SOVIETS LEAD IN LASER BEAM WEAPONS FOR SPACE SHIELD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100030044-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 2011
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: February 10, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/08: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100030044-2
STAT r,,,. ^ WASHINGTON TIMES
ARTtCLEA ; PEAis' ED 10 February 198
ON PIPE
Kill - __
lead
Soviets
in laser beam
weapons for
space shield
"Things are progressing at a
rather incredible rate:' Lt. Gen.
James A. Abrahamson, director of
the Strategic Defense Initative Of-
fice, said in a recent interview.
Many U.S. officials are confident
that America can build an effective
missile shield before the end of the
century. But their official public
forecasts are hedged by caution.
"There's a lot of science yet that
we have to do, and even more en-
gineering:" Gen. Abrahamson said at
a November press conference. "But
I'm confident that the job can be
done. The real question is just how
fast and what is the best way."
The enthusiastic reports have
First of f ve parts
done little to quell the debate over
By Tom Diaz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Soviet labor battalions have worked for years in the cold
clear air of the high mountain near Dushanbe in the Thjik
Socialist People's Republic, patiently hacking a giant military
facility out of the rock at 7,000 feet.
Just as patiently. U U.S. soy satellites orbiting overhead have
photographed the progress of the work. Its significance only
recently has become clear to intelligence analysts.
There at the top of the world, where the Soviet Union bor-
ders Afghanistan, the Soviets are building what U.S. officials
now believe will be a powerful
laser-beam weapon capable of
knocking down U.S. satellites
and perhaps ballistic missiles.
A senior administration of-
ficial, who asked not to be
identified, said the Dushanbe
site underscores the lead the
Kremlin enjoys in key areas of
the high technology that is be-
ing explored by the U.S. Stra-
tegic Defense Initiative, the
missile defense program pro-
posed by President Reagan in
March 1983.
"They have some very in-
teresting facilities right now
which we do not fully understand, but which have the potential
in a few years of giving them at the very least, strong ground-
based, directed-energy [laser] capabilities against satellites, if
not a beginning and emerging capability against ballistic mis-
siles:' the source said.
The site at Dushanbe, he said, "hasn't yet put out a single
photon."
"But it's a big, big construction site that has been under way
for a long time:' he said. "It appears to be a major directed-
energy facility composed of multiple elements, and our best
estimate today is that it could well be a ground-based laser."
He and other U.S. officials believe the Soviets will be the
first to deploy a working laser weapon, despite the great pro-
gress the United States has made in its SDI research program,
popularly known as "star wars."
SDI.
Powerful political voices oppose
the very idea of ballistic missile de-
fense and some scientists remain
skeptical of the claimed scientific
advances.
Their skepticism contrasts
sharply with the optimism of the
March 1983 speech in which Mr.
Reagan called upon scientists "to
turn their great talents to the cause
of mankind and world peace, to give
us the means of rendering these nu-
clear weapons impotent and obso-
lete."
Four prominent opponents of SDI
ripped into Mr. Reagan's proposal in,
an article appearing in the winter
1984-85 issue of "Foreign Affairs,"
that has become holy writ in the anti.
SDI ranks.
The authors were former National
Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy,
Sovietologist and former Ambassa-
dor George F Kennan, former De-
fense Secretary Robert S. McNa-
mara and Gerard Smith, chairman
of the Arms Control Association and
chief negotiator of the 1972 SALT I
treaty.
"We believe the president's initia-
tive to be a classic case of good inten-
tions that will have bad results be-
cause they do not respect reality,"
they wrote. "What is centrally and
fundamentally wrong with the
president's objective is that it cannot
be achieved:'
The core of their case was that a
100 percent effective missile de-
fense shield is technically impossi-
ble. A shield less than perfect is
worse than no shield at all, because
it will encourage the Soviets to build
more missiles to overwhelm it, and
deal arms control a fatal blow.
But supporters of SDI say a mis-
sile defense need not be perfect to be
effective. In any case, they say, the
et missile defense program is
roaring ahead. The SDI program has
proven its worth in the arms control
field by spurring the Soviets to re-
turn to stalled talks in Geneva, the
supporters argue. Eventually, it will
lead to massive reductions in offen-
sive nuclear arms, phased in while
both sides are sheltered behind de-
fensive shields.
For now, most opponents concede,
the pro-SDI forces are ahead in the
debate. Congress has approved an
ambitious research program, orig-
inally scheduled to spend $27 billion
between 1985 and 1990 but pruned
by about one-fifth in each of the last
two fiscal years.
SDI critics say the president has
the edge only because he hasn't put
a specific system for deployment on
the table. That won't happen until
the early 1990s. Once specific pro-
posals are made, opponents say, the
debate will get much hotter. The
American people then will have to
decide two grand questions: Can it
be done? Should it be done?
Americans already have seen a
cartoon version of the debate in tele-
vision ads produced by SDI
proponets and opponents. But the
arguments that will ultimately de-
termine the fate of SDI involve not
cartoons, but the world of nuclear
strategy and arms control.
In that dark and mysterious
world, two basic camps are power-
fully divided by widely different
views on two key issues:
? The nature of the Soviet Union,
its military force and its intentions
for the use of that force.
? The reach and grasp of modern
science and technology.
The camps drew battle lines over
these two issues long before Mr. Rea-
gan's 1983 speech. Many of the same
people slugged their way through a
similar debate in the late 1960s and
early 1970s.
The opponents of ballistic missile
defense won that debate. Their vic-
tory is enshrined in the 1972 SALT I
Anti-ballistic Missile [ABM] Treaty,
which forbids either country to de-
velop, test or deploy a national ABM
system - the kind SDI envisions -
or any of its components.
Tb understand the ABM treaty,
one must refer to the grim logic of
nuclear deterrence, and the concept
of "mutually assured destruction"
(known as "MAD") on which it is
based.
For a decade after World War II,
the United States held an effective
Continued
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