Strategic Defense Initiative

The subcommittee met in open session, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m., in room SR-232A, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator John W. Warner (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Warner, Goldwater, Thurmond, Cohen, Quayle, Wilson, Nunn, Hart, Exon, Levin, Bingaman, and Glenn.

Staff present: Robert F. Bott, Douglas R. Graham, Robert G. Bell, William E. Hoehn, Jr., George K. Johnson, Jr., and Russel E. Milnes, professional staff members; Colleen M. Getz, research assistant; and Karen A. Love, staff assistant.

Also present: Gerald J. Smith, assistant to Senator Goldwater; Robert P. Savitt, assistant to Senator Cohen; James M. Bodner, assistant to Senator Cohen; Henry D. Sokolski, assistant to Senator Quayle; Mark J. Albrecht, assistant to Senator Wilson; Janne E. Nolan, assistant to Senator Hart; Jeffrey B. Subko, assistant to Senator Exon; John B. Keeley, assistant to Senator Levin; Edward McGaffigan, Jr., assistant to Senator Bingaman; and Milton D. Beach, assistant to Senator Glenn.

OPENING STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN W. WARNER,

CHAIRMAN

Senator WARNER. The subcommittee will now come to order. Our witnesses have arrived and we recognize that each day they arise to be greeted by a new series of reports and articles concerning SDI, and it takes a little time to prepare to go public on these opinions.

We meet in open session this morning to receive testimony from administration witnesses on the policy and technology objectives of the Strategic Defense Initiative Program. This is the first of a series of hearings on the strategic defense initiative that the subcommittee will hold over the next 2 months. The intent of these hearings is to create a record based on a broad spectrum of views from both inside and outside of the administration that will serve as a reference for Senators in the coming year.

Among the issues to be taken up in these hearings will be the concerns expressed by the conferees in the fiscal year 1986 Defense Authorization Conference Report. These concerns will fall into three broad categories: First, the apparent disparity between the evolving administration policy with respect to strategic defense and the focus and scope of the SDI technology program; second, the role of limited defenses in the program and the relationship between these technologies and the more advanced technologies being pursued; and third, the relationship between the SDI technology program and the U.S. arms control policy, and particularly, the ABM Treaty.

The latter issue has been of considerable and continuing interest because of the central place that the SDI holds in the arms control positions of the United States and the Soviet Union as we approach the summit, and because of recent policy pronouncements regarding allowable testing under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. We welcome this morning our witnesses, both of whom are well known to this subcommittee. Dr. Fred Ikle, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is here to provide testimony on the policy objectives of SDI, and we are glad to have you with us again.

Accompanying Dr. Ikle is Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson, the Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. General Abrahamson will address the technical objectives of the program. Gentlemen, I understand that each of you have prepared statements, and I would ask you to present or summarize them as you see fit. Following any opening statement that the distinguished ranking minority member, my colleauge Mr. Hart will make, we would like to ask Dr. Ikle to begin.

And I now defer to the chairman.

Senator GOLDWATER. Mr. Chairman, as is my wont, I got up at 5 o'clock this morning, and reached outside the door and picked up my Washington Post. I read the headlines, and I began to wonder what would have happened if the Washington Post had been with us forever. I think we would not have automobiles. We would never had put a man on the Moon. We would not have had penicillin. We would not have had modern day panty hose. [Laughter.]

We would still have polio, and we would not do anything like a heart transplant, because that could never be done.

So I came to this meeting this morning just to have my confidence refreshed in the ability of America is to do almost anything they want to, the Washington Post notwithstanding.

So go ahead, Mr. Chairman.

Senator WARNER. Mr. Chairman, we hear you loud and clear.

I would like to express my appreciation to the distinguished ranking minority member, Mr. Hart, for the cooperation in planning the agenda for these hearings.

Senator HART. Mr. Chairman, the feeling is mutual. I appreciate very much your willingness and the chairman of the full committee to schedule these hearings. I know some may say that we have heard about all there is to hear about SDI and space defenses and the rest. I think one of the principal obligations of this committee on which it has been my honor to serve more than a decade is to continue to track the groundbreaking programs of our military

forces, whether strategic or conventional, and all of us, I think, have much to learn about what the administration plans.

I think it is unfortunate that SDI polarized so much of the Congress and the country along political lines. It is unfortunate and unnecessary, and I hope that those of us who are neither pro-SDI nor opposed to SDI can continue to be heard. We await the technological evolution of this program as we have for many years, and we support the research that goes into it.

I think at this point those of us in that more or less neutral ground see no particular reason to polarize this question further. There are some serious questions arising because of the upcoming summit; our commitment, apparently continuing commitment to the basic elements of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and some confusion, I must say, on the part of those of us who are agnostic on this question about what the administration's policy is, where it feels the treaty drops the line between what is permissible and what is not, and any clarification on that question, Dr. Ikle, or others I think would be extremely helpful to many of us who I say are neither opponents nor proponents but continue to support ongoing research in this vast array of technologies.

And so I once again am pleased that the Senator from Virginia, Chairman Warner, has seen fit to continue to not only try to educate the committee, but also the American people on what could well be one of the most important, most dramatic areas of research and development that the military has undertaken in this century. And I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator WARNER. I thank the Senator from Colorado.
Mr. Cohen.

Senator COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I just have a couple of comments to offer.

I tend to associate myself with the comments made by Senator Hart in terms of the members of this committee being at least somewhat neutral on the issue of how far we should go with the SDI Program. I think a different element has been introduced in the last few weeks, and that is the connection between the SDI Program and the restrictions of the ABM Treaty, and I think it is fair to say based upon my experience on this committee that the administration has at least been lukewarm, if not indeed opposed, to the ABM Treaty in the past.

Secretary Weinberger, for example, has come before the committee on a number of occasions indicating that the ABM Treaty has failed in its objective because it was predicated upon the belief that we would restrain the offensive buildup in nuclear systems when in fact we have seen a dramatic buildup on the Soviet side and indeed somewhat of a buildup on our own.

But recently, in the last couple of weeks, we have seen a new interpretation being given to the ABM Treaty, and it seems to me that that poses a number of problems for us. If we do not like the treaty or we find it incompatible with our interests, then we ought to go back and either amend the treaty or repeal the treaty. But what seems to have occurred is that we have come up with a new tactic, and that is a sort of revisionist theory of history. We do not like it, so we therefore go back and reinterpret it in order to accommodate whatever plans we have.

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Strategic Defense Initiative: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Strategic ...