Space Weapons

The State Department on Monday accused Soviet Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov of making a false statement when he said the Soviets are not doing research on space weapons. "This is untrue and forms part of a continuing, self-serving Soviet propaganda campaign," said department spokesman Edward P. Djerejian, responding to an interview with Sokolov published Sunday by the official Soviet news agency Tass.

President Bush said Thursday that Washington will withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow "at a time convenient to America" so the United States can proceed unhampered with the research and development of a missile defense system. Bush's declaration seems likely to increase tensions with Russia and surely enhances his growing reputation as the practitioner of a unilateralist foreign policy.

Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), taking a break from talks with Kremlin leaders, told the Soviets on Tuesday that Americans are concerned about all space weapons research, not just "Star Wars." In an interview on the main television news program after meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, Hart was asked what he thought of President Reagan's "Star Wars" program, known formally as the Strategic Defense Initiative.

After talks with a top Russian official in Moscow, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was upbeat Wednesday about the chances of a U.S. agreement with Russia on the Bush administration's plans for a missile shield. With the U.S. and Russia poised for talks that could shape a new post-Cold War security framework, Rice expressed America's eagerness to press ahead and jettison the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which bans deployment of a national missile shield.

The Soviet Union urged the 40-nation Geneva Disarmament Conference to form an international committee to make on-site inspections of all space launches to guard against deployment of space-based weapons. Chief Soviet delegate Yuri K. Nazarkin did not provide details in his speech to the conference in Geneva. However, Western delegates said the proposal is aimed at the U.S.

A federal judge today refused to block Friday's scheduled first test of an anti-satellite weapon's ability to knock out a target in space. After 30 minutes of oral arguments, U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson denied a request by four House Democrats and the Union of Concerned Scientists for a temporary restraining order to halt the test.

President Reagan demanded Saturday that the Soviet Union disclose details of its own "Star Wars" defense plans, saying the United States believes Moscow's weapons research is so intensive "that they may be able to put an advanced technology defensive system in space by the end of the century." The demand, which Reagan issued in his weekly radio address, appeared to be another salvo in the public relations battle raging between the President and Soviet leader Mikhail S.

President Reagan on Friday sent his negotiators into arms talks with the Soviet Union with instructions to cut back offensive weapons "so all God's children can grow up without the fear of nuclear war." Reagan steered clear of any reference to his controversial Strategic Defense Initiative. The Soviets have targeted the $26 billion research program on space-based missile defense systems for elimination at the talks opening Tuesday in Geneva, Switzerland.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, in a spirited defense of the proposed "Star Wars" missile defense system, said Thursday he will urge President Bush to veto the 1990 defense appropriations bill if it provides "inadequate funding" for the program. Cheney's comments came as House and Senate lawmakers entered their fifth week of negotiations on the military funding measure. Differences between the two chambers on "Star Wars" funding have been one of the most divisive issues in the conference.

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, responding to President Reagan's U.N. address, today categorically rejected Reagan's proposal to trade concessions on his "Star Wars" missile defense plan for deep cuts in U.S. and Soviet offensive arsenals. At the same time, Shevardnadze urged the United States to "stop playing for insane stakes" and to halt its "deadly nuclear gambling."

President Bush pressured Moscow on Monday to agree to reduce nuclear weapons and rethink its opposition to a U.S. missile shield, but said he is prepared to develop a missile defense without Russian accord. One day after Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, with Bush at his side after two hours of meetings, disclosed that the United States and Russia would negotiate offensive and defensive weapons in tandem, Bush displayed an impatience to get moving.

Despite initial assessments that Saturday's missile defense test was a success, the Pentagon acknowledged Tuesday that a prototype radar was unable to tell ground controllers whether a kill vehicle had destroyed its target. The radar, a critical element of the controversial national antimissile system, falsely reported that the interceptor had missed the dummy warhead. Independently, several sensors set up to monitor the test showed a hit.

A Pentagon "kill vehicle" located and destroyed a dummy missile warhead in outer space above the central Pacific on Saturday evening, giving a new boost to the Bush administration's ambitious and controversial missile defense program. The 120-pound interceptor, launched atop a missile from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, found its target 144 miles into outer space and, at 8:09 p.m. PDT, pulverized it in a blinding flash of light. The target missile had been launched about 7:40 p.m.

The Bush administration's fiscal 2002 budget includes plans for a missile defense test range in Alaska that could be converted into a rudimentary national missile system as early as 2004, officials said Wednesday. Outlining details of the Pentagon's $328-billion spending plan, defense officials said they will propose building a set of five interceptor missiles at Ft. Greeley, near Fairbanks, Alaska.

The director of the Strategic Defense Initiative said Wednesday he is scaling back spending on space-based weapons in response to accusations that he was defying Congress. Henry Cooper said SDI funding will be used instead to develop a $27-billion ground-based defensive system to be deployed by 1997. The government has already invested about $25 billion in SDI.

For the first time, the Department of Defense on Saturday allowed news media to view the gigantic Alpha chemical laser that represents the second line of the nation's "Star Wars" defense against ballistic missile attack. The public unveiling of the TRW facility here follows two tests indicating that the laser can produce more than a megawatt (1 million watts) of power, enough to destroy enemy missiles while they are in the first stages of their launch.

The Soviet Union has sent a signal to U.S. arms negotiators in Geneva that Moscow may be willing to negotiate an arms agreement that would permit some testing of the "Star Wars" space-based missile defense system, congressional leaders said Thursday. Members of a congressional delegation that observed the U.S.

The Soviet Union has proposed to the United States that any agreement reached on cuts in long-range strategic nuclear weapons would automatically lapse if either side were to begin deploying defense systems in outer space, it was learned here at the nuclear arms control talks. The Soviets apparently are pulling back somewhat from their diplomatic effort to halt the American Strategic Defense Initiative program ("Star Wars") in its present stage of development and testing.

The Pentagon said Friday that its Star Wars researchers produced a chemical laser beam with enough power to confirm that such a laser could destroy a missile in space. The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, which runs the SDI program in the Pentagon, called the test a major success for the Alpha chemical laser project. The Alpha laser, built for the Pentagon by TRW Inc.

TRW Space & Technology Group was awarded a $340.5-million contract Friday to design the "Brilliant Pebbles" program, a space-based interceptor that is a key feature of the Strategic Defense Initiative. The Redondo Beach group, a part of Cleveland-based TRW Inc., said the 50-month "Star Wars" project to design Brilliant Pebbles will employ more than 300 people, primarily in Southern California. Martin Marietta Corp.