Reagan unflinching on arms-cut talks

Press, 29 May 1981, Page 8

Reagan unflinching on arms-cut talks

NZPA-Reuter West Point President Ronald Reagan said yesterday that he would negotiate with the Soviet Union on arms cuts only from a position of strength, and said that the United States would enhance the prospect for peace by maintaining its defences. ' Mr Reagan .chose the United States military academy at West Point as the setting for a reassertion of his pledge, given during last year’s election campaign, to make America militarily strong. “No nation that placed its faith in parchment or paper and gave up its protective hardware ever lasted long enough to write any pages; in history,” he said in his ad-

dress to 900 graduating Army cadets. He was apparently referring to the S.A.L.T. 2 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty signed with Moscow in 1979, which has still not been .ratified by the United States Senate and is viewed by Mr Reagan as unacceptable. . “The search for peace must go on, but we have a better chance of finding it if we maintain our strength while we are searching,” Mr Reagan said. He did not mention his pledge to Western allies earlier this month that the United States would open talks with Moscow before the end of the year on reducing the number of medium-range nuclear missiles deployed in Europe. .. • But he said that going

ahead with increased military spending did not mean the United States should not seek understandings with the Soviet Union and even mutual reductions of strategic weapons.

Meanwhile a Texan who the police said was carrying, an illegal .45-calibre handgun' was arrested yesterday at Stewart Airport while Mr Reagan was speaking at nearby West Point.

The man's arrest apparently Was not related to presidential safety, said a Secret Service agent.

Richard Anthony Kubiscek, aged 23, was being held as a fugitive from justice in North Carolina, where he is wanted about an unspecified theft of “several weapons,” the New York State Police said.