Word: wiesner
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Laird's opponents are not convinced. Among the most outspoken is an M.I.T. triumvirate-Jerome Wiesner, who was scientific adviser to President Kennedy; George Rathjens, recently of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; and Steven Weinberg, a physicist. In a critique released last week, the trio argued "In order to launch a first strike of the sort envisioned by Secretary Laird, the Soviets would need SS-9s with extraordinary accuracy and high reliability; they would need to solve the problem of coordinating an attack on our bombers and Minutemen; they would need to deal with our nuclear-armed...
Another point is that the system requires the most complicated assemblage of sophisticated computers and other electronic gear ever put together, which raises doubts about its reliability-especially since by its nature it can never be tested under conditions accurately simulating a nuclear attack. Wiesner also contends that any ABM is limited by the defender's guessing about the technology of the weapons it is designed to intercept. The attacker can add chaff and decoys as "penetration aids" to confuse the defender's radar and exhaust the supply of ABMs. Says Wiesner: "I do not think the defender...
...could be shelved by substantially hardening ICBM sites at a smaller cost ($6 billion to $7 billion). The Pentagon wants to do that in addition to Safeguard; the Air Force is already seeking out "hard rock" silo locations that would make ICBMs more resistant even to multimegaton near misses. Wiesner, Rathjens and Weinberg suggest that the number of ICBMs could be doubled for the price of Safeguard, which would mean that more than 1,000 missiles would survive an attack by the 420 SS-9s that the Pentagon's Foster hypothesized. Wohlstetter answers: "There are safer and cheaper ways...
...ways of dealing with dissent, but removing Federal support for universities will not change that situation at all. More important, I am not aware that Yale has suffered for the actions of William Sloan Coffin, or Harvard or M.I.T. for the anti-ABM views of Abram Chayes or Jerome Wiesner. Neither am I aware that any university suffered because its students and faculty were active in the Dump Johnson movement or anti-Vietnam war activities...
Crucial Issue. Foster accused the Kennedy report of inconsistencies, overstatements, understatements and contradictions (it did, in fact, misspell Wiesner's name twice), claiming that it presents "incompetent, dangerous and inadequate alternatives" to Safeguard. One of the points often made by Safeguard's opponents is that the system would require so quick a decision to be activated in time of national danger that the President might be excluded from the process. Bill Moyers raised the fear of a President's "surrendering his decision-making authority to the computers and the junior military officers who stand over them." Foster...