
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 14, 1990                   TAG: 9003143115
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/5   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HUNTSVILLE, ALA.                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROGUE-MISSILE DEFENSE ENDORSED

The head of the Army's Star Wars anti-missile research endorses the idea of building a limited U.S.-based defense against an accidental or rogue launch of Soviet nuclear missiles.

"We're very interested in it here," said Gen. Robert Hammond, commander of the Strategic Defense Command, whose anti-missile work accounts for about one-third of the Pentagon's total effort to develop a defense against globe-circling ballistic missiles.

Many members of Congress, including Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have advocated a limited Star Wars defense that could protect against an accidental or unauthorized Soviet missile launch. The Pentagon has been cool to the idea, and the Bush administration has not officially endorsed it.

Supporters of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the formal name for Star Wars, fear that emphasis on a limited protection system would turn the nation away from former President Reagan's grander original vision announced seven years ago of building a space-based defense against a full-scale Soviet attack.

In a wide-ranging interview with a group of reporters visiting the Army's Advanced Research Center, where SDI work is conducted, Hammond said he liked the idea of a limited defense because it would use weapons and tracking systems already under development by the Army. The Air Force is in charge of most space-based elements of Star Wars research.

The main feature of a limited system would be ground-based interceptor rockets designed to destroy incoming ballistic missiles before they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. One hundred such rockets could be deployed at a single U.S. site without violating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

In earlier comments, Hammond was more upbeat about the outlook for Star Wars. He said that despite recent cutbacks in SDI spending, President Bush still should be able to make a decision soon on whether to move from research, development and testing to actual deployment.

by CNB