CONTENTS CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES MARCH 8, 1984 Page Cooper, Dr. Robert, Director of Defense Advanced Research Projects 2894 Ikle, Dr. Fred C., Under Secretary of Defense for Policy – 2905 2910 MARCH 22, 1984 Cooper, Dr. Robert, Director of Defense Advanced Research Projects 2948 Miller, Franklin, Director, Strategic Forces Policy, Office of the Assistant 2948 2971 APRIL 24, 1984 Abrahamson, Lt. Gen. James A., Director, Strategic Defense Initiative, accompanied by Gen. Elvin Heiberg, U.S. Army, Chief, Army Ballistic Missile Defense; Gen. Robert Rankine, U.S. Air Force, Strategic Defense Initiative Activities, Department of Defense; and John Gardner, Director, Defensive Systems, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Department of Defense-- 3028 Smith, Gerard, former Ambassador to the SALT Negotiations_. 3057 3067 3075 3109 (i) DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1984 COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, U.S. SENATE, Washington, DC. STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE The committee met in executive session, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Barry Goldwater presiding. Present: Senators Goldwater, Warner, Cohen, Quayle, Wilson, Nunn, Stennis, Kennedy, Bingaman, and Dixon. Staff present: Robert F. Bott and William E. Hoehn, Jr., professional staff members; Arnold L. Punaro, staff director for the minority; Brenda K. Hudson, assistant chief clerk; Douglas R. Graham, research assistant; and Karen A. Love, staff assistant. Also present: Gerald J. Smith, assistant to Senator Goldwater; Les Brownlee, assistant to Senator Warner; Robert Savitt, assistant to Senator Cohen; Bernard R. Toon, assistant to Senator Quayle; Mark J. Albrecht, assistant to Senator Wilson; Francis J. Sullivan, assistant to Senator Stennis; Jeffrey B. Subko, assistant to Senator Exon; Matthew H. Murray and James Steinberg, assistants to Senator Kennedy; and Edward McGaffigan, Jr., assistant to Senator Bingaman. OPENING STATEMENT BY SENATOR BARRY GOLDWATER, PRESIDING Senator GOLDWATER. The Armed Services Committee convenes this morning to receive testimony on the President's strategic defense initiative. Senator Tower regrets that he is not able to be with us this morning. I welcome our witnesses: Dr. Richard DeLauer, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and Dr. Fred Ikle, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. We are pleased to have you with us this morning. We begin in executive session to receive a briefing on Soviet activities in the area of strategic defense and to provide our witnesses and our members the opportunity to deal with classified matters. It is Senator Tower's desire to go into open session as soon as we can. After that I will have a more formal statement. I am not a great believer in open sessions. So, we may not have one. Gentlemen, if you have prepared statements you would like to make part of the record, we will do so. Dr. DELAUER. I want to introduce Dr. Cooper, who is with us today, and [deleted] who is going to present the intelligence briefing. I know that for myself I would like to have my statement, both the classified and unclassified, submitted for the record. Senator GOLDWATER. Thank you. Dr. IKLE. I have only an unclassified statement, Mr. Chairman. [Deleted.] Dr. DELAUER. Mr. Chairman, let Bob tell you a little bit about what we have been doing in power supplies, and there is no reason to believe that they are not equally as far along on at least the technology. Whether they have deployed a more engineered capability than we have is a matter of speculation, but not the basic MHD technology. STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT COOPER, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY Dr. COOPER. There are two basic issues. One is the prime power needed to drive large lasers. That falls into two categories: Lasers that have their own power-generating capability such as chemical lasers they have been developing. There it is just a matter of fuel and having fuel efficiency in the lasers. Our programs have been aimed at very high fuel efficiency and we have been able to achieve designs that should be highly efficient, capable perhaps of being able with current launch vehicles to put lasers in space that could operate throughout the entire engagement time for a ballistic missile engagement. The Soviets have tended to focus their attention on [deleted]. We have concentrated more of our effort on chemical lasers. I would say on balance we are meeting our needs for power sources for our laser [deleted]. Senator WARNER. At this point you could explain the transition that we are presently contemplating in our approach to this from a certain wavelength to another wavelength. This is a major issue before this committee this year. Dr. COOPER. That is true. You are referring to the fact that we are shifting our emphasis in our program to a certain extent to short-wavelength lasers and particle beam weapons. Both of these particular kinds of weapons will require advanced power systems. We are beginning to work on some advanced power systems. For instance, last year we instituted a space nuclear power program with the Department of Energy and with NASA using nuclear reactor power systems. We intend to qualify a 100-kilowatt space nuclear power system by the early 1990's and to investigate the capability to go to tens of megawatts of prime power in space in the not too distant future beyond that period of time. So, we have programs that are now just being formed that we hope will meet the requirements for some of these advanced short-wavelength and particle beam weapon systems. |