‘Star Wars and Reality’

Your editorial (Feb. 17), “ ‘Star Wars’ and Reality,” does not give the American people enough credit for interpreting the message behind President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Your fear is that Reagan is letting down Americans who took his dream to mean an air-tight missile defense by softening his position to include only the defense of weapons, not population. While the President’s ultimate goal was to eliminate the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles, he did not promise the American people a “high-tech umbrella over the country so sturdy that nuclear weapons would bounce off”; this was your interpretation.

It is true that the Administration’s preferred path toward its final goal is the intermediate step of deploying ballistic missile defense to protect missiles, but this in no way contradicts the President’s ultimate goal of making nuclear missiles “impotent and obsolete,” should this prove feasible in the distant future. The Administration is not, as you would imply, “falling back” on this intermediate step because of the realization that perfect defenses are impossible, but is utilizing the most rational approach toward realizing their ultimate objective, which at this time seems rather formidable.

Your statement that SDI “will turn into a nightmare if it is allowed to block what may be the last best hope of agreement on both sides on ways to reduce risk of war now, not at some time in the 21st Century,” is the apothesis of arms-control thinking of the last two decades that has failed to recognize that U.S. and Western security has not been served by negotiated agreements with the Soviet Union, and that conventional arms-control thinking has reached an intellectual and practical dead end. As the Times of London commented this summer: “It is ironic and paradoxical that the age of deterence has so confused the strategic mentality of many commentators that their reaction to a purely defensive system is to suggest that it increases the danger.”

While it is difficult to be dogmatic about such things, Reagan not only may have spawned a strategic revolution with SDI but also may have breathed some life into the arms-control process.

ROBERT M. SOOFER

Los Angeles

I commend The Times on two articles in its Feb. 17 issue: Thomas Powers’ in the Opinion section, “The Layered Truth Behind ‘Star Wars,’ ” and your editorial “ ‘Star Wars’ and Reality.” Both had a sensible and informational approach to this issue.

Powers’ comment that “if we are ever going to know safety again, the Soviets will have to be safe, too--and that means negotiated agreements now . . .” is pertinent to the appalling situation that the world finds itself in at this time.

This Administration has got to wake up from its dream of deterrence as a tool of arms control. The idea that a Strategic Defense Initiative would keep the United States safe is a fantasy. The only thing that it will do is to encourage the Soviets to find a way through it and keep the arms race going.

Changing our way of thinking to seeing negotiated agreements as the only viable approach to prevent a nuclear holocaust has to start now or it will be a matter of time before holocaust becomes reality.

We owe it to ourselves and future generations to pursue this course of action.

CYNTHIA PARKER

La Canada

Your lead editorial and your lead article in the Opinion section, “The Layered Truth Behind ‘Star Wars’,” seem to be filled with misinformation: For example, in Powers’ article: “. . . the purpose is not to keep the Soviets from threatening us but to make sure we can threaten them . . . .”

And in your editorial: “. . . They (supporters of the Strategic Defense Initiative) sound as though they would be satisfied if it never did more than protect silos from which American missiles could then counterattack . . . .”

This is totally at variance with the ideas of Gen. Daniel Graham, who before he retired was chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and who is the original proponent of the High Frontier concept that has evolved into the Strategic Defense Initiative. Graham proposes not only that this can be done now and be operative within five years with present off-the-shelf technology but also that we inform the Russians of what we are going to do and that we also offer to build them one at our cost so that then both sides will have a protective umbrella and get away from the insane mutual assured destruction.

JOHN A. LINDON

Los Angeles

When Reagan presented his “Star Wars” dream, he claimed it would render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” On superficial consideration, many have accepted his assurances as plausible. But closer scrutiny of this program by a vast array of eminent scientists have brought severe condemnation of this total deviation from our long-established defense posture. They point out that the “Star Wars” concept is an unattainable goal with an astronomical price tag, and is doomed not only to failure but also to heat up the arms race and bring about the much greater risk of global annihilation.

There are no dreamers among the outstanding Americans who wrote the articles on “Star Wars” in the winter 1984/85 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. They are McGeorge Bundy (assistant to the President for national-security affairs, 1961-66); George Kennan (U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1952); Robert McNamara (secretary of defense, 1961-68, and president of the World Bank, 1968-81), and Gerard Smith (chief of the U.S. delegation to the strategic arms limitation talks, 1969-72). These four men state with greatest emphasis that “what is centrally and fundamentally wrong with the President’s objective is that it cannot be achieved. The overwhelming consensus of this nation’s technical community is that in fact there is no prospect whatever that science and technology can at any time in the next several decades make nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.”

Undersecretary of Defense Richard D. DeLauer in the Reagan Administration admitted that he could not foresee any level of defense that would make our offensive systems unnecessary. And he pointed out that “there is no way an enemy can’t overwhelm our defense if he wants to badly enough.”

George A. Keyworth, Reagan’s science adviser, said he expected that the Soviets’ response to “Star Wars” would be to “shift their strategic resources to other weapon systems.”

“Star Wars” will cause both superpowers to feverishly increase their offensive and defensive armament. We can have either “Star Wars” or arms control, but not both.

HAROLD B. ALEXANDER

Santa Barbara

It was wonderful to read such logic in your editorial about “Star Wars” and in the opinion of Thomas Powers. The President’s fantasy would not work in scientific reality, would accelerate the arms race, would be fabulously expensive and would seriously interfere with the negotiations with the Soviet Union.

“Star Wars” would not work as an umbrella against a nuclear first strike by either side, because any first strike would raise such a cloud of smoke into the atmosphere that the nation launching the attack would also perish in a nuclear “winter.”

Mutually assured destruction certainly is flawed. The President has articulated a truth here. As long as these devices of unimaginable destructiveness are around, there is always the possibility that someday someone will ignore the consequences of their use. But the way out is not through even further sophistication of military technology; it must be through earnest negotiations with the Soviets in the self-interest of our common humanity, which is at stake. The first step could be a comprehensive test-ban treaty.

WILLIAM E. PERKINS

Pacific Palisades

Your well-reasoned editorial might also have pointed out the grim consequences if a “Star Wars” defense can be built. At best, the Soviet Union will have kept pace with appropriate countermeasures. If so, “Star Wars” will constitute merely a colossal waste of money.

The alternative is even less attractive. If the Soviet Union lags behind, it may perceive an operational “Star Wars” defense to constitute an unacceptable risk to its security and integrity as a major power. The fear of being relegated to a second-class power would cause the Soviets at least to consider whether a massive first strike might wipe out enough retaliatory power to make it acceptable.

FRED KARLSEN

Encino