THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

SDI, which Senator labeled "Star Wars," was a fake at the time. But it helped bring down the USSR.

Back during World War II the Navy issued "shark repellant." No shark even noticed the stuff, and it was entirely to give sailors some comfort. SDI, the defense system for knocking out incoming missiles, was much the same. But this myth was a major help in bringing down the Soviet Union.

Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative research program, and he promised to give it to the Soviets as soon as we developed it so that nuclerar war would be impossible. Since he had not the slightest suspicion that it WOULD be developed, that was a safe proposition.

Here was the problem the Soviets and their friends had:

The USSR depended ENTIRELY on its spies to get its military technology for it. Yes, I know about all those special projects and the cluster of high-level scientists and the whole that existed in the USSR. I also know something others do NOT know: They didn't PRODUCE anything important. Everything Russia had was from spies and poor duplicates of the work the spies reported. They would have no trouble getting anything SDI produced, but they couldn't even REPRODUCE things at that level.

This was a crisis. Suddenly, as complete historical accident, a Nuclear Freeze became an obsession of the leftists. They made a special TV movie about it. The entire political left all over the world demanded that all all nuclear weapons be frozen,

The same marchers demanded an end to "Star Wars." They used two arguments:

1) SDI wouldn't WORK, so it was a waste of resources and

2) SDI WOULD work, and by making hte world safe for nuclear war, it would make the world safe for total war.

You will see both these themes in almost every Soviet speech on the matter and in every American leftist speech on the matter. Media commentary on both subjects used both lines. But it didn't work, and SDI was a major factor in bringing down the USSR, though the media agree it was a historical accident that the USSR went down only when it faced the Reagan Administration.

The reason I bring this up is to warn you of an interesting change that will soon take place on the American left. Suddenly they are going to start declaring that missile defense is something American has been neglecting.

Do I really have to explain why?

Iran will soon be within missile distance of Haifa.