Word: abm
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...looming menace of China as a nuclear power and buffeted by intense congressional pressure, the Administration has made a far-reaching decision. In a speech prepared for delivery this week in San Francisco, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced that the U.S. plans to begin deploying a limited ABM system based on the Army's Nike...
...Rhode Island's Democratic Senator John Pastore, chairman of the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, warned ominously, "With all our offensive power, our defense posture could be our Achilles' heel." Washington's Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson leaked word that he would hold hearings on the ABM-and Lyndon Johnson was aware that they would pack plenty of political megatonnage. Richard Nixon called on the Administration to "go ahead at all costs" with an anti-missile system. This pressure-plus the gnawing fear that the U.S. might be underestimating Chinese and Soviet missile progress-prompted the President...
...During the meal, which was attended by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other top aides, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara spoke about the advantages of a mutual freeze on production of anti-ballistic missile systems. Gromyko replied with the standard answer: the Soviets need an ABM network for protection against U.S. missiles...
...About the story on the anti-ballistic missile [May 26]: No one denies that an ABM system would stop only a fraction of incoming warheads-no defense of any kind in any war has ever been 100% effective. The idea is to sow enough doubt, uncertainty and expense into the plans of the enemy to deter him from striking. The daring technical innovations of high X-ray yield and terminal interception pioneered by the Soviets point the way to a viable ABM defense. Let's build one. NORMAN G. LOOPER Lieutenant, U.S.N. St. Paul...
...Because ABM-produced X rays and neutrons could sweep such large segments of the skies clear of threatening ICBMs, defense planners believe a relatively small number of Spartan missile batteries-costing a total of $4 billion-could defend the entire continental U.S. against the kind of primitive missile attack that China may well be able to launch by the mid-1970s. They could also provide protection against a few Soviet ICBMs that might be launched accidentally...