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Astonishment and, beyond that, fear of what reagan has talked about doing, banning nuclear weapons. >> a reagan administration move to sign an arms deal with the soviets was criticized today by former president nixon and former secretary of state henry kissinger. the two men said it would be, quote, a profound mistake, unquote, to eliminate all medium-range missiles in europe. >> many conservatives thought reagan had been charmed by gorbachev and reagan actually had more problem dealing with his hard right than he did the left. so reagan had to constantly let the right know, i know what i'm do...

>> he delegitimized the soviet union. now the trouble is you're both poised with these weapons at each other, which is a terrible way to live. mutually assured destruction. so reagan said, why don't we do something and put a protective shield between us so that i can have some other option. that's the birth of the strategic defense initiative, called sdi or unkindly called "star wars". >> what if free people could destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our soil or that of our allies. >> the united states is spending about a billion dollars a year on research on laser beams or...

Former president nixon and kissinger. the two men said it would be, quote, a profound mistake unquote to allow medium range missiles in europe. >> many conservatives thought reagan had been charmed by gorbachev, and reagan had more problem dealing with his hard right than he did the left. so reagan had to constantly let the right know, i know what i'm doing. >> reagan was being accused already of getting soft on communism, but he hadn't forgotten the problems we still had. europe was still divided, there was still a berlin wall. >> there's one sign the soviets can make that would be unmistakab...

Must drop his "star wars" program to get the deal. president reagan wouldn't do that. >> the soviets feared that sdi was a lot more real than it was that the strategic defense fish -- initiative would really protect the united states. it wasn't mutually assured destruction at that point, it was assured destruction of the soviet union but assured protection of the united states. so they went crazy about the sdi. >> translator: the president insisted until the end on retaining for the united states the right to test things relating to sdi. it would have taken a madman to accept that. >> after re...

His personal feelings about reducing the level of fear and misunderstanding between the two nations. >> the main thing is they met each other as human beings, reagan, in particular, had concentrated his attention on gorbachev as a person. he spent more time studying grbachev than he did the esoteric things having to do with arms control. >> it is understood the president tried to dispel gorbachev's negative image of the u.s. gorbachev wouldn't budge but he was not nearly as combative as he was with other american officials recently. >> is it a good sign? >> of course. >> i would think so. >> i...