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103   Candidates Could Outline 
      Differences on ABM Policy
      The Washington Post, Saturday, June 22, 1968

     The lives of the people are perpetual hostage to the sanity and
good behavior of their leaders.  This is the charter that inexorably
rules the hourly existence of any major power whose nuclear force can
threaten the survival of another.

     Since President Johnson adjured another term, foreign policy has,
supposedly, been a secondary issue in the U.S. election campaign. Many
voters now can remember no other geopolitical climate besides the 
nuclear stalemate, and the last firing of a nuclear weapon in anger was
a long time ago.  The balance of terror is a supremely important, but
unpleasant issue.  It is eternally there, and its innumerable 
technicalities have become vaguely blurred, beyond hope of intelligent 
resolution.

     As the election campaign rolls on, meanwhile, the leading 
candidates are adopting converging positions on the crucial issues of
domestic policy that command the heated attention of the electorate.
And at this stage of the negotiations, what could either Nixon or
Humphrey possibly say that would credibly distinguish their policies
on the termination of the war?

     But we do face an era of Chinese nuclear capability, and the
policies with which we face it may well determine whether there is
an administration after the next one.  If the candidates are searching
for a difference, nuclear policy should be the area where they
can scarcely deny it.  The question is, how clearly will they 
articulate the problem so that the electorate will have a clear choice?
In fact, the battle line might already be drawn over the intricacies
of the ABM, the antiballistic missile project.

     Secretary McNamara, judging from his Montreal speech, may have
been the most liberal member of Mr. Johnson's Cabinet.  "We still
tend to conceive of national security almost solely as a state of
armed readiness: a vast awesome arsenal of weaponry."  However, "a
nation can reach the point at which it does not buy more security
for itself by buying more military hardware--we are at that point.
The decisive factor for a powerful nation -- already adequately
armed -- is the character of its relationships with the world."

     Last September, under extraordinary pressure from Congress,
McNamara announced approval for the Sentinel system of active 
defense, with ABM hardware, of major U.S. ICBM launching sites.
This decision has provoked continuing debate among nuclear scientists.

     Strictly construed, sentinel is simply another means of hardening
the launch sites against a first strike by an adversary, preferably
one foolish enough to use grossly insufficient forces to begin with.
The technicalities of its cost-effectiveness are beyond public reach
and by themselves not a preeminent issue.  It is obvious, however,
that sentinel is widely regarded as a trial exercise for a major 
commitment to partial ABM defense of cities, with a built-in escalation
under political pressure to the order of a $50-billion investment. 
Far worse is the implication that such a system can have just
one important utility, to protect the United States from retaliation
for a preemptive thermonuclear attack on China.  This implication does
not have to be the intended one to work its effect on the character
of our relationships with the world or, indeed, upon our own character.

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