Word: poseidon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...which the Administration has so far refused to define. Presumably, they include the new weapons systems whose deployment threatens to overturn the once stable "balance of terror." The most prominent of these systems is the MIRV (Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicle). Fitted to the majority of existing Minuteman and Poseidon missiles, MIRV would give the U. S. capacity to launch some 8000 nuclear warheads instead of the present 1700. Without an increase in quantity, the same number of missiles could individually pack up to nine additional warheads aimed at different targets. Faced with this multiplication of U. S. strike capacity...
...unclear and at worst, treacherous. When Nixon took office, he refused to suspend MIRV testing (which began in secret under McNamara) or seek an immediate mutual moratorium with the Soviets. Coincidentally, the Administration stalled the opening of SALT until the Pentagon completed the flight tests of the Minuteman and Poseidon missiles equipped with the MIRV system. Technological requirements outweighed diplomatic priorities. By going too far with the development and testing of MIRVs, the President killed in advance hopes of a mutual MIRV moratorium at Helsinki...
...this point, then, a weapons "freeze" is unlikely. A freeze would guarantee U. S. superiority. The Soviets would probably turn down an agreement which gives the U. S. a first strike capacity and the right to deploy Poseidon and Minuteman III missiles, both MIRVed. A limitation on ABMs would be easier to agree on and easier to enforce than an agreement on MIRVs. The Nixon Administration has offered to give up the ABMs if the Russians stopped work on the SS-9. It has declined to say that it would do the same if the Russians gave up their ABMs...
Diverting Talent. The Lincoln Laboratory, for example, has developed a foliage-penetrating radar that detects Viet Cong hiding in the jungle. The Instrumentation Laboratory has designed a multiple-warhead guidance system for the Navy's Poseidon missile. Radical students, who staged a march at "I-lab" in April, insist that a university should totally shun research that is aimed at killing people. Moderate students and professors argue that the special labs' secrecy violates the academic principle of free inquiry, and more basically, that the growth of the special labs has diverted M.I.T. talent from domestic and social problems...
Unfortunately, the proposed screening committee is likely to have great trouble deciding which military projects are appropriate for the special labs. For example, all members of the special review panel judged the Poseidon program, now that it is out of the basic-research stage, improper for a university-connected lab. But they split sharply over the I-lab's work on Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. The majority defended it on the grounds that VTOLs could be used to speed civilian intercity transit and the project is "far from the production-prototype stage." By contrast, antiwar Guru Noam...