command would be in charge of the comprehensive and strategic defensive weapons systems envisioned by President Reagan in his March 23 speech. It would thus have full responsibility for defending the American people, our homeland, our forces around the globe, and our allies from strategic attack from any quarter.

Fortunately, such a command can build on the existing Air Force Space Command, which became operational in September 1982. As one who sought to draw attention to the need for such a command throughout the 97th Congress, having introduced legislation in December 1981 to create this organization, I have long argued that this new Air Force command should play a key role in bringing about a new American strategic posture built around strategic defenses. The Air Force command is particularly well positioned to be the implementing focus of a new strategic homeland defense policy. Included within its present mission are space surveillance and missile early warning, which have been transferred to it from NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. It has also been charged with responsibility for all military shuttle and satellite operations.

The unified command can also build on the Navy's new Naval Space Command. Given the vulnerability of U.S. naval forces to Soviet space reconnaissance and targeting and the Navy's increasing dependence on space systems, inclusion of the Navy is essential.

Finally, the fact that the President has proposed a total homeland defense posture including defenses that can stop cruise missiles, bombers, and ballistic missiles, means that the new unified command should include an Army component command along the lines of that branch's former air defense and ballistic missile defense command.

The President's new defensive proposals are of such breadth that they will require a multitiered approach to homeland defense. A space tier that seeks to destroy enemy missiles in all phases of their flight until their reentry and which may eventually also be able to destroy enemy aircraft and cruise missiles as well, and a ground-based tier that could be deployed first around critical installations on the ground and which could serve as a backstop to the space tier. By putting the new Army command under the unified space command to operate the ground-based tier, we will have in place all the organizational elements of a multitier defensive system.

Let us now consider the need for a directed energy systems agency, a need recognized by the Fletcher Commission in its recommendation that a single senior official with his own money be put in charge of all strategic defensive technology R&D. Today the American directed energy weapons effort runs far behind its Soviet counterpart in funding and top-level commitment. It is split up among the uniformed services and the Departments of Defense and Energy, competing for a limited pool of funds with more traditional technologies and with forces having powerful protectors and constituents. Fragmentation and the lack of focus on mission objectives has relegated the American directed energy program to a marginal status.

Thus it is no surprise that the 1983 budget included about $500 million for this program. Now that's a lot of money to most of us, in fact it is less than the cost of two B-1 bombers. Yet these technologies could literally make entire present-day weapons systems obsolete. We have a long way to go, and a new commitment that must be made.

The level of the Soviets on the other hand is estimated by DOD to be somewhere in the neighborhood of three to five times as much as that of our own.

A new directed energy systems agency would put a real focus on our directed energy program. This new agency would interact closely with the planning offices of the military command that would eventually deploy such a defense. In addition it would make possible cross-fertilization of technologies. For example, given the urgent need for breakthrough developments, it is important to heavily fund and centrally direct parallel tracks for space defense R&D.

As part of the President's new strategic agenda, it also makes sense for the Department of Defense to operate its own shuttle fleet. In recent years approximately 61 percent of NASA's research and development budget has gone into the space shuttle. Now, of the more than 300 planned shuttle missions through the year 1994, over a third of them are earmarked exclusively for DOD activities. Therefore it would be reasonable to simply transfer one or more shuttles to the Department of Defense and for Defense to develop its own needs for space launch and orbital operations as part of its own budget.

This in turn would free NASA to concentrate on doing other work, including operating one or more space stations. The strong possibility that a permanent manned presence in orbit will be needed to support our orbiting defense platforms and to provide a fail-safe element in the early warning and battle management loops reportedly also have been recognized by the Fletcher Commission. And I believe that there is indeed such a need.

The idea would be to develop a space infrastructure similar to what the Soviets have been building up. Just as the shuttle was designed to serve both civilian and military needs, I envision the same being true of any American space stations. They could be used not only in conjunction with maintaining our space defenses, but for a diversity of additional military and civilian purposes.

I would now like to take just a moment if I might to discuss the immense implications President Reagan's policy proposals for a new defense emphasis in strategic policy have for the U.S. policymaking process.

In essence, the President is calling for a strategic policy and for arms control arrangements that will replace those around which a large policymaking community has organized itself over the past two decades. This switch will require a considerable reorientation in the American approach to ongoing arms control negotiations, one which requires careful coordination among the Defense Department, the State Department, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the National Security Council, and the Congress.

As part of the policymaking process, the President should identify for the Congress the anticipated role of strategic defenses in

arms control that he referred to in his March 23 proposal and subsequent statements.

For example, a mutual deployment of strategic defenses by both the Soviets and the United States would make sense in the context of our mutual reduction in strategic offensive forces.

What I am suggesting is a buildup of strategic defense systems to deter violations of agreements to build down offensive weapons systems.

In conclusion, I believe that mutual assured destruction is a morally bankrupt philosophy that places Government in the untenable position of refusing to defend its citizenry. What the President has proposed is no less than a moral recovery in American strategic policy which would take us from the horror of MAD to the promise of mutual assured protection. It is a goal which deserves the fervent support of all who yearn for a world safe from nuclear weapons. Unless we are willing to accept the prospect of a nuclear Pearl Harbor from space, we must now join the President in a new national commitment to mutual assured protection.

Granted, this transition away from nuclear retaliation to a strategy emphasizing defensive systems, this Manhattan Project for Peace, will be very costly. It will require a scientific and military commitment that will dwarf any prior effort. It will also involve some of the most complex organizational and conceptual adjustments that have ever been required of American strategic thinkers and planners. But in return we may well be able to offer our children and grandchildren a safer, saner world than they would otherwise have had.

The United States has now spent 38 years in the nuclear era, and unless a fundamental change of the sort envisioned by the President is made in our strategic doctrine, the arms race we have witnessed during this time is likely to continue to accelerate. The first step in this process must be to make the kinds of structural and organizational changes called for in H.R. 3073.

I am honored to have this confirmed in a supportive statement submitted for the record for these hearings by Dr. James Fletcher, Chairman of the Fletcher Commission. In his words, and I quote, "The payoffs of a successful ballistic missile defense program are so far-reaching that we cannot afford to procrastinate. The risk to our security if we do not pursue a defense capability and if our potential adversaries do, are so great that at this stage we have no alternative but to pursue each of the technologies that we described. We believe that the potential of these emerging technologies for an effective ballistic missile defense is greater, and the technology program which we defined should be vigorously pursued. . . . On behalf of the study team I headed, . . . I welcome the support the People Protection Act lends to the President's goal of increasing the role of defensive technologies in enhancing deterrence."

The President's "Peace Race" challenge could have even greater significance than putting a man on the Moon. Certainly it would be much more than one giant step for mankind to forever eliminate the threat of nuclear holocaust and to insure the survival of mankind.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF HON. KEN KRAMER

On March 23, 1983, President Reagan issued a historic challenge to the American people and our scientific leaders to "turn their great talents . . . to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering . . . nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete."

The President's speech was a call for a "Peace Race"-offering a vision of hope: the prospect of an opportunity to give ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and all generations to come the priceless gift of world freed of the specter of nuclear war that has haunted our planet for 38 years. He has questioned the morality of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction-MAD-which requires that the United States government abandon its obligation to protect its citizens from attack, leaving them hostage under the threat of nuclear holocaust. In issuing his call, President Reagan has elevated the question of how best to achieve and maintain peace to the top of the national agenda-and in so doing has set the context for future debate on the subject.

Make no doubt about it: The Peace Race challenge envisioned in the President's Defensive Technologies Initiative is a spectacularly ambitious one. Quite simply, it will require a scientific, technical, military, and organizational undertaking that will dwarf anything ever before mounted by the human race-a colossal "Manhattan Project for Peace." Clearly, it will take our best minds and a bipartisan commitment from the Congress if we are to succeed. However, the goal-bringing a halt to the arms race and ridding the world of nuclear weapons-is so important that we cannot afford to miss this opportunity. Indeed, as the Washington Post noted editorially, the question President Reagan has raised is this: "Why are we and the Soviets basing our defense and survival on the terrible and incredible threat of mutual annihilation? Is there not a better way?"

I am reminded of President Kennedy's challenge that we put a man on the moon. In a speech before Congress on May 25, 1961, he said:

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

It is important to note that, at the time this dramatic commitment was made, the United States had acquired less than 10 minutes of manned flight time in space-a suborbital flight by Alan Shepherd only three weeks before Kennedy's speech. We did not have the very high powered rocket engines needed to lift a multi-thousand ton moon rocket off the ground. Nor did we have any cryogenic upper stages to provide sufficient power to escape from the earth's orbit. There were technical problems to be overcome in nearly every area-rocket propulsion, guidance, the development of extremely lightweight lunar landing craft, navigation, safety measures, launching and recovery techniques and re-entry heat shield designs. Nevertheless, NASA-backed by a national commitment to put a man on the moon-displayed a unique can-do attitude that resulted in breakthrough after breakthrough. As a result, its mandate was completed on time and within original cost estimates despite the many unknowns which had to be overcome.

The lesson is clear: The United States can achieve remarkable and totally unanticipated technological breakthroughs if there is a driving national commitment to do so. Thus, I am optimistic that we can, in fact, develop the type of defensive technologies President Reagan referred to in his March 23rd speech-if only we commit ourselves to the task.

However, we must recognize that President Kennedy had a major asset he could count on in his quest to put a man on the moon that President Reagan does not enjoy today. Whereas President Kennedy could look to NASA and a ready-made contingent of conceptual thinkers, planners, and engineers to get his man-on-themoon project off the ground, President Reagan does not enjoy a similar luxury.

Implementation of the President's vision requires an entirely new organizational infrastructure, both in the operational and research and development spheres. It is this vital need that the "People Protection Act" seeks to address. In brief, this bill, H.R. 3073-which has now also been introduced in the Senate by Senator William L. Armstrong as S. 2021-would:

Restructure the Air Force Space Command as an all-service, unified command that ultimately would have full responsibility for the deployment and operation of all space-defense systems;

Create a new Army command-as a component of the unified space commandwhich would be responsible for the ground-based aspects of a comprehensive multitiered strategic defense;

Establish a directed-energy weapons systems agency to consolidate our research and development work on laser, particle-beam, microwave, and other promising technologies;

Transfer to the Department of Defense those space shuttles which are required for national security missions;

Provide for the immediate development of a manned space station; and

Overhaul our strategic and arms control policies to place primary emphasis on strategic defense rather than a strategic offense.

I am very pleased to learn that many of the recommendations of the Defensive Technology Study Team (Fletcher Commission), the Future Security Strategy Study, and the Senior Interagency Group on Defense Policy reportedly closely parallel the major provisions of the People Protection Act. This chart compares these parallels.

MEETING PRESIDENT REAGAN'S SPACE DEFENSE GOALS

People Protection Act (H.R. 3073/S.2021)

Fletcher panel recommendations

Establish Unified Space Command under JCS to operate multi- Direct JCS to develop management for multitiered defense tiered defense, all space-defense activities.

program.

Place all Directed-Energy R&D under a single independent DOD Charge one senior official with direction of all strategic defense agency.

Develop Manned Space station (NASA)

Transfer some Space Shuttles to DOD from NASA for primarily national security missions.

technology R&D.

Pursue need for permanent manned space presence.

In order to put any new defensive systems developed under the Defensive Technologies Initiative into effective operation, the United States needs a viable "deployment" and operations organization for space defense. Creation of a unified, all-service space command would admirably serve that purpose, as the Fletcher Commission reportedly has recognized in its recommendation that the Joint Chiefs of Staff be directed to develop the management scheme for a multi-tiered space-defense program.

What would such a command do? Today, our national security depends upon support from space systems. Absolutely vital surveillance, early-warning, intelligence, communications, and weather information and functions are gathered and carried out by our spaceborne assets. Should we be denied these essential support assets, our armed forces around the world-land, sea, and air-would be rendered deaf and dumb. We would be at the mercy of the attacking forces-"Pearl Harbored" from

space.

Currently, virtually none of our space systems are assigned to a unified or specified command-the only commands which, by law, can conduct military operations, including support operations. This means that most space systems do not fall within the operational command structure, that they are not directly responsive to the President and the other national command authorities.

So, in the near term, a unified space command would serve to remedy this potentially dangerous situation. It would:

Have operational control of space systems which support terrestrial forces;

Plan for wartime support from space, interacting with other unified and specified commands to meet their requirements;

Be a military focal point for operational requirements;

Be a military advocate for space solutions to military problems;

Provide military advice to the President and other national command authorities regarding space; and

Develop essential operational experience and expertise in military space operations and give the benefit of this experience to the space operations and give the benefit of this experience to the developers of space-defense technologies.

In the longer term, a unified space command would be in charge of the comprehensive and strategic defensive weapons systems envisioned by President Reagan in his March 23rd speech. It would thus have full responsibility for defending the American people, our homeland, our forces around the globe, and our allies from strategic attack. It would:

Be on constant watch for a missile or bomber attack from any quarter;