Subject: Russian Officials Say They Couldn't Keep Up with SDI

Russian officials: We couldn't 
keep up with SDI

On Feb. 26, as the tenth anniversary
approached of President Ronald Reagan's announcement of
the Strategic Defense Initiative on March, 23, 1983,
officials of the former Soviet Union came to a
Princeton, New Jersey conference and admitted that the
Soviet Union's attempt to match the SDI was the
primary cause of collapse of the Soviet Union. 
   Former Foreign Minister Aleksandr Bessmertnykh
told the gathering: ``We were told, even before SDI, the
U.S. had suddenly changed course and begun an enormous
buildup. SDI made us realize we were in a very
dangerous spot.'' 
   According to the {Washington Post} of Feb.
27, ``The officials said Gorbachov was convinced
any attempt to match Reagan's Strategic Defense
Initiative, launched in 1983 to build a space-based
defense against missiles, would do irreparable harm
to the Soviet economy.''
   Also featured at the Princeton conference was the
release, after a decade of being classified ``top
secret,'' of American intelligence agencies' August 1982
report on ``Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear
Conflict, 1982-1992.'' This assessment, used by
President Reagan in preparing his SDI announcement,
documents the fact that Soviet military training
exercises and buildup were shifting toward a nuclear
first-strike capability, as the ``warning times'' got
shorter and shorter for one superpower to fire back
after nuclear bombardment, especially in the European
military theater. 
   The study, however, never mentioned the
possibility of a new American strategic defense
doctrine, which was to be announced by Reagan only
months later. Indeed, the SDI did not originate with
the Pentagon. As late as one week before President
Reagan's televised bombshell, representatives of Lyndon
LaRouche
met at the Pentagon with 10 officers of the Air Force
and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and were
told point blank that no such new strategy was being
contemplated. Former Secretary of State George Shultz,
speaking at the Princeton conference, said the Joint
Chiefs of Staff ``were floored'' by the President's
speech on March 23, 1983. 

From Executive Intelligence Review V20, #13.