Word: mx
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...drive home his plea for the MX, and indirectly for more defense spending in general, Reagan used electronic graphs that showed-simplistically, and some experts say misleadingly-the red line of Soviet military might darting far beyond the U.S. blue. While the U.S. defense budget (in constant dollars) rose during the Viet Nam War, it dropped sharply to $116 billion in 1976, and has recovered to just $195 billion this year. Soviet defense funding, by contrast, increased steadily from $137 billion in 1962 to $275 billion in 1982. Two decades ago the U.S. had 3,090 strategic missiles and bombers...
...that "it's not right to ask our young men and women in uniform to maintain and operate such antiques." Therefore, he said, "we must replace and modernize our forces, and that's why I've decided to proceed with the production and deployment of the MX." He called it "the right missile at the right time." The four-stage, 71-ft.-tall missile is designed to carry ten nuclear warheads, each only 5½ ft. long and 17 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The weapon is indeed a wonder of modern rocketry...
Perhaps that is what the President had in mind when he asserted he might be willing to use the MX as a bargaining chip at the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviets in Geneva. "What we are saying to them is this," Reagan explained. "We will modernize our military in order to keep the balance for peace, but wouldn't it be better if we both simply reduced our arsenals to a much lower level?" Reagan aides deny that he wants the MX primarily so he can trade it away, but they leaked his private pre-speech comment...
Many critics question Reagan's assertions of Soviet nuclear superiority, believe the disadvantages of MX deployment outweigh the benefits, and have grave doubts about the feasibility of the Dense Pack basing mode (see following stories). It is roughly the 30th option considered by the Air Force, which long favored the "racetrack" system supported in 1979 by President Carter. This involved shuttling 200 MX missiles on flatbed trailers among 4,600 shelters in Utah and Nevada. That $34 billion plan was buried under a barrage of environmental and political opposition, including that of Presidential Candidate Reagan...
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who favored the "big bird" scheme of putting the MX on continuously flying aircraft, last year urged that the MX be placed temporarily in specially hardened silos that now contain the Minuteman, the nation's dominant ICBM. The 1,000 Minutemen currently deployed carry a total of more than 2,100 warheads. Congress rejected that option on the ground that the MX would remain as vulnerable as the Minuteman is claimed to be, because new Soviet rockets are so accurate that a first strike could conceivably wipe the MX out. The lawmakers threatened...