The Nation - News from May 12, 1989

The Pentagon plans extensive tests this summer on a “Star Wars” concept known as “Brilliant Pebbles” and may incorporate the theory in its plans as early as next fall, a Pentagon official said. Lt. Gen. George L. Monahan Jr., director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, said two groups will study the space-based defense concept, in which thousands of satellites designed to knock down enemy missiles orbit the earth. Monahan identified the two groups as the Defense Science Board, a Pentagon committee, and the Jasons, a group of university professors, mostly physicists, retained by the department to conduct independent analysis.