July 21, 2006 :: The Heritage Foundation :: Analysis
Paul Lettow, author of Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (New York: Random House, 2005), delivered a speech yesterday at the Heritage Foundation on the legacy of Ronald Reagan on the subject of U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Lettow discussed the former President’s central role as leader, visionary, strategist, diplomat, and negotiator. In particular, he touched on Reagan’s unrivalled championing of the 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which proposed to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the U.S. from ballistic missile attack. An excerpt:
Reagan saw SDI as a means of accomplishing his objective of a nuclear-free world. An effective missile defense, he believed, could render ballistic missiles “impotent and obsolete.” In his eyes, such a defense would make not just ballistic missiles but all nuclear weapons negotiable, and would spur talks, first with the Soviet Union and then with the other nuclear powers, that would result in the elimination of all nuclear arms. He thought that the United States could then share a defense system, and that an “internationalized” defense would serve to guarantee security in a nuclear-free world. None of Reagan’s advisers adhered to his vision of SDI as the catalyst for and guarantor of a world without nuclear weapons. But from the inception of the initiative through the rest of his presidency, Reagan held unwaveringly to that vision of SDI.
(Article)
» More stories on: Analysis, Nuclear Weapons, Policy
