U.S. finds Soviet reaction ‘crude’
NZPA-AP Davos A United States Defence Department official said yesterday that a Soviet call to scrap the “star wars” plan in tribute to the seven astronauts killed on the space shuttle Challenger “reeks of insensitivity and hypocrisy." “It is crude, it is in sharp contrast to the first expressions” of sympathy by the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said assistant Secretary of Defence, Mr Richard Perle, in Switzerland. “To attempt to exploit this tragedy for political purposes is the sort of Soviet propaganda we’ve become accustomed to and were hoping would subside after the summit,” he said. He referred to the November summit conference meeting between Mr Gorbachev and President Reagan.
The Soviet Communist Party daily, “Pravda" said in a commentary that the United States should scrap its space defence initiative known as the “star wars,” “as the best tribute to the memory of those killed in the Challenger catastrophe.”
It said "the drama has made the Americans think again about the ‘star wars’ programme.” The state-run Soviet news media first reported the Challenger disaster as a tragedy for America, but then claimed it demonstrated that space technology was not reliable enough to produce an effective space-based anti-missile system.
Mr Perle said the shuttle mission had “nothing to do with 5.D.1.” and repeated United States charges that the Soviets were working on
thelr own “star wars” programme and were not in a position to criticise United States research.
• "The whole (Pravda) statement just reeks of insensitivity and hypocrisy,” he said. The S.D.I. programme has been an obstacle in the United States-Soviet arms talks that began last March in Geneva and are in their fourth round. The Soviets have said the United States would have to scrap the programme before agreement could be reached on long-range and intermedi-ate-range nuclear missiles.
The United States' has insisted the programme would make the world more secure.
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Press, 4 February 1986, Page 10
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316U.S. finds Soviet reaction ‘crude’ Press, 4 February 1986, Page 10
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