Reagan-Gorbachev Meeting in Iceland

I don’t understand Reagan’s reasoning. If the Russians eliminate their arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles, as they apparently had agreed to do, why do we need a trillion-dollar umbrella? To ward off what?

Now the opportunity to put the genie back into the bottle--to rid the world of nuclear threat--is lost. Each nation will continue to build atomic weapons and, sooner or later, a computer will make a mistake and World War III will be on--as surely as the near-misses of aircraft about a busy airport eventually and inevitably result in a collision.

What was lost at Reykjavik, and will be remembered hauntingly until the end of life on this planet (the opening day of World War III), was that here we had the heaven-sent opportunity to eliminate forever from this earth the most horrible weapon ever conceived by man. And we botched it.

CLYDE VAN HEMERT

Glendale