Poland Offers New Version of 1957 Arms Reduction Proposal
Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski on Friday announced a plan for nuclear and conventional arms cuts in Eastern and Western Europe that diplomats said is an expanded version of a proposal made 30 years ago.
Jaruzelski announced the plan at a congress of the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth, a Communist umbrella organization that includes non-Communist forces that accept the overall authority of the Communist Party.
He said Poland wanted “the gradual withdrawal and reduction, mutually agreed, of operational and tactical types of nuclear armaments. We believe that all types of such weapons should be the subject of negotiations.”
He added that Poland also sought “the gradual withdrawal and reduction, mutually agreed, of types of conventional weapons, starting with those which have the greatest power and fire precision and capacity to launch sudden attacks.”
Jaruzelski did not disclose specific proposals on either the scale or timing of the initiative but said it embraced Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Diplomats said Jaruzelski’s plan is not substantially different from the “Rapacki Plan” of 1957, except that it embraces a wider area.
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