The National Security Archive
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December 18, 2000
For more information contact: 
William Burr: 202/994-7032 
PRESS RELEASE
MISSILE DEFENSE THIRTY YEARS AGO:
DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN?
DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW PARALLELS BETWEEN ABN AND NMD
Policy 30 Years Ago Foundered on Fears of New Arms Race and Technical Dilemmas


WASHINGTON, D.C. – The George Polk Award-winning National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the World Wide Web 20 previously secret U.S. government documents detailing the policy debate over anti-ballistic missile defenses in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.

“Missile defense is one of the major foreign policy issues that President-elect George W. Bush will face,” observed Archive senior analyst William Burr, who obtained the documents through Freedom of Information Act requests and archival research.  “These formerly top secret documents bring perspective to the problems -- such as technical failures and criticisms from allies and enemies alike -- that plague current efforts to deploy national missile defense.”

President Clinton’s September 2000 decision to postpone deployment of a National Missile Defense (NMD) system puts the issue in the lap of the next president, George W. Bush.  As a proponent of NMD, Bush has declared that "America must build effective missile defenses based on the best available options at the earlier possible date."  Thirty years ago, the Johnson and Nixon administrations also had plans for national missile defense systems--then called anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs)--that sought to counter accidental missile launches or attacks by small nuclear powers as well as to protect U.S. Minuteman silos from attack.  The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 effectively cancelled plans to field missiles that would explode nuclear weapons near incoming reentry vehicles.   Although NMD seeks instead to hit a "bullet with a bullet"', the questions raised in the earlier debates are as fresh as today's headlines: Will ABMs work?  Will they start a new arms race?  The declassified record shows that:
 

  • Anti-ballistic missiles were partly a response to the nuclear proliferation problem: during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, policymakers justified anti-ballistic missiles by pointing to China, the most recent nuclear power of the day.  Although George W. Bush has been reticent as to whether NMD reflects concern about China, Congressional Republicans unabashedly have China in mind.

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  • White House science advisers, Pentagon analysts, and anti-ballistic missile contractors questioned whether anti-ballistic missile radars would be able to differentiate between attacking reentry vehicles and balloon decoys and other devices designed to confuse the defense.  Contemporary critics make the point that countermeasures are far less expensive than NMD systems.

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  • Key allies, White House science advisers, and then-adversaries, especially the Russians, argued that ABMS could have a destabilizing political impact by ratcheting up the  arms race.  Contemporary critics of NMD, not only in Russia and China but also in NATO, point to the dangers of a new arms competition.

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  • In one of the most extraordinary episodes of the SALT negotiations, the Nixon administration hastily considered and then abandoned proposals for a complete ban on anti-ballistic systems, even though the Russians were interested.
  • Go to the Documents

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