Caspar W. Weinberger

The Reagan Administration took office in 1981 committed to rebuilding American military power. We are encouraged by the results of the past four years. The Reagan defense program is having its intended effect on the Soviet Union.The sequence of annual Soviet aggression against new targets that began in the mid-1970s in Angola, and culminated in the invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979, has ceased. After walking out of the Geneva negotiations in protest over NATO's deployment of theater nuclear weapons in November 1983, the Soviet delegation is back at the bargaining table. Just prior to the recent meeting between President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviets began for the first time to talk seriously about deep cuts in strategic offensive forces. Indeed, the Soviet Union now appears to be moving toward President Reagan's "zero option" proposal for eliminating land-based intermediate range nuclear forces-a proposal that was dismissed in 1981 by most American arms control advocates as a propaganda ploy.