Word: burt
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Perle ridiculed the swap scheme, in part because it came from "the old SALT gang." Burt tried to enlist the support of the Chiefs. On a bright spring day in 1982, Perle was coming down the escalator at the entrance of the Pentagon when he spotted Burt just ahead of him. Perle hailed him and asked what he had been doing...
...Burt looked pained and headed for his car. Perle complained to the Joint Chiefs about their letting Burt go behind his back...
...deadline drew closer, Burt again began courting the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see if they would support the State Department against the rest of the Government. As it turned out, they did-for reasons having at least as much to do with their concept of the nation's mili tary needs as their desire to see arms control continue. The Chiefs felt that their civilian colleagues in the Pentagon, Weinberger and Perle, were overrating the impor tance of throw weight. The Chiefs argued that what gave missile warheads their ability to threaten ene my silos was their accuracy...
...Pentagon, Haig had suggested a "two-phase" approach to START, with limits to be sought on war heads and launchers in the first phase, and on throw weight in a vaguely defined second phase. The State Department believed it had, in Burt's phrase, "neutralized the throw-weight boys...
Given Haig and Burt's goal of preserving some hope that an agreement might be negotiated, the State Department had achieved only a temporary and perhaps Pyrrhic victory over the Pentagon civilians...