Word: sentineled
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...point is not raised only by nervous housewives or fanatic nucleo-phobes. Dr. David Inglis, senior physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory, concluded in a Saturday Review article that the danger deserves serious consideration. Bethe, on the other hand, says that he is untroubled by the safety aspects of Sentinel. In fact, there has been no unintentional nuclear explosion in the U.S. since the birth of the atomic age. Even when nuclear bombers crashed, their weapons failed to detonate. Says one Pentagon official: "The only way to cause a nuclear explosion in an ABM silo would be to have...
...away in talks with the Russians? These are points that have never been satisfactorily answered, even by those who first promoted the Sentinel's anti-Chinese system. McNamara led with his chin when he acknowledged in 1967 that only "marginal grounds" supported the decision to authorize an ABM. That speech has been an arsenal of criticism for ABM opponents ever since...
...fact is that Lyndon Johnson's decision, dutifully but reluctantly implemented by McNamara, was based at least as much on domestic political considerations as on international factors. Sentinel, wags said at the time, was really a defense against American Republicans, not Chinese Communists. Johnson might well have halted the Sentinel project last summer if he could have arranged, as the Soviets wished, to begin arms-control talks. He had on his desk an unsigned message confirming his willingness to negotiate on the night that Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin brought him word of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. That...
Many responsible scientists and strategists make a cogent case for Sentinel's deployment. Leon Johnson, a retired Air Force general and National Security Council aide, argues that an ABM gives the U.S. an extra option in any crisis. Its existence in a future confrontation, say with a bellicose nation that has a few primitive missiles, would allow the U.S. a third alternative other than acquiescing to blackmail or being forced to devastate the antagonist. The U.S. could employ conventional forces in a local situation, knowing that a small nuclear attack could be blunted...
Even some of the most energetic enemies of Sentinel deployment say that they would subscribe to a comprehensive ABM program, notwithstanding the cost, if only they could be persuaded that it would provide an impermeable shield. Says Physics Professor Alvin Saperstein of Wayne State University: "It is not a question of trusting the Russians or the Chinese. You can't trust them. But I don't trust our own military not to lead us to disaster either. If I felt the ABM were effective, I'd live with the damn thing in my back yard. But it isn't." Thus...