Missile Control—Hope or Chimera?

Not since the early days of 1946, before the Cold War became a reality, has the climate for controlling the nuclear arms race been so propitious. Both the United States and the Soviet Union talk (but do not yet act) as though they want to negotiate limitations on strategic offensive and defensive weapons. What does this apparent simultaneous willingness signify?

In 1964, at a time when disarmament negotiations between the two superpowers were all but dead, the United States proposed a freeze on the production and deployment of strategic offensive and defensive missiles (long-range bombers, long-range land-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and antiballistic missiles) . The freeze was intended by the U.S. negotiators to curtail the arms race and improve the climate of international relations, so that later reductions in existing stockpiles of these weapons could be realized. But the Russians never warmed up to the U.S. proposal. Officially, Soviet negotiators said that the proposal was not comprehensive enough (general and complete disarmament was still the goal, they argued, and at least there should be reductions in weapons if the United States was going to be allowed to send inspectors to the Soviet Union)....