aggressors; the six-shooter was to have tamed the Wild West; the
bomber was to have reduced any world war to a weekend-long af-
fair; and multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles
(MIRVS) were to have provided the United States with a strategic ad-
vantage the Soviets could not match for many years. Always,
however, the "perfect" weapon was matched, outclassed, or over-
come with countermeasures. And newer weapons evolved, making
the "ultimate" weapon of yesterday obsolete. As President
Eisenhower's science advisor, R. Herbert York, once observed,
"History has been littered with Maginot Lines."

Space weapons represent but the latest candidates in the
human search for the perfect defense. They quietly emerged in the
30-year interim between Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace speech and
President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) address. Presi-
dent Eisenhower's advice was not followed, however, even in the
time before new scientific research offered the promise of effective
space defenses. During these three decades, the U.S. defensive
strategies ranged from the crash buildup started by President John
F. Kennedy to the measured standoff represented by the concept of
mutually assured destruction (MAD), with its reliance on offensive
weapons and the threat of retaliation.

John F. Kennedy campaigned for office in 1960 warning that the
Soviets had pulled ahead of the United States in nuclear strength
and calling for a defense buildup. In 1961, however, satellite
photographs of Soviet missiles and bomber facilities revealed that
the missile gap, which had played such a prominent role in Ken-
nedy's campaign, was in favor of the United States instead of the
Soviet Union. U.S. nuclear superiority was still clearly established
at the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, precipitated when
Premier Nikita Khrushchev stationed Soviet intermediate-range
missiles on the U.S. southern flank in Cuba. President Kennedy mar-
shaled considerable air and naval strength and brought the full
weight of U.S. diplomacy to bear. As Secretary of State Dean Rusk
put it, the Russians "blinked" and removed their missiles.

The Cuban crisis spurred both the United States and the Soviet
Union to increase the technological sophistication of their nuclear
arsenals. The next decade witnessed a prime example of what arms
control experts call the action-reaction cycle. The Soviets gained
parity with the United States. Both sides began developing Anti-
ballistic Missiles (ABMs) with limited capabilities to intercept Inter-
continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). In 1967, the emergence of a
potential ballistic missile defense (BMD) by the Soviet Union led
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to authorize the testing of

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