U.S. Officials May Be Ordered to Clear ‘Star Wars’ Statements

President Reagan is scheduled to sign a national security decision directive this week ordering U.S. officials to clear in advance all “significant” statements on the Administration’s “Star Wars” space defense research program, sources said Wednesday.

The directive, which is likely to be attacked by critics as suggestive of censorship, will require White House approval beforehand of all major speeches, articles, interviews and presentations about the program, formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. However, the program itself, which seeks a shield in space against enemy warheads, will not be affected.

The order was spurred in part by the increasing number of agencies and officials speaking on the subject--not always with the same emphasis--and in part by the need to speak with one voice to foreign governments that may wish to participate in the effort, U.S. officials said.

Public Coherence

But an unstated aim of the five- or six-page document, several officials said privately, is to bring greater public coherence and consistency to the program, thus reducing the opportunity for criticism that could lead to budget cuts and restrictive amendments in Congress.

At least $1 billion is likely to be cut from the Administration’s $3.7-billion request for the program for next year, and several amendments to the pending fiscal 1986 defense budget would curtail research that might conflict with existing arms control treaties.

Different agencies have focused on their particular interests in the program, sometimes distorting the larger effort, officials complained.

The Department of Energy, for example, which manufactures the Pentagon’s nuclear warheads, is promoting atomic weapons for intercepting incoming missiles--although the Administration emphasizes repeatedly that the goal of the program is non-nuclear interception.

Different Interpretations

Similarly, at the policy level, the Defense Department, where the research is centered, and the State Department, where the program figures importantly in U.S. arms-limitation proposals, have at times interpreted presidential language differently.

Differences have appeared, for example, on whether the United States would make the secrets of any space-based anti-missile system available to the Soviet Union and on precisely what arms control officials mean when they say the system must be “survivable” and “cost effective” before it can be built.