US Presidency
1984

Trewhitt, I might add that it was Seneca or it was Cicero, I don't know which, that said, If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state. Strategic Missiles Yes, this had to do with our disarmament talks. And the whole controversy about land missiles came up because we thought that the strategic nuclear weapons, the most destabilizing are the land based. You put your thumb on a button and somebody blows up 20 minutes later. So, we thought that it would be simpler to negotiate first with those. And then we made it plain, a second phase, take up the submarine-launched or the airborne missiles. The Soviet Union, to our surprise, and not just mine, made it plain when we brought this up that they placed, they thought, a greater reliance on the landbased missiles and, therefore, they wanted to take up all three. And we agreed. We said, All right, if that's what you want to do.