UN General Assembly
1986

All this gives me hope. I can tell representatives that the exchanges between our two sides this summer could well have marked the beginning of serious, productive negotiation on arms reductions. The ice of the negotiating stalemate could break, if both sides intensify their effort in the new round of Geneva talks and if we keep the promises we made to each other last November. For too long a time, however, the Soviet response has been to downplay the need for offensive reductions. When the United States began work technology to make offensive nuclear weapons obsolete some day, the Soviets tried to make that the main issue - as if the main danger to strategic stability was a defense against missiles that is still on the drawing boards, rather than the menacing ballistic missiles themselves that already exist in excessive numbers.