventional weapons distresses them, especially those who remember World War II. These are matters that should be considered in detail, if negotiations resume in a realistic manner and are not based on a Star Wars fantasy."

Sidney

Drell

Deputy director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center:

"It was a terrific deal. If we could have had an agreement to reduce offensive weapons significantly and all the U.S. agreed to do was limit the (SDI) program to research for ten years, that would have been marvelous. There is still so far to go and so many technologies to develop in SDI. In my analysis, the program we have in mind would not have suffered at all under strict interpretation of the ABM treaty." Drell favors the plan that called for a 50% reduction in nuclear weapons; though he would eventually like to see total disarmament, he believes such a goal must be pursued with great caution. "I wish nuclear weapons had never been invented. But would I like to wake up tomorrow and find that there are no nuclear weapons? No. Nuclear arms have been a stabilizing factor. In the short term, however, we should try to reduce the armories and make the prospects for accidental war smaller."

Cyrus

Vance

Secretary of State

under Carter:

"The President should have taken the deal because SDI was a bargaining chip, and that's the way it should have been played. It didn't have to be signed and delivered in Iceland. The President should have said he needed more time to consider everything. SDI is clearly not the almighty, towering, impregnable shield we hear described. At best, it is a small, leaky, fragile shield. I have grave doubts that it can ever be implemented. SDI should be placed in the proper perspective. But I don't think everything is lost. The important thing to remember now is that the door is still open. Both sides are saying everything is on the table, and that means that there is time to reconvene."

Paul

Warnke

Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under Carter: