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From: vassos@utcsrgv.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reagan's re-election
Message-ID: <480@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Nov-84 09:01:17 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.480
Posted: Mon Nov 19 09:01:17 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Nov-84 09:42:49 EST
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 30

> May I remind you of the politics of just a year or two ago?  The Soviets
> offered the zero option, which meant that the U.S. would have zero missiles
> in Europe while the Soviets would not.  The Reagan Administration then
> countered with the zero-zero option, whereby both the U.S. and the Soviet
> Union would have zero missiles in Europe.  

The Soviet Union never offered anything called "the zero option".
The "zero option" was a proposal of Reagan's; there was no such thing as
as "zero-zero" option, just plain old "zero". Reagan's zero option
did not say that the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. should both not have
any missiles in Europe, it only said there should be no such LAND-BASED
missiles in Europe.

The "zero option" was presented with substatial fanfare in the U.S.
(Reagan, you see, had to convince the American people that he was
concerened with peace and negotiations.) It got a rather lukewarm
reception elsewhere (U.S. European "allies" included) because its
hypocricy was rather transparent: it just so happens that the
overwhelming majority of Soviet nuclear power is land-based,
while U.S., French and British nuclear power is more evenly
distributed in the tree modes (land-, air- and submarine-based).

[One of the great U.S. presidents -- where are they now? -- said
something like:

"You can fool all of the people some of the time and 
some people all of the time; but you can't fool
all the people all the time." ]

Vassos Hadzilacos