Word: sentinel
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...funds. The very next year, in the face of domestic political pressure and continued weaponry development by the Chinese and Russians, the Johnson Administration reluctantly reversed itself. Now the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Melvin Laird seems eager to press ahead at full speed with an ABM system called the Sentinel-despite hesitance elsewhere in the Administration and increasingly stubborn opposition to ABM in Congress...
...Cambridge City Council last night unanimously passed a resolution condemning the proposed Sentinel anti-ballistic missile system planned for construction in Reading, Lynnfield and Wakefield...
...September 1967 speech to Congress, Laird's predecessor, Robert McNamara, described Sentinel as a "thin" system intended to meet the threat of a missile attack from China through 1975. No system, McNamara said, could be adequately effective against Russia's sophisticated arsenal, and he opposed any attempt to develop one. Russia would respond only by developing its offensive missiles until they can out-number or elude our anti-missiles, launching the crazy spiral of an arms race...
...fact, it seems that the Nixon Administration has embarked on a new kind of Brinksmanship and that Congress has okayed a program whose ends are radically different from those it approved. At a recent press conference President Nixon dismissed the idea that Sentinel was intended "simply for the purpose of protecting ourselves against attack from Communist China." Secretary Laird, speaking of the impending missile discussion with Russia, said last week, "I think it's most important, as we go into these talks, to have defensive as well as offensive missile systems up for discussion, debate, and negotiation...
Domestically, Sentinel is most objectionable because it distorts national priorities and absorbs billions of dollars that should be invested in our cities. As Vietnam costs diminish, the arms racers stand poised to absorb the financial bonuses which belong in a re-structured program against poverty...