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High on the Pentagon's shopping list were two controversial big-ticket items. Some $8.2 billion was earmarked for 34 new B-1B bombers. The 1985 budget also seeks $5 billion to buy 40 MX missiles. Congress provided $6.2 billion for the MX over the past twelve years, but until fiscal 1984, the money was only for development. Also requested: 48 F-15 fighters (at $22 million apiece), 150 F-16s (at $15.1 million) and 720 M-1 tanks (at $2.1 million). There was a new, high-tech entry: $1.8 billion in seed money for President Reagan...
McRae claims the Pentagon financed psychic research to study the "shell game" basing mode for the MX missile, a system that would attempt to confuse Soviet military strategists by shifting missiles among a number of concrete shelters. Other esoteric programs uncovered by McRae include titles like "Novel Biological Information Transfer Systems," apparently the Pentagon's way of saying E.S.P...
Although the Nineteen Eighty-Four scenario has not come true, we can thank Orwell for his insights. In this age of MX missiles and nuclear freeze, Orwell has put the situation in perspective. He was so correct when he wrote, "In politics, one can never do more than decide which of two evils is lesser, and there are some situations from which one can only escape by acting like a devil or a lunatic...
...that it has grown addicted to them, so paralyzed by ideological conflict that it needs to call on collections of wise men to do the work of Government. Republicans stop a Democratic Administration from getting arms control through Congress; then Democrats stop a Republican Administration from getting its arms (MX) through. A commission (Scowcroft's) is then convened to plead the obvious: that both are linked and must get through together or not at all. A Republican Administration wants more aid to El Salvador and a surrogate war in Nicaragua; a Democratic House tries...
...recent Presidents all have gone through emotional swings on the issue. If Jimmy Carter arrived in Washington determined to banish nuclear weapons from the face of the earth, he ended his term supporting a new MX system, as well as Pershing and cruise missiles. If Ronald Reagan took power as a nuclear saber rattler, he at least has now toned down his language some and learned a lot about the world's desire to search for a way to reduce arms...