The Road to Zero

The very title of the document is a mouthful -- Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles. It runs to 169 single-spaced typewritten pages, with 17 articles and three annexes. Nearly every word has been haggled over for years. Some brackets in the text, indicating passages still in dispute, were finally removed only last week.

Yet reduced to its essence, this mass of legalese is one of the simplest, most radical attempts in history by the leaders of two adversary nations to resolve a point...