Word: shielding
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Carlson said that SDI is likely to perpetuate the arms race because no shield system could possibly be effective enough to convince the U.S. to abandon its nuclear weapons. He also cited the Reagan administration's argument that SDI could be used to protect U.S. missile silos as proof that the program is more an aid than an end to the use of nuclear weapons...
Last winter, looking ahead to the major stories of 1986, TIME's Washington bureau singled out a very thorny topic: the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative. SDI is better known, of course, as Star Wars, President Reagan's futuristic plan for a missile-defense shield that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. "It had already established itself as the most contentious issue on the Soviet-American agenda," says Washington Bureau Chief Strobe Talbott, who proposed a conference on the SDI controversy that would produce a "coherent, focused and expert debate for the benefit of correspondents and editors and, through a special report...
...Senate debate over the bill is bound to heighten public awareness. There is no doubt whatever that the cameras' presence will also change how at least some Senators behave. One old hand, 38-year Veteran Russell Long of Louisiana, immediately took to wearing dark glasses on the floor to shield his eyes from the bright lighting required for TV, removing his shades only when he stood to address his colleagues and the camera. With tongue in cheek, Senator John Glenn of Ohio pledged, "I plan to do nothing different." Then he took out a makeup kit, dabbed at his forehead...
These questions have been largely obscured by the national debate about the technical feasibility of Star Wars weapons and the political and military , consequences of building an antimissile shield. Yet a key problem of SDI from its inception has been the weight and quantity of equipment that would have to be put into space. The hardware would vary enormously according to what types of weapons were selected for deployment. It makes a big difference, for example, whether laser beams are generated by millions of pounds of chemicals aboard satellites or produced on earth and bounced off mirrors in space...
These three issues are typical of the pressures Harvard will continue to face in a changing educational environment. The mediocre performance of the administration will doubtlessly continue until the University casts off its fear of controversy and openness, and stops assuming that the past glories of Harvard will shield it from the tremors of change...