Word: mx
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Reagan seemed to signal his uncertainty about the invulnerability of the Dense Pack system. His paper warned that if the Soviet Union tries to challenge the MX with "more powerful and deadly weapons," the U.S. will be able to add more silos near the proposed Dense Pack field and move some of the 100 MX missiles into them, adding a shell-game kind of deception. "We would prefer that the Soviets dismantle SS-18s [which can carry either ten 1-megaton warheads or a single 25-megaton monster] rather than we build more holes," Reagan said. "But we can accommodate...
...miles wide. Their concrete-and-steel silos would be hardened to a degree never before attained by engineers. The 100 holes would be spaced 1,800 ft. apart-a distance computed by Pentagon scientists as too great to permit a single Soviet warhead from knocking out more than one MX, but close enough so that the blasts from the first enemy warheads would disable those coming in behind. This Fratricide theory is untested and much debated among nuclear physicists (see box). If the theory is valid, more than half the MX missiles would survive an initial attack...
...paper explaining his decision, Reagan conceded with great understatement that "deciding how to deploy the missile has not been easy." He described the Dense Pack plan only as "a reasonable way" to deter an attack. Theories on how the U.S.S.R. might find techniques to destroy the closely spaced MX missiles were dismissed as "technical dreams on which no Soviet planner or politician would bet the fate of his country...
Critics, of course, turn the argument around, contending that MX too is based on "technical dreams" and that even now, no responsible Soviet official could gamble on being able to destroy the U.S. Minuteman missiles with a first strike. Contends Paul Warlike, President Carter's chief arms negotiator: "The Soviets would have no certainty of carrying out such a strike using missiles they've never fired over a trajectory they've never tested...
...uncertainties about the MX and Dense Pack-whether either will work, whether the missile is a crucial need, a bargaining chip, or a weapon the Soviets will regard as a first-strike threat, in which case it will invite rather than deter attack-are all expected to be exploited by MX critics on Capitol Hill. With deficits soaring and budget cuts painful to pinpoint, the MX is a tempting target for legislators who read last month's elections as a mandate for defense cuts. The potentially bitter debate also follows recent victories at the polls by the nation...