‘Star Wars’ Will Be Cost Effective, General Predicts

The first phase of a “Star Wars” defense system against nuclear missiles may cost between $40 billion and $60 billion to build and deploy, but the United States is not in a position yet to make any deployment decisions, the head of the program said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, launching a new campaign to garner congressional support for the program--formally called the Strategic Defense Initiative--said he is convinced that the research effort will ultimately prove that deployment of the system will be “cost effective.”

He likened the project’s cost to another American technological success, saying the first phase deployment would “certainly not (require) more than it took to go to the moon.”

But Abrahamson, appearing at a Pentagon press conference, repeatedly stressed it was too early to make any deployment decisions. He said his more pressing concern was obtaining sufficient money from Congress to allow the basic research to go forward.

The three-star general asserted there was simply no longer any cushion within the massive research effort to absorb deep funding cuts.

Proposed reductions to the fiscal 1988 budget now being debated on Capitol Hill will have “a devastating effect,” he added, because they will lead to “strangling major chunks” of what has been a coordinated effort to advance the state of technology.