‘SDI: a Camel’s Nose Under Tent’
The article by Smullin and Tsipis may be the most important article for Americans to heed you’ve ever published. These two distinguished scientists are trying to tell us if we don’t stop SDI now, we may never be able to.
Once a system is out of the research phase and into production, the many people employed in its manufacture let their representatives in the Congress know if they don’t continue to fund it, the congressmen won’t have their jobs long either.
No matter how worthless, dangerous or expensive, a system in production is almost impossible to kill. Californians have only to look at Sen. Alan Cranston’s record. This senator, otherwise a leader in arms control, has voted repeatedly to fund the controversial B-1 bomber, considered by many to be absolutely unnecessary. But thousands of Californians are making their living from it, so it’s alive and well.
At Reykjavik, we came withing spitting distance of a drastic reduction in nuclear arms and their eventual elimination. Only SDI stood in the way. Most U.S. physicists say it’ll never shield us from nuclear weapons. It is however, shielding us from arms control. Those who want arms control should write their representatives now and ask them to kill any funding for the deployment of SDI.
ANN ALPER
Pacific Palisades
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