The Mugger’s Deal at Geneva

Why Arms Talks Must Fail

Richard Perle, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, is frequently vilified in the press but rarely quoted. He is portrayed as an arms-control obstructionist, an impediment to “the success of the talks,” but on what grounds we are never told. One senses that those who write about (and advocate) arms control (and almost everyone who writes about arms control does advocate it, particularly in the news columns of our leading papers) don’t like to report on Perle’s views, for fear that they might prove cogent. So I decided to call him myself. There was a simple and fairly obvious question that I wanted to ask him, and in all the outpourings of Bernard Gwertzman and Leslie Gelb (New York Times), Don Oberdorfer and Walter Pincus (Washington Post), John Newhouse (The New Yorker), and Strobe Talbott (Time), I could not see that it was addressed, let alone answered.

Why Arms Talks Must Fail

Richard Perle, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, is frequently vilified in the press but rarely quoted. He is portrayed as an arms-control obstructionist, an impediment to “the success of the talks,” but on what grounds we are never told. One senses that those who write about (and advocate) arms control (and almost everyone who writes about arms control does advocate it, particularly in the news columns of our leading papers) don’t like to report on Perle’s views, for fear that they might prove cogent. So I decided to call him myself. There was a simple and fairly obvious question that I wanted to ask him, and in all the outpourings of Bernard Gwertzman and Leslie Gelb (New York Times), Don Oberdorfer and Walter Pincus (Washington Post), John Newhouse (The New Yorker), and Strobe Talbott (Time), I could not see that it was addressed, let alone answered.