Word: sdi
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...Italy have both indicated a desire to help out; West Germany will send a mission to Washington to explore what role it could play in the Strategic Defense Initiative, as Star Wars is formally named. Even French President Francois Mitterrand, while loudly refusing to have anything to do with SDI on a government level, has said he would not prevent French companies from signing Star Wars research contracts...
...that if they do not share in those discoveries, they could be left in a technological backwater. They hope too that if they become partners in the research, they will gain a voice in Washington's decisions on whether to deploy a Star Wars defense and how to treat SDI in negotiations with the Soviets. Says Horst Teltschik, senior security adviser to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl: "Maybe in joining SDI we can enhance our own influence...
Even Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe, a vehement skeptic about SDI, has called X- ray lasers "the one and only proposal that makes any sense." He cautions, however, that the obstacles to developing an actual weapon are "fantastic," and repeated last week his view that SDI threatens "a big new escalation" in the arms race. For good measure, he took a swipe at Edward Teller, his colleague from the World War II atom-bomb project who is now a promoter of Star Wars in general and X-ray lasers in particular. Teller, said Bethe, was the scientist "who brought...
...important nonmilitary applications. Canada's Mulroney and Japan's Nakasone were politely noncommittal; others were interested, but in some cases skeptical, about just what contributions the U.S. wanted. Said Italy's Craxi: "We don't want to make just the carpets and - the screws for the spaceships." Kohl gave SDI a personal endorsement; though the British government is known to be worried about the strategic implications of SDI, Thatcher indicated a desire to share in the research effort. Said she: "Our inventiveness is excellent." The dissenter was (who else?) Mitterrand. He refused to have anything to do with SDI research...
...Pentagon has already signed 350 SDI-related contracts, and about 77% of the initial prime contracts have gone to areas represented by eight Congressmen and 14 Senators. "At this rate," says Richard Garwin, a critic of SDI and a noted IBM physicist, "the program will soon have such momentum that there'll be no stopping it, regardless of merit." Says former Chief Arms Control Negotiator Paul Warnke: "What's happening is the rapid conversion of the President's Star Wars proposal from stardust and moonbeams to the great pork barrel...