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Show 38toy Giprfs eoiiGit m eestoleoi Mil syetGii Five senior military experts ex-perts today released a statement state-ment condemning the 1000-shelfer 1000-shelfer MX system which is reportedly close to being adopted by the Reagan administration. ad-ministration. The five are: Rear Adm. (Ret.) Eugene J. Carroll, Jr. (Deputy Director Dir-ector of the Center for Defense De-fense Information), Rear Adm. (Ret) Henry E. Eccles (author of Military Power and a Free Society), Maj. Gen. (Ret) William T. Fair-bourn Fair-bourn (former Senior Strategic Stra-tegic Planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and Dr. Herbert Scoville, Jr. (former Deputy Director of the CIA). The experts' statement follows : The rumored plan to place 100 MX missiles in a 1000 shelter system in a single county in Nevada is a prime example of the absurdities that can follow when stra. te gists are replaced by politicians. pol-iticians. The justification for the MX program has been that the U.S. land-based missiles are theoretically vulnerable to a Soviet pre-emptive strike. While the original Carter proposed system of 200 missiles in 4600 shelters would not have succeeded in curing this theoretical vulnerability, vul-nerability, a scaled-down version with only 1000 shelters shel-ters fails even more abysmally abys-mally to achieve the MX program's pro-gram's stated purpose. But even more importantly this half -a -loaf MX system remains a serious threat to the nuclear balance by virtue of its counterforce capability. cap-ability. Deployment of these 1000 counterforce warheads -effective against Soviet missiles mis-siles only if fired first would drive the U.S.S.R. toward a hair-trigger nuclear posture pos-ture and move the two nations perhaps irrevocably into a wide open arms race in which the only course of action would be to out -build the adversary, a process which has no end. This 100 missile, 1000 shelter MX proposal is clearly only'a partial system, a down payment; pay-ment; a series of further increments would be virtually virtu-ally certain. .. If these 1000 shelter MX system rumors are correct, then we will witness another example of proceeding with a dangerous and expensive military program which will detract from, rather than add to, our national security. |