Word: abm
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...this phenomenon. Sentiment against the Viet Nam war has run loose in Congress. There is a growing conviction that the brass is fundamentally unqualified to assess huge, intricate technical projects. Old fears of the "militaryindustrial complex" have been revived; more than 3,000 companies stand to profit from the ABM. Only a few years ago, skepticism toward military requests was almost suspect as being disloyal to "our boys." Indeed, it was Congress that, until recently, was pressing the Executive branch to move faster in producing the ABM, even to the extent of voting funds that the Defense Department refused...
...diverting to domestic programs much of the $30 billion a year that the war has been costing. The U.S. faces vast and pressing needs in the cities, the schools, the hospitals and the nation's very air and water. Many of its legislators and citizens thus see the ABM as a thief that would snatch away billions of dollars sorely needed for domestic use. The likely cost for the specific ABM program already begun is between $5 billion and $10 billion spread over several years?which is not really too immense a burden. But many are convinced that the ABM...
...ABM is hardly new to controversy. No post-World War II weapon has had so long or difficult a gestation. In the inexorable minuet of military science, each advance in either offense or defense provokes efforts to restore the balance. Fourteen years ago, the So viets had no offensive-missile force to speak of, though they had the ability to build one. U.S. development started in 1955 and soon led to the first, primitive ABM project, the Nike-Zeus. Testing showed that Zeus could indeed stop an incoming missile under ideal conditions; dummy aggressors launched from California were intercepted...
During the Kennedy years and the first Johnson Administration, the White House and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resisted pressure from the military and Congress to set up some version of ABM. Meanwhile, the research effort led to Nike-X, an expanded and refined system that employs two types of missiles and electronically operated radars that can handle numerous targets simultaneously (see box next page). Theoretically, at least, the Nike-X proj ect ? which is still receiving $175 million a year in development funds ? thus overcame some of the main technical problems posed by Zeus...
Even so, McNamara, along with many prominent scientists both in and out of the Government, remained highly skeptical of the ABM's efficacy against a large-scale Soviet attack. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and particularly the Army ? which has jurisdiction over land-based ABMs ? continued to press for its installation on the grounds that some protection was better than none. Army General Earle Wheeler, J.C.S. chairman, has argued that a full-fledged ABM might save between 50 million and 80 million American lives...