In summary the right conclusion is, yes, they are placing some emphasis on the near-term. But I do not think we see anything in this budget that says they have made a decision to go to a deployment in the mid 1990's.

Mr. SPRATT. There are funds requested in the supplemental appropriation request this year, fiscal year 1987, and funds requested next year, substantial funds for heavy lift vehicles. Does that imply some near-term deployment technology?

Ms. DOMBEY. Certainly any near-term deployment would require some space-based assets. The sorts of technologies that we have heard about in the press would require some space-based assets. That would require substantial

Mr. SPRATT. Would they need heavy lift just for experiments?
Ms. DOMBEY. Not to my understanding, sir.

Mr. SPRATT. In looking at the defense budget extended out 5 years, FYDP, what projected expenditures do you have for SDI for the next 5 years?

Mr. HALE. Beyond 1989 only the total is publicly, routinely available.

Mr. SPRATT. In classified form, do you have-you do not have it broken out in level of detail?

Mr. HALE. No. As I think you are aware, that material is normally not supplied, to the Congress, although there are lots of exceptions. SDI does not happen to be one of them at the moment.

Mr. SPRATT. In terms of cost accumulation, establishing a base line for the program, do you have anything comparable to the selected acquisition report for tracking SDI expenditures and outlays?

Mr. HALE. SDI does not have a Selected Acquisition Report (SAR). Congress last year said programs not in full-scale development do not have to have a SAR and, therefore, there is not one for SDI.

Mr. SPRATT. Does CBO have any considerations or have you considered any for a special reporting system for SDI?

Mr. HALE. It might be appropriate to consider asking for a SAR for SDI. Right now SDI is essentially a bunch of technologies. It would be hard to put them together in the normal SAR way. Nonetheless, SDI is so large, and its out year budget implications are sufficiently important, that you may want a SĂR just to get a feel for where it is going in terms of dollars.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Hochbrueckner.

Mr. HOCHBRUECKNER. No questions.
Mr. SPRATT. Jack Davis.

Mr. Brennan.

Mr. Pickett.

Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Hale, when the Secretary was here the other day, he made the statement that there was no fully identified system in existence at the present time as far as the SDI program is concerned. If that is true, are any efforts being made to use any of the funds that are requested in this budget for deployment purposes?

Mr. HALE. No, not that I know of. We have a system in advanced development-that is DOD's term. They are essentially experimenting, validating and developing technologies. Obviously they

may be thinking about how they would carry out deployment, but there are no funds for that deployment.

Mr. PICKETT. No funds for actual deployment of any so-called assets at this time?

Mr. HALE. No, not in the sense of putting up an operating system. There will be experiments that would involve space shots and so forth, as we have already seen, but no deployment, no money for deployment of an operating system.

Money for deployment would presumably take the form of procurement money or at least full-scale development money that developed a prototype. We have no full-scale development and certainly no procurement money in the budget for either 1988 or 1989.

Mr. PICKETT. My question was why the large increase from the amount that was appropriated last year, if there was no funding being required for deployment?

Mr. HALE. SDI is a very aggressive program of research. In the department's view these funds are needed to develop a wide array of technologies. One explanation for high costs is that they are beginning to move more toward experiments on some of the nearerterm technologies that could eventually lead to deployment and those experiments are expensive. SDI managers may do a better job than I am doing-I think they probably already have-of their budget, but in general I think they would say the same things I have just said. They want to address a wide variety of technologies, both mature and less mature, and in addition, they have to begin to do some fairly expensive experimenting on some of the more mature ones.

Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Spence.

Mr. SPENCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I do not know how much we can say in opposition, but for years our country and Russia have been carrying on R&D experiments of various kinds relative to laser weaponry, I guess you might say, in the broad spectrum. There has been a lot of speculation as to how far they have come, how far we have come. There was a book a few years back of fiction called "Test Kit Crisis." Are you familiar with that book?

Mr. HALE. I am not.

Mr. SPENCE. It was almost like real life because the players in the book were described in such detail you could almost fit them to a certain Congressman or General or Senator. The story line was the Soviets had been working on laser weaponry, and we had too, and they developed theirs about three months before we were going to come on stream with ours. They gave us an ultimatum, so many hours, we had to give up or they would bounce this laser beam off satellites and destroy cities and so forth. So we had to try to decide what to do in the intervening period of time. It was real interesting.

In any event, could you, in a broad way, say anything in open session about how close we are on this side and how close they might be to a practical laser weapon?

Mr. HALE. No, I could not. I could not do it in closed session either. Let me suggest that you have got two witnesses following

me who may be much better able to talk to that. I really do not even know whether we know anything about the dollar levels that the Soviets are spending.

Ms. DOMBEY. Are you talking about an offensive laser?

Mr. SPENCE. Yes. We have been doing it for a long time. The Soviets have too. When it comes right down to it, that is what we are talking about right here. People talk about SDI, whether we need it or not, whether it is practical, defensive, offensive and other related questions. When it comes right down to it, we can look at this fiction story and see-call it Star Trek now, but back in the Buck Rogers days they had a beam they shot out there and shot down all kinds of space ships. Now it is the Star Trek kind of thing, but it is coming. Some people say it is too far off. Some say you cannot defend against it, but when you come right down to it, that is what we are talking about. I will wait then.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Price.

Jim Olin.

Mr. OLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the opportunity to sit with the committee today though I am not on the Armed Services Committee. I am one of the few engineers in Congress and I am quite interested in this program.

Mr. Hale, I was very interested in your testimony because it is given from a budgetary standpoint and not a substantive one. I wonder whether you could comment further on the subject of how much information with regard to forward planning and details of planning you feel the SDIO has made available, either to yourself or others. You mentioned that the budget beyond 1989 was not supported by details. Do you have any written documentation which describes the strategy and the implementation that gives some justification for tripling the amount of expenditures from current year 1987 to 1992?

Mr. HALE. Let me be careful to say that SDI managers may well have that justification and they may well have that detail on the budget side. Indeed I assume they do have a program element breakdown and a good deal more out through 1992. However, that information is not available to the Congress on a routine basis, classified or otherwise, beyond 1989. So we do not have it.

Mr. OLIN. Have you requested such documents?

Mr. HALE. Not formally for SDI, but we know from many past requests what the answer would be. DOD always views the 5-year defense plan as an internal working document, and there may be justification for that. They have to make some decisions, especially in the years beyond its budget, that must be dealt with internally. Nonetheless, you may judge that SDI is a very large program, and it may be appropriate that the Congress have some more detail, perhaps a program element breakout or at least the total dollars on a routine basis. I think such detail for SDI would be appropriate, an SAR or something akin to it.

Mr. OLIN. Have you seen any documentation or rationale for the apparent shift in strategy that has occurred during the past year in the program: focusing more on near-term deployment and less on the original objective of completing the research to 1992 or some time of that nature, then making deployment decisions?

Mr. HALE. I think General Abrahamson has said that, because of the limits on his budget and his desire to maintain what has always been their timetable-that is, to have technologies available to make a full-scale development decision in the early 1990's-I think he has said that he has to emphasize some of the more mature technologies in order to preserve that timetable. That is the choice that you might want to think about. Do you want to preserve that timetable, at least partially at the expense of less emphasis on the more infant technologies, which in the long run may offer a better opportunity for an effective defense? That is a difficult choice, but the Congress may wish to provide some guidance about how to make it.

Mr. OLIN. The SDI has a number of technical advisory groups. Are you aware that those advisory groups are creating written reports that can be read and analyzed so that the Congress and others as appropriate could become aware of their views?

Ms. DOMBEY. We have not received any, sir.

Mr. OLIN. Have you asked for any of those?

Ms. DOMBEY. No, we have not at this point. Each year SDI provides an annual report that is quite detailed as to their goals. To some degree, we get detail insofar as they say experiments they are starting to work on now, using very small components, will be larger experiments by the year 1992. Clearly, the more advanced technologies get, the more expensive it is both to prepare experiments and to do experiments. I think that is what you are seeing more and more as they make that emphasis.

Mr. OLIN. I am not so much interested in the details of the experiments or how the money is spent but of the continuing development of the rationale of the program, the understanding of what it is to be and what the strategy is to be and what the issues are. It seems to me that this program is the largest program the country has ever pursued. It is the most complicated technically and yet there is almost a total absence of a normal amount of written record that may exist someplace. Apparently you are not aware that is available to you or the Congress.

Ms. DOMBEY. I routinely ask SDI liaison for any reports that they have. I have not received anything.

Mr. OLIN. I will be asking the other witnesses about these reports. I appreciate your remarks. One other final question.

Mr. HALE. May I add one final thought on that subject? General Abrahamson testified a few days ago before the Senate Appropriations Committee and provided the cost of an initial deployment$40 billion to $60 billion. I have seen this in the press reports. They have quoted him as saying there is no specific plan. I am not sure what that means, but there must be some basis for those numbers, and therefore there must be some plans being developed, at least of a tentative nature. It is something you may want to pursue.

Mr. OLIN. I think you would agree with my statement that it would be highly desirable to be aware of a plan and have it written down in a fixed form so it could be tracked from year to year. Would you agree with that statement?

Mr. HALE. It seems reasonable to me.

Mr. OLIN. I think we will be seeking that. Thank you very much. Mr. SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. Olin.

I failed to recognize you, Ms. Dombey. Do we have anybody else here who has not been recognized? I might say to everyone here this morning we are competing with every other subcommittee which, as luck would have it, had to schedule hearings this morning. In addition to that, I think some Republican Members are leaving today for a weekend retreat. Nevertheless, the testimony we have taken is valuable. We appreciate your time and your effort, both of you.

Mr. SPRATT. At this time I would like to call Dr. Robert Cooper forward, and General Kent.

Mr. SPRATT. We will hear from Dr. Cooper first.

Thank you for coming and testifying. You can summarize your testimony or you can read it as you prefer.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT COOPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF DARPA Mr. COOPER. I would like to make some summary remarks, Mr. Chairman, from the paper I supplied to the committee.

Mr. SPRATT. Your testimony dated March 26, 1987 will be accepted and printed in the record as you have submitted it. You may proceed.

Mr. COOPER. First of all, it is not probably well known by perhaps some members of the committee or by the public at large that we have a long history and experience with anti-ballistic technology in this country, starting back in the late 1950's. As a matter of fact, there was an advanced technology program started by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was then just called the Advanced Research Projects Agency or ARPA, called Project Defender.

That started in about 1959 and continued through the decade of the 1960's, culminating in the transfer of technology to the Army and the development and deployment of the Safeguard ABM system in 1972.

I was part of Project Defender as a working scientist at MIT and later as a member of the staff of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. So much of what is happening today is mirrored in that past history. I find it fascinating to view what is occurring today and the steps that many are taking in trying to understand the process and understand antiballistic missile potentialities.

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What I can bring to this question is perhaps a recognition of that history and also perhaps, as I have been out of government now for years, I can give somewhat a more balanced picture of the views in the engineering community about what may be possible in relationship to future ballistic missile defense systems. I find it interesting that the key questions faced by General Abrahamson and his technologists today are the same questions we faced back in the latter part of the 1960's prior to the decision by the Nixon administration to deploy an ABM system.

The first and foremost of those questions is the marginal cost of ABM in the face of an expanding threat. In the late 1960's the Soviet ICBM threat was modest. It was not nearly as threatening, but its size was on the upswing. The Soviets were moving toward large MIRVed (Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicle)