When Reagan met Gorbachev — a history lesson for Putin

At a speech to the American Bar Foundation in 1962, President John Kennedy's secretary of defense Robert McNamara unveiled a term Mutually Assured Destruction to incapacitate the Soviet Union in the event of a nuclear attack.

Using a retaliatory strike, it would destroy one-third of the Soviet population and one-half of its industrial complex rendering the superpower powerless. McNamara noted this approach was "the cornerstone of our strategic policy" and "the very essence of the whole...