Fantasyland
Quote of the week: “The easiest thing of all is to deceive oneself; for we believe whatever we believe.” — Demosthenes How did half of my beloved country get swept up by Donald Trump? How did a reality-based Democratic Party…
Tag: Nixon
Why MIRV?
The Stimson Center will publish a collection of five essays in May titled, The Lure and Pitfalls of MIRVs: From the First to the Second Nuclear Age. Our authors look back at US and Soviet compulsions, and forward to how…
Caging the Bomb
During this Thanksgiving season, let’s try something different: Rather than focus on doom and gloom, what hasn’t been accomplished and what irreconcilables are trying to undo, let’s focus on an improbable success story. Despite the odds, prolonged efforts to cage…
Sufficiency
The Nixon administration needed to make many adjustments in order to prepare for strategic arms limitation talks with the Kremlin. One change was in the terminology used to describe how US nuclear forces were supposed to stack up against the…
Cheap Rhetorical Tricks
The cheapest debating trick in the nuclear weapons/arms control business is the well-crafted rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions are asked not to seek answers, but to advance preferred outcomes. Hardy perennials include, “Can’t we do better than…?” The best rhetorical questions…
Mad Men
There’s a Mad Man Theory of Deterrence. Does it apply to arms control, too? Here’s the keeper Mad Man quote, found in Richard M. Nixon’s The Real War (1980): International relations are a lot like poker – stud poker with…
Nixon, Kissinger, and SALT
Reading 1,000 pages of memoranda, meeting notes, and transcripts of conversations about SALT I in Volume XXXII of Foreign Relations of the United States prompts many unsettling questions, beginning with the competence of President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser…
Gerard C. Smith
“Gerry” Smith had the look of a bulldog wearing a well-tailored, pin-striped suit. No diplomat’s jaw seemed more able to take a solid punch. Ambassador Smith took more than his share during the first strategic arms limitation talks. The SALT…
