President Reagan announced Friday that he will nominate a Kennedy School of Government associate dean as the new chief United States representative to ongoing talks with the Soviet Union on reducing conventional forces in Europe.
Robert D. Blackwill, the K-School's associate dean for administration, will undergo Senate confirmation hearings in May or June Blackwill has been on sabbatical since the fall of 1983 from the Foreign Service, which he joined in 1967.
The Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) talks, which began in 1973, are aimed at reducing non-nuclear forces in Central Europe, primarily by reducing the number of troops stationed there. The Vienna talks go hand in hand with the current Geneva negotiations over nuclear forces.
According to Blackwill, the negotiations are aimed at reducing both NATO and Warsaw Pact military forces to a "common ceiling" of 700,000 ground troops each. However, this cap would require vastly larger cuts in Soviet-bloc troops, which outnumber NATO troops by several hundred thousand.
Partially because of NATO's demand that the Soviet bloc cut its troop strength so much, the negotiators have been unable to reach an agreement since the talks began 12 years ago.
Blackwill would replace Maynard W. Glitman, who was recently appointed to the U.S. negotiating team in Geneva.
Blackwill brings years of experience to his new post as head of the U.S. delegation. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1967, he has served in various capacities in Africa. Europe, and the Mideast.
In the early 1970's, he traveled frequently in Western Europe and the Soviet Union with then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger '50. Later, he served in the U.S. embassies in London and Tel Aviv.
Blackwill "has a kind of cornbread, Midwestern air about him, but that conceals a very shrewd diplomat," said Institute of Politics Fellow Hendrick Hertzberg '65. Hertzberg, a former speechwriter for President Carter and editor of The New Republic, worked with Blackwill in 1979 when Carter visits in Israel to push his Mideast peace plan.
"Bob Blackwill played an absolutely crucial role in drafting Carter's speech to the Israeli Knesse and that speech played a crucial to in swinging public opinion in Israel, said Hertzberg.
