1. Except for the quote by Haldane, these pessimistic predictions are cited in Kenneth Adelman, "Setting the Record Straight," Current Policy no. 730 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, August 7, 1985), and in Keith B. Payne, Strategic Defense: "Star Wars" in Perspective (Lanham, Md.: Hamilton, 1986), pp. 56-67. See J. B. S. Haldane, Callinicus (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1925), p. 17, for his comments.

2. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who directed the Los Alamos Laboratory when the atomic bomb was developed, epitomized this sense of challenge and vocation when he later recommended against a crash program to develop the thermonclear bomb, at least partly on moral grounds, but abandoned his opposition when he learned of a promising new approach: "When you see something that is technologically sweet," he explained, "you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success." In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Transcript of Hearing Before Personnel Security Board, Atomic Energy Commission (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954), p. 81. See also Sanford Lakoff, "The Trial of Dr. Oppenheimer," in Knowledge and Power: Essays on Science and Government, ed. Sanford Lakoff (New York: Free Press, 1966), pp. 80-82, and "Moral Responsibility and the 'Galilean Imperative,'" Ethics 91 (October 1980): 100-106.

3. William J. Broad, Star Warriors (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 88.

4. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1985), p. 139.

5. McGeorge Bundy, George F. Kennan, Robert S. McNamara, and Gerard Smith, "The President's Choice: Star Wars or Arms Control," Foreign Affairs 63 (Winter 1984-85): 267.

6. Report to the American Physical Society of the Study Group on Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons (New York: American Physical Society, 1987).

7. James T. Bruce, Bruce W. MacDonald, and Ronald L. Tammen, "Star Wars at the Crossroads: The Strategic Defense Initiative After Five Years" (U.S. Congress, staff report to senators J. Bennett Johnston, Dale Bumpers, and William Proxmire, typescript, June 12, 1988), p. 34.

8. Ibid., pp. 30-31.

9. Ibid., pp. 21, 41-45.

10. For a given payload weight, and certain other simplifying assumptions, a final velocity of 6 km per second (more precisely, twice the exhaust velocity) minimizes the SBKKVs' total weight in orbit. See Christopher T. Cunningham, Tom Morgan, and Phil Duffy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, "Near-Term Ballistic Missile Defenses" (Draft paper, 1987; private communication with the authors), and "Kinetic Kill Vehicles," Energy and Technology Review (July 1987), p. 16, and Christopher T. Cunningham, "The Space-Based Interceptor," Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, UCRL-99768, October 1988.

11. Marshall Institute, Report of the Technical Panel on Missile Defense in the 1990s (hereafter Marshall Report) (Washington, D.C.: George C. Marshall Institute, February 1987), pp. 17-28.

12. Report to the APS, p. 4.

13. Ibid., p. 5.

14. Ibid.

15. The countermeasures of proliferation, maneuvering, decoys, and deception are described at length in a special addendum to the Marshall Report written by Edward Geary.

16. Michael M. May, "Safeguarding Our Space Assets" (Paper prepared for the Aspen Strategy Group, August 13, 1985), p. 11.

17. One such false alarm, discussed in Daniel Ford, The Button (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), pp. 78-79, occurred on June 3, 1980, when a computer disk costing forty-six cents malfunctioned, sending Strategic Air Command pilots racing to their planes.

18. Bruce, MacDonald, and Tammen, "Star Wars at the Crossroads," p. 52.

19. David Lorge Parnas, "Software Aspects of Strategic Defense Systems," American Scientist 73 (September-October 1985): 434-35.

20. From a statement by Dr. Frederick P. Brooks before the U.S. Congress, Senate Subcommittee on Strategic and Theater Nuclear Force, Committee on Armed Services, 99-933, p. 54, quoted in U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, SDI: Technology, Survivability, and Software, OTA-ISC-353 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, May 1988), p. 221.

21. Philip M. Boffey, "Software Seen as Obstacle," New York Times, September 16, 1986, p. 15.

22. OTA, SDI, p. 4.

23. Report to the APS, p. 1.

24. Letter of the review committee to the APS council (April 20, 1987), Report to the APS.

25. Report to the APS, p. 2.

26. Statement issued by the APS council, April 24, 1987.

27. Transcript of press conference, April 23, 1987, at the Pentagon.

28. Statement by Dr. Frederick Seitz before the U.S. Congress, House Armed Services Committee, Defense Policy Panel and R&D Subcommittee, September 15, 1987.

29. Congressional Record, May 20, 1987, p. 2005.

30. Quoted in Collen Cordes, "6,500 Scientists Vow to Boycott Studies Aided by 'Star Wars,'" Chronicle of Higher Education 32 (May 27, 1986): 7.

31. "Joint Opening Statement of Drs. Lowell Wood and Gregory Canavan Before the House Republican Research Committee," May 19, 1987, typescript.

32. "APS Directed Energy Study Group Responses to Critiques by Wood and Canavan," June 8, 1987, typescript.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. "Joint Statement of Wood and Canavan," p. 4.

37. "APS Study Group Responses," p. 5.

38. Ibid.

39. As paraphrased in SDIO, Report to Congress on the Strategic Defense Initiative (Washington, D.C.: SDIO, June 1986), p. VII-F-13.

40. Ibid., pp. VII-F-14-15.

41. Addendum to letter from Joseph F. Salgado to Rep. Edward J. Markey, October 28, 1987.

42. Marshall Report, p. 6.

43. Text of Robert R. Everett's memorandum to Under Secretary Godwin was published in Strategic Defense 2 (July 30, 1987): 3.

44. Quoted in Strategic Defense 2 (July 5, 1987): 5.

45. Ibid., p. 6.

46. Philip J. Klass, Aviation Week & Space Technology (May 23, 1988), p. 23.

47. Colin Norman, "SDI Deployment Program Up in the Air," Science 241 (June 17, 1988): 1608-09.

48. Marshall Report, pp. 6, 8.

49. Everett memorandum, Strategic Defense, pp. 1-2.

50. Cunningham, Morgan, and Duffy, "Near-Term BMD."

51. Ibid.

52. Bruce, MacDonald, and Tammen, "Star Wars at the Crossroads," p. 104.

53. Cunningham, Morgan, and Duffy, "Near-Term BMD."

54. Bruce, MacDonald, and Tammen, "Star Wars at the Crossroads," p. 104.

55. Ibid., p. 105.

56. Paul Mann, "Nunn Redirects Antimissile Debate, Proposing Accidental Launch Shield," Aviation Week & Space Technology (January 25, 1988), p. 19. The OTA has reached a similar conclusion: "Insofar as the ERIS ground-launched interceptor relied on fixed, ground-based early-warning radars for launch-commit information, its effectivenss could be greatly reduced by nuclear or jamming attacks on those radars." OTA, SDI, p. 16.

57. Dan Stober, San Jose Mercury News, August 19, 1988.

58. Lowell Wood, "'Brilliant Pebbles' Missile Defense Concept Advocated by Livermore Scientist," Aviation Week & Space Technology (June 12, 1988), pp. 151-53.

59. Richard L. Garwin, "Enforcing BMD Against a Determined Adversary?," in Space Weapons and International Security, ed. Bhupendra Jasani (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 78.

60. Richard L. Garwin, letter to Howard Ris, Union of Concerned Scientists, August 15, 1988.