Word: icbms
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...underground silo last August. An investigation determined that the missile's fall was caused by "structural failure of a support skirt," a device that supports the MX while it rests in its silo. Though the stumble set off warning signals that would sound with the firing of an ICBM, a Pentagon spokesman assured that "at no time was there any indication or chance of accidental launch." By the end of last year, corrective steps were taken to prevent the missiles from falling down on the job again...
Your campaign statements to date have done little to dissipate such concerns. You have explicitly opposed America's latest intercontinental ballistic missile, the MX; plans for a small, single-warhead mobile ICBM, the Midgetman; the B-1 and Stealth bombers. You have also urged a ban on all missile test flights. You have indicated that you would terminate or radically reduce the Strategic Defense Initiative...
...thus destroy much of America's leverage in negotiations. In recent months, as you have moved toward the political center, you have acknowledged the continued necessity for nuclear deterrence and have indicated that, despite your opposition to the MX and Midgetman, you are not necessarily against a new ICBM in principle. Yet you will find that any new missile program is impossible unless you back off from your commitment to a missile test-flight ban. We cannot have a new missile system unless we test...
...fact, the Soviets had already done a great deal to sweeten their offer on offense: they seemed willing in principle to accept an overall ceiling of 6,000 nuclear charges and a subceiling of 3,600 on ICBM warheads. At the end of May, Karpov and his colleagues eased their position on defense as well. Backing away from their earlier insistence on an immediate and comprehensive ban on all "space-strike arms," they proposed a package of what they called interim measures: a ban on antisatellite weapons, a ban on "space-to-earth weapons" (such as lasers mounted on orbiting...
Deep below ground in 100 concrete launch-control centers across the U.S., teams of paired Air Force officers keep watch over the U.S. ICBM force. Next month that stressful, tedious duty will take on a new complexion. For the first time, the military will permit men and women to share the 24-hour shifts...