AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY: SCIENCE IN THE SERVICE OF POLITICS The American Physical Society report on Directed Energy Weapons was deployed as a weapon against US strategic defenses before physicists even had a chance to read it. One day after the draft was released, the Council of the APS issued a press release warning against early deployment of SDI components, even though the kinetic energy systems under consideration were specifically not discussed in the report. The report and its attached but irrelevant press release were used by many Congressmen as a reason for voting against funds for SDI. Three months after debate on the Defense Authorization Bill was over, 14 of the 17 authors of the report signed a letter protesting the fact that the APS Council statement was joined to a summary of their study. "We object to being included in the council's statements on matters neither we nor they studied" (Physics Today, Oct. 1987). Nevertheless, one of the letter's signatories, Dr. Thomas Johnson, did not see fit to mention it at the Second Nuclear War and Peace Education Conference at George Mason University on Oct. 30. Rather, he denied that there was anything unscientific about the report, or any basis to the technical criticisms that have been raised. The letter, in contrast to the report itself, made no front page news. The countermeasures usually postulated by antidefense activists (the fast-burn booster, rotation of the booster, and ablative shielding) are considered at length in the report. Serious errors occur in every instance, and all are in the same direction: exaggerating the difficulties of the defense, and grossly understating the problems of the would-be aggressor. The usefulness of the mythical fast-burn booster is refuted on the very same page that concludes it would be highly effective. The same atmosphere that would shield the bus from beam weapons would also produce a drag effect, degrading accuracy and sorting out the decoys. Therefore, the warheads could not be deployed within the atmosphere, even if the booster burned out there. Additionally, the problems of actually building a 30 to 40 g ICBM booster (not at all the same as the Sprint) are glossed over: some believe it impossible given current technology. Rotating the booster is proposed as an easy retrofit to existing missiles. However, centrifugal forces would make it impossible to spin a liquid-fueled rocket, such as the SS-18, and solid-fueled rockets would require major design changes. The walls of the missile would have to be strengthened (at the cost of diminishing the payload), and the inertial navigation unit would have to be completely redesigned. Ablative shielding might protect the missile against chemical lasers, though not against x-ray lasers, excimer lasers, or neutral particle beams. The APS specifically calculated that three of the ten warheads from an SS-18 would have to be offloaded. But they assumed that the shielding would be distributed over the various stages of the rocket in proportion to their mass, rather than their surface area, a basic conceptual error that even a house painter could comprehend. The correct method leads to the conclusion that nearly all the warheads would have to be sacrificed: instant disarmament. The APS issued a "point-by-point rebuttal" to each of the above criticisms. In essence, they said: (1) We used a different definition of "boost phase." (2) Yes they can too be retrofitted. Some unnamed engineers said so. (3) "Our clearly stated intent was not to present a particular calculation for a particular missile....the fundamental purpose of the Group's work [was] tutorial." This "tutorial" was acclaimed by a "peer review" panel of six, of whom five have taken a public stand against SDI. It was presented to Congress as the authoritative work on SDI, even though it bypassed the usual mechanisms for correcting errors, and completely neglects currently available technology. (Wood, L and Canavan, Opening statement before US House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services, and testimony before Defense Policy Panel, Sept 15, 1987.) QUOTABLES: "Significant cheating is more likely to occur at covert facilities than at heavily observed sites....No intrusive verification system will work effectively if either party chooses to thwart it." (Krepon, M: High stakes in INF verification, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists June, 1987.) "Do we know that the Soviets have only 440 SS-20 missiles?" asked Tom Bethell. "No," said Manfred Eimer, director of the Verification and Intelligence Bureau, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. "Do we know how many they do have?" asked Mr. Bethell. "No," replied Mr. Eimer (Wall Street Journal Sept 25,1987). NEWS BRIEFS: Iran and the Soviet Union have agreed to a friendship treaty. This includes military assistance, the construction of a railroad from the Soviet border to the Persian Gulf, and an oil pipeline to the Soviet Union (Third World Week Aug 10, 1987). Peace activist Sergei Svetushkin, member of the Moscow Group for the Establishment of Trust Between East and West, was sentenced to a year in prison on fabricated charges of evading alimony payments (Samizdat Bulletin, June 1987). More glasnost: CNN, ABC and CBS camera crews had their cables cut while taping a demonstration by Jewish "refuseniks" in Moscow (Washington Times Oct 15, 1987). Hughes Aircraft was denied permission to launch communications satellites on board Soviet Proton rockets. The Soviets are ready to accept customers immediately, while Ariane-space is booked through 1990. The US doesn't have a space transport system (Science Oct 2, 1987).