Word: sentinels
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...could such monstrous weapons be dealt with? How could the nation avert a death toll of hundreds of millions of its people? For 14 years, military men and scientists have labored mightily to devise some protection against such an eventuality. The principal result of their efforts is the Sentinel anti-ballistic-missile system, a complex of nuclear-tipped rockets and radars aimed at crippling inbound enemy warheads before they can hit their targets...
Ideally, decisions concerning complicated weaponry?and the Sentinel system is one of the most complicated ever devised?should be the quiet business of Government: its civilian leaders, military men and scientists. That has not been so with the ABM, as the defensive system is now known. The question of whether the U.S. should install an ABM network?and how extensive that network should be?has suddenly become a national issue that has immense strategic, political and social ramifications for the American people and perhaps the rest of the world. The debate over that issue, warned New York Republican Senator Jacob...
...President facing this kind of situation would have a major problem. For Richard Nixon, who must contend with opposition majorities on Capitol Hill and try to govern by conciliation, the situation is particularly hazardous. As the Sentinel dispute heated up, he said that he would announce his ABM policy this week. By any reckoning, it is the biggest decision of his Administration to date?and it could bring down righteous wrath on Nixon's head no matter how he decides...
There is even dispute over ABM's likely adversary. Sentinel has long been billed as a "thin" defense, suitable only against a Chinese attack. Yet some of its strongest supporters?and critics?view it as the beginning of a "thick" shield to counter Russian strength. One point seems certain: if Washington and Moscow decide to invest heavily in ABMs, the world will see a new watershed in nuclear weaponry...
Nixon has an acute political consciousness. He may seek a way out of the controversy rather than face possible defeat in the Senate at the hands of an anti-Sentinel force led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass...