Word: abm
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...support in Congress and in the country. Representing the White House, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird refuses to settle for anything less than Safeguard, arguing that it is the "minimal step necessary at this time to ensure the security of the American people." But on Capitol Hill the Nixon ABM proposal is faced with diminished backing and is undermining Republican solidarity. There is concern among Nixon advisers that the President could suffer his first defeat this month when ABM comes to a vote in the Senate. Opponents now claim to have a majority...
Ignoring pressure to compromise, Laird took to the road last week with a hard line ABM argument. He told a group of newspaper editors in Florida that, "based on the best information available to me," the Soviets will have 2,500 long-range missiles by 1975. By contrast, he said, the U.S. now has 1,054 iCBMs and at present no more are programmed for the next five years...
...very difficult to see this sort of weirdly wishful thinking embodied in General Johnson's case for the ABM. He lists six "results of adding an effective ballistic-missile defense to our offensive strategic forces," of which three are highly suggestive...
...other reason, which Senator McGovern only barely suggests (I suppose there are certain things that one just doesn't speak of) is that there are a number of corporations that want to see the ABM--the heavy system, of course--built. Building machine guns, bullets, even helicopters doesn't help them much. The Pentagon has a pretty good idea of what things like that should cost; there's not much room for padding the contract with research and development expenses. Besides, such weapons are actually used, so they really do have to work. If the ABM doesn't work...
This structural distortion must be eliminated, and the ABM seems like the best place to being. For if we succeed, as Senator McGovern says, "in building a theoretically airtight defense structure but in the process create the kind of allocation of resources that neglects our most acute internal, domestic problem, we may discover that we have built a shield around a value system that is no longer worth protecting...