Statement of Randall Forsberg addresses the claim of Reagan Administration officials that the Soviet Union is ahead of the United States in the nuclear arms race. Forsberg explains that the claim refers to the counterforce capabilities of the Soviet ICBMs and the number of Soviet land-based missiles facing Europe and that reference to such isolated statistics is simplistic, misleading, and selective to the point of distortion. She discusses the measures of overall nuclear capability on the US and USSR sides and concludes that both sides' strategic forces are partially vulnerable and that neither side can pose the threat of a "disarming" first strike against the other.
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Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies Records, #8588. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
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