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We for our part have very serious intentions in respect to the summit. We are making very serious preparations for that meeting, and we shall be prepared to submit some very serious proposals, regardless of what some of Reagan's advisers to the right or to the left--if I am correct he does not have any advisers on the left--regardless of what any of his advisers try to sell to him. If we did not believe in the possibility of bringing about an improvement in our relations, we never would have agreed to have the Geneva summit in the first place. That is our considered position.
About my impression of President Reagan, I have not had a chance to meet him or talk to him or see him in person, so it is hard for me to give you any human impressions, but politically of course I can say what my impression is. I regard him as President of the U.S., a man elected to his high office by the American people, and therefore our attitude toward President Reagan is prompted by our feeling of respect for the people of the U.S. We are therefore prepared to do business with him and to treat him with the respect that is befitting him.
- Q. You said that you wished to reach accords in three areas, including space weapons. Yet from much of the commentary that one reads coming from the Soviet Union, there seems to be really no room for any agreements on space weapons because the only thing you want with regard to them is to stop them, to stop all research even in the narrowest and almost academic sense.
A. If there is no ban on the militarization of space, if an arms race in space is not prevented, nothing else will work. That is our firm position and it is based on our assessment, an assessment that we regard as being highly responsible, an assessment that takes into account not only our own interests but the interests of the U.S. as well. We are prepared to negotiate, but not about space weapons or about what specific types of space weapons could be deployed into space. We are prepared to negotiate on preventing an arms race in space.
In Geneva the Soviet Union proposed a ban on the development, including research, testing and deployment, of space strike weapons. Therefore, as we see, our proposed ban would embrace all stages in the birth of this new kind of arms.