Fixated on the Technological Fix : SDI, a Colossal Blunder, Demonstrates Failure of Leadership By JOHN TIRMAN

Ronald Reagan’s failure to consummate a unique offer for nuclear disarmament may be the most colossal mistake in the history of presidential decision-making. Given what is behind the decision--the Strategic Defense Initiative--the fumble was not entirely surprising, since the SDI was a colossal blunder to begin with. Unfortunately, it was also in keeping with similar (though less significant) errors of his predecessors, a pattern that may help us understand the Reykjavik debacle.

In 1983 President Reagan faced a formidable and growing domestic rejection of his nuclear policy. The nuclear freeze movement was gaining strength. The Atlantic Alliance was shaken by mass demonstrations against the installation of so-called Euromissiles. Defense intellectuals were questioning the Administration’s aggressive doctrine of nuclear war-fighting. And popular resentment of enormous military budgets was apparent.

Reagan’s response, without consulting the defense-science community or America’s allies, was a commitment to build a space-based shield against missiles, which was quickly dubbed “Star Wars”--a technological extravaganza attended by utopian rationales. That American scientists had been researching strategic defense concepts for 30 years mattered not a whit to the President. He felt a pressing need to counter two threats--from the Soviet Union and from the widespread opposition to nuclear-weapons technology. His response was the promise of a better technology.

Reagan’s grasp for the chimera of technique is firmly in the mold of presidential reactions to the key challenges of the postwar era. Harry Truman’s fateful decision brought a conventional war to an end at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dwight D. Eisenhower, worried by global concern over the use of nuclear energy for weapons, devised the Atoms for Peace program to develop nuclear power. The wisdom of that choice is debatable; the subsequent problems of radioactive wastes, high construction costs and plant safety suggest that it was imprudent. Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon both tackled Vietnam with higher and higher levels of technological violence, culminating in the Christmas bombing of 1972. The results of that war are tragically apparent in the chaos of Indochina today. Nixon and his successor, Gerald R. Ford, responded to the Arab oil embargo by asking the country to build 1,000 nuclear power plants to ensure our “energy independence.” Jimmy Carter, beleaguered by unstable oil supplies, launched the synthetic fuels program with great fanfare in 1979. It, too, was a poorly conceived technical fix widely disputed by experts at the time, and has since died.

In each case, a President confronted a crisis that was created or exacerbated by technology by embracing a solution involving a more lethal or exotic technology. In each case, the President viewed the challenge in terms of national sovereignty and American global stature; his own image of strength was prominent as well. In each case, the results of the decisions were largely disastrous--at a minimum, disastrous in the sense that unexpected, large-scale consequences accrued. And in each case, alternatives were available.

Only John F. Kennedy seemed to learn from the greatest challenge of his presidency, the Cuban missile crisis, by realizing that technology was not an answer.

Seen in this light, Ronald Reagan’s SDI appears to be another episode of presidential disorder: A complex, somewhat intimidating threat is perceived, and the President reaches reflexively for the “orderliness” of technology. With its appearance of cool scientific precision, technology is embraced in these stressful circumstances as the ultimate symbol of decisive problem-solving.

Ironically, Reagan’s Star Wars fumble last weekend in Iceland comes at a time when skepticism about SDI is at an all-time high. The technical barriers, costs and vulnerabilities of SDI schemes are increasingly well understood by scientists, but draw no closer to solutions. The computer software needed to manage the enormous, complex system appears beyond the reach of known or contemplated software-writing skills. The weapons themselves, high-speed projectiles and lasers, are far from realization. All SDI satellites would be fatally vulnerable to Soviet attack. And the costs are troubling: A recent study at Johns Hopkins pegged it at about $800 billion.

Why, then, would the President toss away an opportunity to end the nuclear rivalry with the Soviet Union by clinging to SDI? His stated rationale, that SDI is needed as “an insurance policy” against Soviet cheating on a disarmament plan, is a political fabrication. One does not initiate a sophisticated space arms race in order to disarm.

Rather, one must see Reagan’s intransigence as a result of his own ill-advised decision to press ahead with Star Wars three years ago. Reversing his commitment to Star Wars, even though it would be unnecessary in a nuclear-free world, would appear to be “giving in.” In addition, powerful interests are now behind the scheme--aerospace contractors, military space enthusiasts, enemies of arms control and old-fashioned Russophobes. In pursuit of their own interests, they tend to reinforce the President’s inchoate desire for a show of strength.

Therein lies this colossal failure of leadership, for when a President falters, the great framework of American politics and industry is also at risk. That is why the hasty grasp for a technological solution is so imprudent: Once made, it is difficult, whatever the evidence, to rescind. We have seen this unfortunate weakness in virtually every modern presidency. Last Sunday, we saw it at its worst in Reykjavik.