Word: mx
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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President Reagan's nationally televised speech last week was a tour de force. It is difficult to imagine a more effective, persuasive and reassuring presentation of his decision to pack the MX densely into a remote corner of Wyoming. He demonstrated something like perfect pitch in fine-tuning his appeal for support of the largest nuclear weapons system in American history and the simultaneous pursuit of deep reductions in the arsenals of the superpowers. But it will take more than rhetorical skills to dissolve the doubts that have been cast on the wisdom of the MX decision. In fact...
Putting all of America's MX eggs in one basket seems to defy common sense. But there is a certain logic to Dense Pack that can only be understood in terms of the strange and fearsome technology involved. The closer the Soviet missiles come to the 21-sq.-mi. Wyoming strip, the closer they come to each other. When the first finally explodes just above its target, its apocalyptic power is turned against fellow Soviet missiles. Its blast, and those of any succeeding warheads that manage to detonate, would cause mutual missile annihilation known in the lexicon of strategic...
...obstructing rubble. Once launched, the MXs would be traveling much slower than the incoming Soviet missiles. Thus, as they rose through the cloud of dust and debris, the buildup of heat on their exteriors would not be disabling. Says Under Secretary of Defense Richard DeLauer: "We can fly the MX out before he [the Soviets] can fly his missiles...
...making the Soviets feel more vulnerable, the MX could derail arms control
...Administration maintains, the MX is absolutely vital to American safety-if we quite literally cannot live without it-then why put a hundred of the missiles in one spot? Does not the basing plan exacerbate the problem it is supposed to solve, which is the vulnerability of American missiles to a Soviet preemptive first strike? Asked this question on the eve of the President's speech, an Administration official charged with helping to sell the program shrugged his shoulders and conceded that there was "something counterintuitive" about the concept. That is a fancy way of saying it defies common...