Senator Percy.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Pressler, it has been less than a month since we received the administration's report on its policy on antisatellite negotiations, and we have just received the report, "Directed Energy Missile Defense in Space," which is a background paper prepared under contract for the Office of Technological Assessment.

I presume that you have had a chance to scan that background paper by Dr. Ashton Carter of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Neither one of those reports really provides much comfort for the reader. The administration report notes that test bans for selected types of antisatellite weapons might be verifiable. The report also observes that verification problems could be mitigated by new technologies or by cooperative measures that might be reached in future arms control agreements.

Unfortunately, having left the door open for at least modestly constructive antisatellite negotiations, the administration seemingly still refuses to walk through that open door. I cannot personally agree with a report which concludes that urgently required proposals for preventing an arms race in space must necessarily remain under study for what might appear to be an indefinite period. I just don't think time permits such an extended study.

This is 1984, not 1981, and the administration has had over 3 years to develop an effective strategy for space arms control. During these 3 years, time has not been standing still. On the contrary, the Soviets have continued to improve their existing operational ASAT system, and the United States has now begun testing of its own minature vehicle [MV] ASAT.

Even more disturbing, the administration has formalized the socalled Strategic Defense Initiative, which raises grave questions as to its cost, goals, technological feasibility, effect on crisis stability, and consistency with long-standing arms control policy.

In the late 1960's, together with Senator John Sherman Cooper, other members of this committee, and, certainly on the floor, Senator Proxmire, I decided after a tremendous amount of study-we had a couple of years into the study of the antiballistic missile [ABM] system-to vigorously oppose the proposed deployment of the Safeguard ABM.

At that time, I was convinced that whatever investment the United States made in strategic defensive weaponry would inevitably have been overtrumped by additional Soviet investments in relatively less expensive offensive systems.

Every bit of arithmetic we did showed that you could always build at least one more offensive weapon far cheaper than you could continue to build defensive weapons. You would just keep going up and would escalate. I did not know of anything that would escalate the nuclear arms race faster than going ahead with that system which, if I recall correctly, had a capital cost of about $75 billion, but an operating expense then estimated-a decade ago of $10 to $15 billion a year.

I have never been happier about a decision to fight that right down to the end on the floor, right up to Christmas Eve one year,

and to finally get a vote on that, end it, resolve it, and put it behind us.

I don't see a strong body of support for resurrecting that.

The net result would have been that each side would have spent tens of billions of dollars simply to maintain the strategic stalemate at a much higher, more costly, and less stable level.

I am deeply concerned that the administration's SDI proposal repeats the error of the original ABM deployment proposal 15 years ago. In light of determined Soviet research and development efforts in directed energy weapons programs, the United States must maintain a prudent level of R&D in these areas as a hedge against a possible Soviet breakthrough. But there is a great difference between a hedge and a top priority development program that is designed to lead to a deployment decision.

In a report released last month, General Scowcroft and the commission that he headed warned, "Extreme caution should be applied before plunging ahead with the SDI." I simply could not agree more.

That is why there is great importance in your appearance here today and our conducting this hearing.

I believe that the United States should exercise extreme caution before it deploys its ASAT or invests tens of billions of dollars developing other space-based or space-directed weaponry.

One element of a policy of caution is arms control. I do not know if arms control can succeed in the ASAT area. We simply do not know. In START and INF, we have made very little progress, particularly now with the walkout of the Soviets and their total unwillingness to even sit and discuss seriously these areas and the proposals we have made. So we don't know what kind of progress we are going to make with ASAT's.

It could be that the Soviets would reject all our proposals for effective verification of a total ASAT and space weapons ban. It could be that we would have to settle, for the time being, for a partial ban, one that only prohibited high altitude, antisatellite weap

ons.

But I do know that we should try. I don't see how we can just assume that we can't succeed. We ought to move ahead and at least try, if we fail, then we fail. But we ought to try in every way we can to succeed.

I cannot fathom why the administration is willing to propose a total ban on chemical weapons, which I fully support, with all the challenges for verification that this entails, and yet it remains unwilling to do the same with antisatellite missiles.

I hope that we can get some answers and clarification from our distinguished panel this morning.

Senator PRESSLER. Thank you very much.

Senator TSONGAS. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by commending you for having these hearings. They are obviously of interest at this time.

I think the hearings are going to be even more important to historians. When people look back at this era and try to understand how this all happened, these hearings will be very important.

Mr. Chairman, the fact is that we have sat here through the Haig era, and I remember discussions with him about getting the START talks going, and how long it took to get that to move; also during the Adelman period, when he said to us that he was going to show that he was a true disciple of arms control, and the months went on and on and on, and nothing happened.

History will not treat this administration kindly. There has been no progress on arms control.

What are we talking about today? It is not a treaty of some sort, but a new development-extending the arms race into outer space. Historians do not care about great communicators. They care about results. I think history will be the final arbiter of this kind of policy, assuming there are any historians left to write it.

In the last decade, there used to be a great deal of discussion by sociologists as to whether there was any such thing as a bad boy. Here we are, in the 1980's, with strategic thinkers, some of whom believe there is no such thing as a bad weapon, that any weapon, no matter how ill-conceived, is something that we ought to pursue. I would like to ask the witnesses in advance to consider the two statements made by the two highest officials in this country. The President said that the "Star Wars" system would "render nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete." That is what he said. I want each witness to comment on whether indeed they share that view, specifically. The second statement is by Caspar Weinberger, who said that they were going to develop a system "thoroughly reliable and total."

I would like the same response to that statement as well.

This fantasy has been sold to the American public long before anybody had any idea as to its detail. I would like to hear, especially from our first witness, how this thing got conceived, who sold it to the President, and what advice did the President get during that period of time. I think history has a right to know that. In time, we will be fascinated by the process that we are talking about here today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator PRESSLER. Thank you very much.

Senator Glenn.

Senator GLENN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, but I have no opening statement.

Senator PRESSLER. Let me say that I think the world is on the verge of a new, major arms race which might be preventable if we did have talks with the Soviets. This is one area where the new Soviet leadership has indicated they would have talks. Whether or not that is sincere is something we should test.

In any event, we are fortunate today to receive testimony from a number of witnesses. Our first panel will consist of Dr. George A. Keyworth, the President's Science Adviser; Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson, the newly appointed head of the Strategic Defense Initiative Programs; and they will be accompanied by several DOD officials.

We will also hear from Ambassador Robert Buchheim, the U.S. ASAT negotiator in 1978-79; Dr. Sidney Drell, of Stanford University; and Prof. Albert Carnesale of Harvard University. Finally, the

Office of Technology Assessment will testify on its study of ballistic missile defense which was released yesterday.

I would ask that Dr. Keyworth testify first. He will be joined at the table by General Abrahamson and other DOD witnesses.

We would also ask that statements be limited to about 10 minutes duration, though, if needed, we will take as much time as necessary since this is such a serious subject. If you need more time, we will try to accommodate you. We will certainly insert all of your statements into the record.

Dr. Keyworth.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE A. KEYWORTH II, SCIENCE ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT

Dr. KEYWORTH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for inviting us to discuss the President's Strategic Defense Initiative and its relationship within our arms control efforts. I hope we can, together, clarify some of the doubts and concerns that you have raised.

I believe the Strategic Defense Initiative is, in fact, key to these efforts, and a means by which we can provide hope, not only to America and her allies, but to a world which is watching us as well.

This hope is one which the President challenged both the scientific and arms control communities to bring to fruition. I would remind this distinguished audience that he linked the two inexorably together in his oft misquoted March 23 speech of last year. I quote: "I am directing a comprehensive and intensive effort to define a long-term research and development program to begin to achieve our ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles. This could pave the way for arms control measures to eliminate the weapons themselves."

It is, therefore, imperative that you understand from the onset that the Strategic Defense Initiative is not a search for a technical panacea. It is a search for a technical tool by which different peoples, with different political bonds and cultures, can find a common ground to negotiate a common peace.

With all the rhetoric that has passed back and forth over the last year, one might ask, "Is there much left to say?"

In fact, what has been said from various quarters has confused things more than clarified them.

But, as with any issue that touches on nuclear arms control, the prospect of strategic defense has produced strongly polarized camps. One side says that we can produce technological marvels that will make us safe from nuclear weapons-and today-at incredibly low prices. The other side rejects the technological ability to ever do anything which will substantively affect the outcome one way or another, and claims that the price of demonstrating that failure will cost perhaps trillions.

Now, I don't want to get into either extreme today, other than to reject both of them as exposing our real national capabilities to undue criticism.

Instead, I want to focus on the real question: where are we going with this program?

If I were forced to a single sentence answer, it would be: "We see the investigation of strategic defense options as an absolutely vital catalyst to real arms control."

To see why, I refer to the conclusions of the gentlemen most often identified with this effort. They are the President, who issued the challenge, and Dr. Jim Fletcher, who chaired the first response to that challenge. The Fletcher team's first formal conclusion sets the stage. It is, in my opinion, a most eloquent summation of our capabilities and objectives. I quote: "Powerful new technologies are becoming available that justify a major technology development effort to provide future technical options to implement a technical strategy.

It is an authoritative conclusion, as much for what it does not say, as for what it does say. After 5 months reviewing our complete technology base, more than 50 nationally ranked scientists and engineers concluded that these capabilities are on the horizon.

No, they are not here now, especially if defense against longterm unconstrained Soviet threats and countermeasures is specified as our immediate goal. But even those defensive capabilities are coming, and are foreseeable, which is a major difference between the mid-1980's versus the mid- to late-1960's. They are coming. Whether we like it or not, those technical advances are occurring.

The advance of knowledge is one area in which national institutions have been singularly unsuccessful in attempting to repress or control. It has sometimes been slowed down, but history is replete with examples where such knowledge finally bursts through the seams and goes its way, inevitably favoring those who have had the foresight to accept change and mold it to their benefit.

This is especially true in the case of those technologies associated with defense. It is not so much that we deliberately tried to develop defensive capabilities. In fact, such specific development has been severely hampered by our own self-imposed restrictions. Rather, these capabilities are a natural byproduct of our civilian industries and universities, as they are to a somewhat lesser extent in the Soviet Union.

It has been the incredible leaps in data processing, as much as any single area, which has fueled this explosion. And it is not just that we no longer need mammoth warehouses to contain the radars and computers necessary to the ABM of the 1960's. The very existence of today's and tomorrow's ability to solve complex problems on incredibly small machines, and fast, has opened up the development of our entire national technical base.

What is more, the availability of these machines has made this capability accessible to hundreds of thousands of institutions, industries, small companies, and individuals.

It was data processing which overcame John von Neuman's skepticism of ever making the ICBM work in the first place. It was data processing at the heart of the move to MIRVing. It was data processing which tied ICBM fleets together for coordinated execution. It was data processing which has provided the ICBM accuracy necessary for preemptive strikes. And it is data processing which will be at the heart of any defense against ballistic missiles.