Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Digital Library Collections This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections. Collection: Blackwell, Morton: Files Folder Title: Nuclear Freeze (16 of 16) Box: 15 To see more digitized collections visit: https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit: https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection Contact a reference archivist at:
[email protected] Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/ I 139 From Foreign Affairs, Summer 1982, Volume 60, No. s. 1 I 11,The. Deb~te Qv~ No Fj,~s:t 'l:,Jse t- T/u autltor.1· re/1/y: Responses to our essay, in these and other comments, have demonstrated wide interest in the issue. Instead of attempting a detailed response to these I thoug!Hful letters, we would like to address a number of the ba<;ic questions raised hoth in the letters and elsewhere. First, it should be emphasized, because some critics have misunderstood I our argument, that while we ourselves believe in a policy of no-first-use, our specific recommendation was for official and private studies of ways and means of moving,.lo such a policy. Obviously the most important question for study is how to ensure a conventional force posture that will persuasively deter I a Soviet conventional attack. J\ number of officials assert that such a posture is unattaina!Jlc, but many qualified authorities disagree, including a number of senior retired military leaders, now free to speak their minds. Recently Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, a well-informed member of the Senate Armed I Services Committee, made a strong public argument for modernizing conven tional forces so as to create what he calls "a viable conventional defense.'' Senator Nunn believes that strengthened conventional forces should precede I and not follow any adopt ion of a no-first-use policy; we think progress toward both can be made together, in a mutually reinforcing way.