Word: minuteman
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...trouble because of worries over huge budget deficits. Last week the Armed Services Committee voted to eliminate $2.1 billion in funds for deploying the first 40 MX intercontinental missiles. The Administration, which has still not decided how to base these new weapons, wanted to house them temporarily in existing Minuteman silos. Critics charged that this ad hoc system would make them vulnerable to a Soviet strike. The committee made $1.1 billion more in cuts before sending the fiscal 1983 weapons budget of $180.2 billion to the Senate floor. There it may face even rougher treatment as critics attempt...
...alert code would be instantly relayed by telephone, ultrahigh-frequency radio or teletype to the crews manning the 1,052 Titan and Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles in underground silos scattered across the Great Plains. At each launch site, the crew commander and his deputy would decode the incoming message separately, then make sure that the two versions matched. The two officers would open two combination locks to a safe; neither has the combination to both locks. If the sealed authenticator inside the safe matches the incoming message, the officers would take out separate firing keys and go to consoles about...
...been in trouble on the Hill because the weapons will be vulnerable to Soviet attack unless the Administration can figure out how to base them safely. Last week Ronald Reagan reversed course again and said that it was not economically or strategically feasible to "superharden" the concrete of old Minuteman silos, which are to be the temporary base of the first 40 missiles. If Congress decides not to buy any MXs until it knows where to put them, $1.4 billion can be cut from the 1983 budget, and the $2.7 billion for research and development could be reduced...
...President announced clearly, "We will not deploy 200 missiles in 4600 holes, nor will we deploy 100 missiles in 1000 holes. We have concluded that these basing schemes would be just as vulnerable as the existing Minuteman silos...no matter how many shelters we might build, the Soviets can build more missiles, more quickly and just as cheaply." This statement, correct in my opinion, puts an end to the sequence of deceptive basing solutions advanced by the Air Force and the Defense Department under President Carter...
...strategic deterent, i.e., a breakthrough in anti-submarine warfare or a breakthrough that would imperil the survival of our strategic aircraft. His proposal to develop both the MX and the Trident-II missile calls for further analysis, however, since the Trident-II could just as well be deployed in Minuteman silos, or in any of the other MX basing modes thus far considered. Furthermore, the President's proposal to harden existing silos fails to address the problem of land-based IBCM vulnerability because it is impossible where they are threatened by a modest improvement in Soviet accuracy...