Interviewer:
JUMPING BACK JUST A LITTLE BEFORE THE STAR WARS
SPEECH, THE ADMINISTRATION WAS CLEARLY VERY UPSET ABOUT THE NUCLEAR FREEZE
MOVEMENT. REAGAN ENGAGED IN WHAT I THINK FOR THE PERIOD WAS FAIRLY
UNCHARACTERISTIC AT ONE POINT. HAIG CAME OUT THE NEXT DAY. WHAT DO YOU
THINK THEIR FEAR WAS THERE? WERE THEY MISREADING THE PUBLIC’S MIND
THERE?
Leach:
The President has always spoken for a given number
of Americans, partly in his political philosophy, partly the presidency
always speaks for a large number of Americans. Ironically, one of the things
the President did, though, in opposition to the nuclear freeze movement
which was extraordinarily progressive, was the freeze movement caused the
President to come up with a counterproposal, not simply Star Wars, but deep
cuts, a so-called start approach. And whether or not this President is able
to negotiate a start approach, one of the great gifts he’s given to arms
control is that he has legitimatized in the arch conservative community the
notion of the desirability of very steep cuts in nuclear weapons. That is a
positive, not a negative. It was perhaps developed for public relations
purposes, but it became the benchmark for arms control discussions. And as
such, in many ways, is far more progressive than the so-called freeze
approach. In fact, if you put up the two proposals, the notion of a 50
percent reduction in nuclear arms, the notion of a freeze, the so-called
liberals in American society were taking a conservative approach, the
so-called conservatives were taking a staunchly liberal approach. And it all
got embodied less in substance and more in collectives of who are the wes
that are speaking? And the so-called wes in the arch conservative movement
were talking steep reduction. The so-called wes in the liberal movement were
talking a modest first step of evenness, or freeze. In any regard, both
sides came to be saying we ought to do something and the only question was
whether either side was sincere.