ABSTRACT
In spring 1986 the new General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, reinvigorated the issue of NATO/Warsaw Pact conventional arms control with an announcement of new Soviet initiatives. Expanded upon in the Warsaw Pact/Budapest Appeal several months later, these initiatives were surprising in their scope and startling because they moved away from entrenched Soviet positions and evidenced a willingness to be creative if not conclusive. Even more surprising than Gorbachev's new initiatives is the laconic response of the Western alliance. The West had proposed mutual and balanced force reductions (MBFR), but the East objected to the inclusion of the word "balanced." The East prevailed symbolically, and instead of MBFR the Vienna talks were officially termed the negotiations on mutual reductions of forces and armaments and associated measures in Central Europe. An MBFR agreement that explicitly permitted any level of on-site verification, though small, and established specified exit-entry control points was viewed as a net gain for the West.
