554
PARTISAN REVIEW
has anywhere from a three- to ten-year lead over the Soviets in any
area that would be of particular military use. Now you might argue
that we ought to do the SDI so that we can stretch that lead out to
twenty or thirty years and win the arms race for a while. It is true
that the Soviets do have some things that are in the pipeline that
might raise some questions about the ability of the United States to
cover targets we would be interested in covering. And I fully support
the Reagan administration's decision to develop additional penetra–
tion aids that could be fitted on our missiles to deal with plausible
Soviet ballistic missile defense that might be deployed in the 1990s.
The Soviets would know that they could not hope to achieve any last–
ing strategic benefit in deploying ballistic missile defense .
GEORGE CHAPLINE: Let mejust add that I agree with Mr. Pike.
KAY AGENA: I want to follow up a little . There are political as–
pects of this issue that are being ignored. I believe - and I think there
are others here who agree with me - that the fact that we proposed
SDI got the Soviets back to the negotiating table after they walked
out. There are very vocal critics ofSDI in the media, and not all that
much visibility for people who are for pursuing even the research.
You say you are for research, but how do you expect to get congres–
sional support to fund the research when you are so adamant in say–
ing SDI will make nuclear war more likely and that it won't work as
a system?
JOHN PIKE: We are very vigorous in Congress in supporting a
research program. What we are opposing is a development pro–
gram. In the budget documents that the SDI organization presents
to Congress there is a very clear differentiation between the basic re–
search part of the SDI, and the development part of the SDI.
JOANNA ROSE: I'd like to ask Dr. Chapline and Mr. Pike if they
think that if we chose not to pursue development of the SDI, the
Russians would cease pursuing development?
GEORGE CHAPLINE: No.
JOHN PIKE:
If
we choose not to pursue development of ballistic
missile defense, the Soviets mayor may not continue with develop–
ment of ballistic missile defense.
JOHN PIKE:
If
we choose to continue development of the SDI, the
Soviets will certainly continue development of their ballistic missile
defense. My interest is in discouraging the Soviets to continue devel–
opment of ballistic missile defense, and the only way that there is
going to be any possibility of doing that, is if the United States does
not continue it. At the same time, I recognize that people and na-
