Space Weapons United States

The powerful image of Patriot missiles streaking skyward to intercept Scuds in the Persian Gulf War has created a broad new enthusiasm for a "Star Wars" missile defense system to protect the United States against a limited missile attack. Acting with adept timing, the Pentagon has unveiled in recent weeks a proposal for a "refocused" strategic defense initiative (SDI).

The powerful image of Patriot missiles streaking skyward to intercept Scuds in the Persian Gulf War has created a broad new enthusiasm for a "Star Wars" missile defense system to protect the United States against a limited missile attack. Acting with adept timing, the Pentagon has unveiled in recent weeks a proposal for a "refocused" strategic defense initiative (SDI).

The United States put a new arms control plan on the table at Geneva today, and the Soviet Union agreed to extend the present round of arms talks by nearly a week to examine the plan before the U.S.-Soviet summit. U.S. research into a space-based missile defense, the Strategic Defense Initiative, still appeared to be a major sticking point in the talks, however.

The Soviet news agency Tass charged Sunday that President Reagan, not the Kremlin, engaged in deception when he accused Moscow of concealing work on its own version of a space-based missile defense program. In an unusually rapid response to the President's Saturday radio address accusing Moscow of a "dangerous deception" on the issue, Tass belittled Reagan's words as more "prattling" scare talk.

The U.S. and Soviet negotiators who will square off in Geneva on Tuesday are remarkable for their dissimilarities. On the Soviet side, the three sets of simultaneous talks--on long-range nuclear weapons, intermediate-range missiles and space weapons, including "Star Wars"--will be headed by three highly experienced negotiators. Of the three chief negotiators dispatched by President Reagan, however, only one has experience in arms control diplomacy. In fact, the three U.S.