Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- March 25, 1998
Inside the Beltway
'SDI Only a
Matter of Time'Political tidbits and other shenanigans
from around the nation's capital
By John McCaslin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Hold the tomatoes
House Republicans scheduled to attend a recent congressional appearance by C-SPAN founder and CEO Brian Lamb were notified in writing prior to the engagement that they "will NOT be accusing the guest speaker of liberal media bias. However, our usual policy will apply in future meetings."Question of inhaling
Working the "Primary Colors" movie line at the classic Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., -- gathering signatures for a medical marijuana initiative -- who should Wayne Turner, co-founder of ACT-UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, come face-to-face with but George Stephanopoulos.
The last time Mr. Turner laid eyes on Mr. Stephanopoulos the latter was watching the former get hauled out of an auditorium in Manchester, N.H., after he yelled too loud at President Clinton.
"George refused to sign the petition," Mr. Turner told us yesterday, "saying he was a 'New York voter.'
"I said, 'George, you're a D.C. voter, you're on the rolls, I looked you up, sign the petition!'"
Any luck?
"I scared him off; he ran into the theater," says Mr. Turner.Graham's gravy
Yes, 1997 was a "very good year for the Post," agrees the Publishing and Media Workers Sector of the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, "especially if your name is Graham."
"Don Graham not only took home his $399,996 salary, he also socked away $7,800 in pension and savings," the union writes of Donald E. Graham, publisher of The Washington Post. "But it was his $91.2 million in stock dividends that made Don's year. His weekly overall take was $1.76 million. Not bad!"Milk to mice
"I understand that as late as 1978, that Fairfax County was Virginia's largest milk-producer." -- Robert Kahn, considered one of the "Fathers of the Internet," drawing attention at a National Press Club appearance to the local rapid growth of information technology, giving Fairfax County more office space than any place in America except New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., and the building continues.SDI reality
There was a 15th anniversary reception held in Washington this week for former President Ronald Reagan's "Strategic Defense Initiative" -- hosted by the nation's leading experts on SDI, the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Determined to develop and deploy an anti-missile defense system during this century, Mr. Reagan on March 23, 1983, asked the decisive question: "Would it not be better to save lives than to avenge them?"
Now, 15 years -- and $36 billion in research -- later, an SDI shield still doesn't exist. But proponents and even opponents agree it's only a matter of time.
Some background: The Congressional Budget Office says a layered national defense system, a proposal reintroduced a few years ago in the GOP's "Contract With America," would cost as much as $60 billion overall.
However, a blue-ribbon missile defense study team, impaneled by the Heritage Foundation, says deploying such a system could be accomplished for as little as $2 billion.
In 1995, Sen. Strom Thurmond, South Carolina Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, requested an independent report on missile defense, ultimately produced by a team of high-technology defense experts from TRW, Martin Marietta and Lockheed (the latter two since merging to become Lockheed Martin).
The defense contractors determined later that year that a system of death-ray space weapons that could knock out ballistic missiles, were a program to proceed in 1995, could be ready for deployment beginning in 1998.
"The team believes that we could build and launch a high-power, missile-killing, space-based laser platform by the end of 1998," stated the report, which estimated the cost of the first dozen laser satellites at $1.5 billion.
Such technology could be used in peacetime, too. Two weeks ago, for instance, scientists warned that a mile-wide asteroid, described as "the most dangerous one we've found so far," may be on course for a 2028 collision with Earth.
Called asteroid 1997 XF11, the speeding space rock was discovered Dec. 6 by the University of Arizona Spacewatch program, and placed on a list of 108 asteroids considered to be "potentially hazardous objects."
Not to worry.
The team of experts from TRW and Lockheed Martin concluded in their report to Mr. Thurmond that the aiming system of laser satellites waiting to be launched "is accurate enough to hit a barrel 3,000 miles away."John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or e-mail him at Mccasl@twtmail.com.
Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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