January 1983-April 1983: Arms Negotiation Panel Recommends Revamped Approach

President Reagan’s blue-ribbon panel to examine the failure of the US-Soviet START arms negotiations (see May 1982 and After and Late 1982) finds that the Reagan administration’s recalcitrance, obduracy, and downright insulting behavior towards the Soviet negotiators is the primary reason why the negotiations have made no progress. The panel, headed by foreign policy “pragmatists” such as President Nixon’s Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, President Ford’s Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, President Carter’s Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, and Nixon security and defense aide Brent Scowcroft, calls for a revamped approach to the arms control negotiations. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 124-125] The panel’s recommendations will be ignored (see April 1983-December 1983).