Budget Proves ‘Star Wars’ Plan Is Nuclear, Rep. Markey Says

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) charged Wednesday that President Reagan’s “Star Wars” research project, formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, is a nuclear program despite Reagan’s repeated pledges to the contrary.

Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on energy conservation and power, said the Department of Energy’s fiscal 1987 budget request of $603 million to develop space nuclear explosives and reactors proves that Reagan’s space-based, anti-missile project is intended to have nuclear capability.

But Markey failed to get Energy Secretary John S. Herrington to concede as much during a hearing on the agency’s fiscal 1987 budget request.

“If the President is correct and SDI actually is a non-nuclear research program, why is he requesting $603 million for fiscal year 1987 to develop space nuclear explosives and orbiting space nuclear reactors for the Strategic Defense Initiative program?” Markey asked Herrington.

The secretary replied: “A lot of the increased spending in nuclear activity is as a threat analysis or threat assessment of what the Soviets are doing in this particular area at this time.”

Unsatisfied with Herrington’s reply, Markey charged that SDI “is certainly a nuclear program” and demanded that the secretary “admit it.”

“I don’t think there’s anything to admit there,” Herrington said. “There’s no question we are doing nuclear research but that is not with a goal to deploy, as the President said, nuclear into space. We are doing a threat assessment, what can be done with nuclear weapons in space.”