ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (01/23/87)
Arms-Discussion Digest Thursday, January 22, 1987 6:42PM
Volume 7, Issue 99
Today's Topics:
administrivia
zero ballistic missiles, but not zero H-bombs, good medium-term goal
Re: Soviet History / Glasnost
more on hitler/stalin
Space mines vs. geosynchronous satellites?
Soviet internals & Territioial defense forces
Reagan Doctrine
"offensive"
Minuteman I Destroyed
SDI battle management
SDI
Laser-Kill from Low-Earth to Synchronous Orbits
Submission for mod-politics-arms-d
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: SDI Forum
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1987 22:13 EST
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: administrivia
==>> someone please tell the person named below that he is off the list.
<<< 550 <bkdavis@charon.LOCAL>... User unknown
------------------------------
Date: 1987 January 19 20:31:26 PST (=GMT-8hr)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject:zero ballistic missiles, but not zero H-bombs, good medium-term goal
<LIN> Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1987 19:15 EST
<LIN> From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
<LIN> Subject: zero ballistic missiles, good or bad?
<LIN> Reagan proposed at the recent Iceland summit to eliminate ballistic
<LIN> missiles from the arsenals of the U.S. and the S.U. Is this a good
<LIN> idea? Why? What do ballistic missiles give the U.S. that we would
<LIN> not have without them?
As a long-range goal, eliminating ballistic missiles seems to me a
good goal. Eliminating all H-bombs regardless of delivery method,
however, seems unsafe.
Any weapon that can be delivered very quickly (less than a few hours)
from standby (peacetime) station to enemy cities is bad because it
decreases response time and thus increases chance of error which could
start a war when no war was needed. Currently IRBMs stationned close
to targets (8 minutes in some places in Eastern Europe) are the most
dangerous, but they are small in number I believe and cover only a
limited geographic area, thus aren't very serious yet. ICBMs and SLBMs
with their 20-30 minute flight time are in such large numbers to be a
very big danger. Eliminating them, or reducing them to a very few,
would significantly reduce the danger. Such short-flight-time weapons
of gargantuan destruction (merely one single weapon is mass
destruction by itself) are not necessary for deterrence. Slow-delivery
weapons of gargantuan destruction will suffice.
Eliminating *all* h-bombs isn't feasible, because we need a hundred or
so of them for deterrence, and we haven't yet found a workable
alternative to deterrence. As a thought project, finding an
alternative to deterrence seems worthwhile, but at a practical level
we must live with deterrence somehow in the forseeable future.
Since "ballistic missiles" includes ICBMs and SLBMs (major problem)
and IRBMs (small but more critical problem), without affecting slow
delivery methods, I'd go with Reagan's statement of eliminating *all*
ballistic missiles in one coherent series of agreements. (But I doubt
he is serious. I think it's just another gaffe, or some PR ploy. I
wish he were serious.)
<H> From: hplabs!pyramid!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
<H> Date: Tue, 6 Jan 87 17:04:52 pst
<H> Subject: zero ballistic missiles, good or bad?
<H> I would say it's a good idea. It eliminates the major class of strategic
<H> weapons with an extremely short flight time. Minimal travel time is of
<H> little value in strategic weapons except for the implementation of counter-
<H> force strategies, which are destabilizing and dangerous. Short flight
<H> times are themselves destabilizing and dangerous, since they create
<H> great pressure for fast decisions and fast response to perceived attacks.
<H> ...
I agree with all you said.
> What do ballistic missiles give the U.S. that we would
> not have without them?
<H> Plausible grounds for believing that the US could mount either (a) a
<H> disabling first strike, or (b) an effective counterforce attack (same
<H> thing but less ambitious). ...
Mostly agree with that too.
<H> It is not surprising that this proposal came from the US, since the SU
<H> is more dependent on ballistic missiles and more committed to counterforce
<H> strategies.
Remember that SLBMs are also ballistic missiles. I believe we rely
heavily on SLBMs as well as ICBMs, wheras USSR relies almost totally
on ICBMs, but the difference between the two isn't significant to this
question. I think both sides would have to build up their H-bomb
aircraft force if they disbanded all their ballistic missile force,
not just the USSR, although perhaps the USSR would have to do it more.
However the counterforce argument seems valid (except Reagan recently
seems to be going toward counterforce too, without admitting it in public).
------------------------------
Date: 20 Jan 87 14:00:53 EST (Tuesday)
From: MJackson.Wbst@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Soviet History / Glasnost
"Unless the SU has lots of Winston Smiths ready to go and rewrite all
its literature at the drop of a speechmaker's phrase then presumably we
shouldn't expect to see anything we would recognise as 'fairer'
literature for a while yet."
Indeed, the Winston Smiths they *do* have have not necessarily gotten
with the program. Apparently (according to NPR) when Gorbachev makes a
long speech lambasting the bureaucracy it turns up in Pravda as a
significantly shorter speech, with many of the harsher criticisms
removed. Apparently the bureaucracy has its own priorities...but we
knew that, right?
Mark
------------------------------
From: Dan L. Lulue <nosc!lulue@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu>
Date: 21 Jan 87 00:00:22 GMT
Subject: more on hitler/stalin
At the risk of belaboring the point further, let me add that Hitler
had a much clearer idea of what he was going to do than Stalin did,
though. That is not saying much; Hitler got awfully ad-hoc in his
foreign policy, always hoping something would turn up to bail him out
of a bad situation he had himself created. That did not become
apparent, especially to Germans, for a long time, though.
Stalin was even worse in the limited case of the August 1939 pact. He
was very nervous about Hitler's intentions. He had reason to be.
Stalin had single-handedly decimated the Red Army's high (and
intermediate, and low) command in his 1938 purge. Further, he did not
protest the overflight of Russian territory (actually Polish territory!)
by German planes. He did not, apparently, protest the shortfall in
shipments of goods from Germany required under the German/Russian pact.
That does not change the fact that Stalin's Russia benefited initially
from the pact. The Germans actually withdrew from some areas of
Poland to allow the Russians in per the (I assume secret) conditions
of their agreement. When World War II ended, Russia kept the eastern
part of Poland they had overrun and suggested to the Poles that they
might want to carve out some German territory to compensate. This
they did in the form of the German provinces of Pommerania and
Silesia.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 87 16:34:16 PST
From: "Clifford Johnson" <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Space mines vs. geosynchronous satellites?
> [Re destroying satellites, it has been debated]:
> "What you so graciously acknowledge as a *minor* offensive use
> is, of course, a major offensive use. If we or the Soviet Union
> were to have the power to attack satellites..."
I agree that satellite attack is a *major* offense. (The loss of
attack warning from satellites would make LOW dependent on radar
warning only, for example.) But isn't the capability of knocking out
US satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the USSR already there?
Aren't these satellites watched over by USSR space mines? Also,
the USSR already has ground-based lasers capable of hitting
satellites. The Armed Forces Journal this month has an update on
the lasers, but does anyone know if the space mines can reasonably
be presumed to exist?
To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Tuesday, 20 January 1987 08:39-EST
From: "When pasta comes into contact with antipasta, does it explode and turn into energy?" <"NGSTL1::SHERZER%ti-eg.csnet" at RELAY.CS.NET>
To: arms-d
Re: Soviet internals & Territioial defense forces
X-VMS-To: SKACSL::IN%"arms-d-request%xx.lcs.mit.edu@csnet-relay"
>comments by pom:
>The dissident movement in SU (e.g. people on Helsinki Watch commitees) is
>a proto-form (embryo) of an opposition party. We have a fairly good picture
>of what their foreign policy and philosophy would be.
What would that be? There are several dissident groups in the SU. They run
the gambit from 'western democracy' to 'Marxism works, we just are not doing
it right'. A lot depends on which group (if any) gets into power. A good
description of this can be found in "Survival is Not Enough" I don't remember
the author (but I think he is from Harvard).
>It is important to realize that opposition in a police state (such as SU) does
>not have form of guerrilla warfare; it looks more like Ghandi vs GB. Before
>you accuse me of day-dreaming I will close by the following fact: People in
>SU and SU occupied countries, choose to go to prisons in defense of
>alternative policies.
The world does indeed have a lot of brave people who are willing to stand
up for what they believe in. Gahndi vs GB worked because the British felt
bad about what they had done. I don't think the Soviet leadership feels bad
about some dissident rotting in the Gulag when he should have shut up.
>They do not expect US to send in a squad of Rambos which would
>liberate them.
According to "The Gulag Archipelago" and Dolgans "An American in the Gulag",
they did indeed expect help from the US. Dolgan speaks of the prisoners
expecting American planes to airdrop weapons to them after the war.
>They do that because they care about their respective nations and (finally)
>found certain truths to be self-evident.....
As stated above, the dissident movement is not monolithic. They do not all
hold 'certain truths to be self-evident.
>Whatever they may create, will not be called 'US style democracy'. So far it
>was called 'socialism with the human face'. Whatever it will be called,
>it will be less paranoid, deceitful, cruel and warlike. The least US can
>do, is to be aware of that struggle and not sabotage it. If YOU want to do
>more, contact Amnesty International for specific facts.
I hope you are correct and yes we should be aware of that struggle. BTW,
how does one join Amnesty International? Do you have an address?
>>Assuming that the Soviet political apparatus rules entirely by force
>>and terror, and that if only we could vaporize all CP members the
>>Soviet people would come crawling to the US for some Western-style
>>democracy, is a dangerously wishful thinking. I believe the vast
>>majority of the Soviet people support their government. They *want*
>>a strong police force.
>>Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
>>Internet: campbell@maynard.uucp
> I should not waste time on such statements. However it looks like
>author really believes this preposterous nonsense. Something like that
>did cost Ford his 2nd term as president: "ask the Poles if they feel
>enslaved." Rather than arguing, I am asking Larry to read (not Gulag
>Archipelago - that is a hard to read documentary) but other Solzenycins
>books (e.g. One day..). Does he believes that 'vast majority' of soviet
>people are masochists?. If the 'vast majority' supports the government,
>why dont they allow free elections? Why they need to control the press?
If you read Hedric Smith's "The Russians" (an excellent book), you will
find a good analysis of this "preposteroun nonsense". The Russian people
(nither I nor Larry are refering to Poles or anyone else) like to think
of themselves as leaders of a powerful and important empire. They also
accept a strong pecking order as the natural way of things and see nothing
wrong with interfering with someone elses internal afairs. Because the
Soviet government provides material security and a sense of national
pride and importance, the people do accept it. As to political prisoners,
most people regard them as hooligans that want to disrupt the country.
> May be Larry also believes that 'vast majority' of Aghans wants to be
>shot at; wast majority of Poles 'like discipline' and 'vast majority'
>of Hungarians invited SU tanks in 1956.
As stated above, the Poles and Afgans are members of the empire and
thus their desires need not be addresses (in the Soviet view).
On another subject:
>Date: Mon, 19 Jan 87 10:55:35 PST
>From: toma@Sun.COM (Tom Athanasiou)
>Subject: non-provacative weapons
>Sure it's true that any weapon can be used offensively. So
>what? The important point is that some weapons have physical
>characteristics that lend themselves far more to offense than
>do others, and that some are -- basically -- useful only for
>territorial defense. For example, there's been a lot of talk
>in Europe about decentralized territorial defense forces that
>make heavy use of short-range anti-armour missiles. Such
>forces could deliberately NOT be supplied with tanks and the
>infrastructure necessary to support war at a distance, that is,
>invasion.
I agree with the assessment of offenseive vs defensive weapons.
However, offensive weapons are still needed otherwise, an enemy
can attack without risk to his own land. In addition, without
tanks, the defender cannot counterattack which is a vital need
if only to remove pressure from hard hit defenders. Since it is
hard to know where a counterattack is needed, it will be hard to
deploy these territorial defense forces.
Allen Sherzer
------------------------------
Subject: Reagan Doctrine
Reply-To: campbell%maynard.UUCP@talcott.HARVARD.EDU (Larry Campbell)
Date: 20 Jan 87 22:59:19 EST (Tue)
From: campbell@maynard.BSW.COM
>Date: 11 Jan 1987 14:21:59-EST
>From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU
>
> ... many of the guerrillas in the world today are "our"
>guerrillas, in places like Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola, and
>Cambodia, and our support for most of them has elicited little public
>dissent.
Whoa. If you think there has been little public dissent, you reading
must be confined to the (appallingly supine) mass media. In the
Boston area alone, several thousand people have signed The Pledge of
Resistance, promising to participate in non-violent acts of civil
disobedience in the event of a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. There are
demonstrations against the U.S. Central America policy every month or
so here. If this dissent doesn't make it into the mainstream media,
that says more about the media and its relationship to its ultimate
masters than it says about the dissent.
Ironically, some of the principal opposition to U.S. support of
Savimbe's guerrillas in Angola comes from American oil companies,
whose installations are principal targets of Savimbe's minions. The
spectacle of Marxist troops protecting American industrial interests
from capitalist-funded guerrillas is entertaining, if nothing else.
Finally, let us not forget that the U.S. clients in Cambodia, the
Khmer Rouge, are those wonderful folks who brought you Pol Pot and his
merry band of mass murderers.
--
Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
Internet: campbell@maynard.uucp 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
uucp: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell +1 617 367 6846
ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvisr.harvard.edu MCI: LCAMPBELL
------------------------------
Subject: "offensive"
Reply-To: campbell%maynard.UUCP@talcott.HARVARD.EDU (Larry Campbell)
Date: 20 Jan 87 23:11:36 EST (Tue)
From: campbell@maynard.BSW.COM
>From: pyramid!utzoo!henry@hplabs.HP.COM
>Subject: "offensive"
>
>Groan. Please name three real weapons that are, by your definition, clearly
>and inarguably defensive and not offensive.
Assuming these are all placed in your own territory:
1) Tank traps. 2) Land mines. 3) Nautical mines. And, for extra credit,
4) Fixed anti-aircraft batteries. 5) Fixed artillery emplacements.
--
Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
Internet: campbell@maynard.uucp 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
uucp: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell +1 617 367 6846
ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvisr.harvard.edu MCI: LCAMPBELL
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 87 04:03:04 PST
From: ihnp4!mhuxd!wolit@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Minuteman I Destroyed
The USAF announced that a Minuteman I ICBM carrying an unarmed,
"experimental" re-entry vehicle went out of control today following
its 12:35 a.m. launch from Vandenberg AFB, and was destroyed by radio
command.
The announcment did not include the altitude, position, or trajectory
of the missile, and while it said that the accident posed no danger to
the public, two offshore oil platforms were evacuated on the advice of
the Coast Guard.
The Minuteman I has been withdrawn from service as an ICBM, though
it reportedly functions as a launcher for the Emergency Rocket
Communication System, a last-ditch command and control system for
launching the US ICBM force.
Last week, Aviation Week reported that two of the ten Mk.21 re-entry
vehicles on the Dec. 5, launch of an MX missile from Vandenberg failed
to deploy.
Any information/speculation on the nature of this latest test?
Since nearly all ICBM tests from Vandenberg are launched down the
Pacific Test Range toward Kwajalein, should the refusal to give a
trajectory for this launch be taken as an indication that Kwajalein
was *NOT* the target? What trajectories have been followed by ERCS
tests? What are the implications for SALT of testing a Minuteman I
with a new warhead?
----------
Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ; 201 582-2998; mhuxd!wolit
(Affiliation given for identification purposes only)
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 21 January 1987 08:52-EST
From: Bryan Fugate <fugate at mcc.com>
To: ARMS-D
Re: SDI battle management
Posted-Date: Wed, 21 Jan 87 07:52:49 CST
I would like to respond to Karl Dahlke's comment that:
> For example, reliable distributed battle management,
> by far the most complex aspect of SDI, receives the lion's
> share of the research funding. This is of limited value
> outside the scope of SDI.
Complex decision-making aids that rely on distributed networks are precisely
what several major research projects in the U.S. are working on. As the work
on expert systems progresses and massively parrallel machines come on line to
coordinate thousands or millions of processes concurrently, then something
like SDI battle management, while not becoming a trivial matter, will become
immenently more practical. Process control in CAD/CIM applications in
industry will be driving the need to produce the software. It could become a
way also of rationalizing things like the air traffic control system.
Much of this is totally independent of government funded research. The point is
the technology to create SDI will exist. Whether or not we choose to create
SDI using the technology, of course, is up to us. But, to say that we can
stop the technology itself is a very different matter.
> While their technological position is certainly in jeopardy,
> SDI would only help their cause, since they could fund valuable research proj> ects directly,
> while we must settle for spinoffs.
Karl is making the simplified assumption that merely funding research in the SU
will produce adequate results. My point is that the Soviets do not have the
research infrastructure in architectures and software to approach the kind
of integrity and reliability that would be vital to the success of SDI. This
is the big advantage the U.S. has over societies like the SU, we don't control
the avenues of technological progress from one big super funding agency. There
are too many small outfits that are hungry to make a profit. And,
these companies are able in areas like the Silicon Valley, Boston, and Austin
to find the pool of talent needed to put it all together. You've got to have
the synergy of hardware jocks and gurus working together to come up with new
ideas. The SU is so far incapable of keeping up with this system that it
could be said that they will cease to be a relevant world power within 20
years unless they take extreme action.
The Soviet Union today is faced with the worst crisis it has known
since June 22, 1941. Their leaders know it and are struggling to find
a way out. The most important issue of our age is how to depressurize
the SU, or let it crumble from within, without them bringing the roof
down on the entire world.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 87 14:35:29 cst
From: convex!paulk@a.cs.uiuc.edu (Paul Kalapathy)
Subject: SDI
>SDI AS ANTI-INTELLECTUAL
> The bulk of the arguments for SDI are emotional. This country is
> a democracy, and there should be intelligent and responsible
> discussion of something as consequential as SDI.
-Paul Kalapathy
>> ehm, uh. I thought that we are engaged in a responsible debate right here
>> on arms-d. Was I wrong?
Sorry if I implied that intelligent debate was not occurring here. I was
referring to the public debate as characterized by the mass media (e.g.,
daily newspapers, television networks) and the disinformation promulgated
by parties with a vested interest (e.g., SDIO, defense contractors).
>> The general argument advanced so far (as I understand it)is: SU may or
>> may not (sometime in the future) consider costs/benefits of attacking
>> NATO countries. Existence of strong capability to respond to such
>> (potential) attack is likely to make the (eventual) attack more costly
>> and so less likely to be profitable. Ergo, soviet may decide not to
>> attack us. That is considered to be a good thing.
>> Please, do not take this as 'a vote for SDI'. There are other issues
>> which can affect 'suitability' of SDI, such as cost. I am just noting
>> that you have omitted this argument in your 'enumeration of arguments for'.
>> 1) Is this argument emotional? 2) Since I consider myself 'an intelectual'
>> can you please explain what SDI will do to me?
First, I don't think that this is the argument that is being made in public
by the parties mentioned above. Most people that I have talked to in the
'general public' believe that SDI is supposed to be "an impenetrable shield
...which will render nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete."
As for point 1): No, I don't think that the argument which you presented
is emotional. It just does not come close to being a reasonable model of
reality. The argument implies that US will put up SDI, but that everything
else in the world will be just the same as it is today. The real world
doesn't work that way. The Soviet response to the US deployment will not be
"Oh, gosh! Look what they did. Now all of our nuclear weapons are impotent
and obsolete! No more warmongering for us. Curses!". When we developed the
atomic bomb, the Soviets developed an atomic bomb; they developed ICBMs,
then we developed ICBMs; we MIRVed our missiles, they MIRVed their missiles,
etc, ad nauseam. Developments in armaments by one side are inevitably
followed by duplication by the other and countermeasuring (to the degree
possible) by both sides.
The implication for SDI is that it 1) will at some point be met with its
Soviet counterpart, and 2) before that will be subject to countermeasures.
These two things have serious consequences vis-a-vis the usefulness and
cost of SDI. (While I will not address the cost of SDI here, it is interesting
to note that the cost-benefit analysis, which conservatives have always
espoused for government programs, is almost entirely ignored for the SDI
which the same conservatives so rigorously support). The two points will
be dealt with individually.
1) The US SDI will be met with a Soviet SDI. The President himself has
portrayed a picture of US and SU "peace shields" floating around keeping
both countries safe. This ignores the fact that any SDI is only capable
of killing a certain percentage of some maximum number of warheads. (Each
platform has a maximum firing rate of N shots per minute. In a mass
attack, all of the warheads are present simultaneously for a fixed number
of minutes. Therefore, a fixed number of shots can be made on an attack.) If
the number of warheads is increased beyond that maximum, all of the excess
will get through and we will all have spent a few hundred billion or trillion
of our national wealth and still can expect thousands of nuclear warheads
to fall on us.
Furthermore, the US SDI and SU SDI can be pointed at each other. An SDI
which is capable of dealing with 10,000 little warheads moving in excess of
5 kilometers each second should have very little difficulty with a few
hundred (or less) large SDI platforms in known orbits. Under these
circumstances, should the SU decide to attack the US, the first step in the
attack would certainly be to destroy all of our SDI platforms using their
SDI platforms. Again we will all have spent a few hundred billion or trillion
of our national wealth and still can expect thousands of nuclear warheads
to fall on us.
2) The US SDI will be countermeasured. The list of countermeasures to
SDI is extensive. The simplest one is the so called "space mine" whereby
the Soviets would put a bomb in the same orbit as each SDI platform.
This would be exceedingly cheap and effective, and would allow the Soviets
to destroy the entire SDI system at will. It has been suggested that the
US employ keep-out zones around the SDI platforms. But how could those
keep-out zones be enforced in peacetime? Does the US have a right to fire
on other nation's spacecraft? Certainly the Soviets would respond in kind.
Even if the SU honored keep-out zones, they could place small railguns
or rocket platforms several kilometers away from an SDI platform and still
have virtually instantaneous kill capabilities against those SDI platforms.
I will not even go in to other forms of countermeasuring since this simple
form would be so (relatively) cheap and effective. Again we will all have
spent a few hundred billion or trillion of our national wealth and still
can expect thousands of nuclear warheads to fall on us.
I fail to see that there is any merit whatsoever to the SDI as a defense
against a missile attack in the real world where it is certain to be
countermeasured and to have a Soviet SDI pointed at it. It would be nice
to have an uncountermeasured US SDI and no Soviet SDI, but then again, it would
be nice if we could put a bomb in every Soviet missile silo. Somehow, I
don't think that they will allow us either wish :-).
-Paul Kalapathy
------------------------------
Subject: Laser-Kill from Low-Earth to Synchronous Orbits
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 87 15:00:20 -0800
From: crummer@aerospace.ARPA
In my note about the problems of using lasers to knock out synchronous satel-
lites, I mentioned the ENERGY that could be delivered. The real killer is
ENERGY DENSITY. This is why a small spot size is important (Remember when you
were a kid and burned leaves with a magnifying glass and how you had to
adjust the glass so the spot was the smallest?). The spot area is proportional
to R^-2 where R is the range from laser to target.
Thanks to an anonymous friend for the correction.
--Charlie
------------------------------
Path: lzaz!psc
From: psc@lzaz.UUCP (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d
Subject: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: SDI Forum, Shrewsbury, NJ, May 23, 1987
Keywords: SDI debate Star Wars
Message-ID: <844@lzaz.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jan 87 21:25:14 GMT
Followup-To: psc@lznv.psc
Organization: Monmouth County chapter, L5 Society
Lines: 51
The Monmouth County Chapter of the L5 Society is sponsoring a forum on
the Space Defense Initiative. The forum will allow proponents and
opponents of SDI to present their points of view to the general public.
Both the national L5 Society and the Monmouth County Chapter are neutral
on this issue.
The forum will be held at the Eastern Branch of the Monmouth County
Library in Shrewsbury, NJ, on Saturday, the 23rd of May, 1987, from 2 to
4:30 PM.
Professional members of the scientific, engineering, political, defense,
and science fiction communities are encouraged to participate. I've
invited a couple of SF writers, five NJ congressmen, and members of
appropriate organizations (Union of Concerned Scientists, Institute for
Space Studies, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, the
Strategic Defense Initiative Organization [DOD], High Frontier, and the
Heritage Foundation) via paper mail.
If you or anyone you know would like to participate, please contact me
at {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,vax135,mtgzz,pegasus}!lznv!psc through the
Usenet, mtgzz!lznv!psc@RUTGERS.rutgers.edu through the Internet, or by
phone at 201-576-2476 (day) or 201-544-1154 (night). You can also write
to: SDI Forum, Monmouth L5, PO Box 642, New Monmouth, NJ, 07748-0642.
L5 members will be strongly discouraged from participating on one side
of the issue or the other, to help preserve our neutrality. However, L5
members (especially local ones) are strongly encouraged to help
organize, answer questions about space and L5 on the day of the forum,
and take guests out to dinner.
If anyone can think of a better name for this event that "the SDI
Forum", please let me know!
Feel free to spread this message to other media. I'm starting it on
Usenet's "netnews" in talk.politics.misc, sci.space, and
rec.arts.sf-lovers. From there, I assume it will be cross-posted to (or
rejected by) the SF-LOVERS and SPACE mailing lists on ARPA. I'll try to
submit it to the ARPA arms control mailing list.
Disclaimers: Please, *please*, ***PLEASE*** do *not* post followups to
this message! If you want to discuss SDI, submit an article to
talk.politics (Usenet) or the arms control mailing list (ARPA). If you
want to get in touch with me but the above Email addresses don't work,
contact a local guru about navigating the Usenet, or call or write me.
I'll probably summarize the results of the Forum after it's happened,
but that's not for another four months. I'm personally neutral and open
minded on SDI. My employers don't have any opinions on SDI that I know
of, and they have nothing to do with this Forum. I tried to limit
distribution of this message to New Jersey; sorry if it leaked.
Paul S. R. Chisholm, chapter secretary, Monmouth L5
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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