Debate Over ‘Star Wars’

It’s true that Michael Dukakis believes that SDI is a “fantasy and a fraud and we ought to stop spending billions on it” (“The Simplistic Thinking on SDI Is No Debate at All,” by Colin S. Gray, Op-Ed Page, Sept. 5). I agree. Think of all the millions of dollars and who knows how many man-hours could have been saved if someone had challenged Howard Hughes’ crackpot idea of the “Spruce Goose” during World War II. Those were dollars and man-hours that could have been used more productively during a critical time.

SDI is just as much “crackpot” but much, much more expensive than the Spruce Goose was.

JOSEPH TREPIAK

Pasadena