Ironies of History

One of the most persistent myths in the current debate is that Washington unilaterally concocted the idea of deploying new missiles in Western Europe and imposed it on unwilling NATO allies. The Soviet Union has skillfully exploited this notion to feed an increasingly vocal West European peace movement. But the idea could not be more wrong. At every step along the way, Europeans have played an important and often decisive role in setting NATO policy on the new missiles. A retrospective look at the key stages in an ironic and frustrating chapter of Atlantic Alliance history:

>In October 1977, in an address to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Helmut Schmidt, then West German Chancellor, called attention to the fact that strategic arms talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union had failed to deal with "disparities" between East and West in tactical nuclear weapons. What he had in mind was the rapid buildup of Soviet intermediate-range SS-20s targeted on Western Europe. Schmidt reminded the U.S. not to neglect NATO defense needs at the negotiating table, but left it to the Carter Administration to propose a solution.

> At a meeting in Guadeloupe in January 1979, Carter, Schmidt, French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and British Prime Minister James Callaghan examined ways in which to respond to the new Soviet weapons. Carter reportedly proposed to offset the SS-20s by deploying U.S. Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western Europe. Giscard and Callaghan backed the idea, but Schmidt, who by then deeply mistrusted Carter, was at first skeptical. Giscard has told TIME that it was he who proposed the formula that ultimately won Schmidt's approval: a simultaneous U.S. offer to open negotiations with the Soviet Union on intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Giscard argued that this would make the deployment decision more acceptable to West European public opinion, but that only a demonstration of the will to deploy could extract concessions from the Soviets. The four leaders ultimately agreed. In December 1979, ministers representing all 15 NATO members unanimously approved what came to be known as the two-track decision: deployment of 572 cruise and Pershing II missiles to take place if the U.S. and the Soviet Union did not make progress in their negotiations to reduce the number of intermediate-range missiles in Europe.

> In November 1981, as the U.S. and the Soviet Union were preparing to meet in Geneva, President Reagan proposed the "zero option": NATO would forgo its planned deployment altogether if the Soviets would dismantle a11 of their aging SS-4 and SS-5 missiles, plus all 250 of the more accurate SS-20s then in place (the current number: 351). This offer came to be widely criticized in Western Europe, first by the peace movement and later by some governments, as inflexible and unrealistic. Yet it appears that the zero-option concept originated in Western Europe. It had been mentioned by some left-wing members of the West German Social Democratic Party, and when Reagan made the proposal, the governments of both Italy and West Germany claimed paternity for the idea.

> In March, Reagan modified the U.S. bargaining stance by suggesting an "interim agreement" under which NATO would deploy a smaller number of cruises and Pershing Us in exchange for a reduction in the number of SS-20s to the same level. This idea had begun to germinate in Western Europe when it became apparent that the Geneva talks were getting nowhere. West German Defense Minister Manfred Worner first mentioned an "interim solution" at a December 1982 NATO meeting. About the same tune, it was echoed by Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. But if the interim solution fails to produce an agreement in Geneva this year, Washington may again be criticized for yet another European proposal whose time never came. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.