Volume 34, Number 6 · April 9, 1987
Reagan's Highest Folly
By Lord Zuckerman
Weapons in Space
edited by Franklin A. Long, edited by Donald Hafner, edited by Jeffrey Boutwell
Norton, 386 pp., $16.95
Space Weapons and International Security
edited by Bhupendra Jasani for SIPRI
Oxford University Press, 366 pp., $59.00
Empty Promise: The Growing Case Against Star Wars
edited by John Tirman. under the auspices of The Union of Concerned Scientists
Beacon Press, 238 pp., $7.95 (paper)
With Mr. Gorbachev's offer to conclude a treaty that would oblige the USSR and the US to withdraw all the intermediate-range nuclear missiles that now face each other in Europe, a first step has been taken to end the confusion that follows what was widely regarded as the failure of the Reykjavik meeting. The offer is forthright and unambiguous. As the official text makes clear, it is made not just in the name of the General Secretary but specifically on behalf of 'the Soviet leadership and the country's Defense Council.' Second, it is made without prejudice to the separate existence of the nuclear arsenals of the UK and France, an issue that helped lead to the breakdown of the earlier Theater Nuclear Force negotiations. Third, the USSR is prepared to begin talks immediately with a view to reducing and finally eliminating 'other shorter range theater missiles.' And finally, the offer is not conditional on the US abandoning its program of research and development on SDI.
Review, 7175 words
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