New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 01:48pm Jun 6, 2003 EST (# 12358 of 12363)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Robkettenburg03 - 12352 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.hRspbsqKdXg.636487@.f28e622/14002 asks about my military service. I've dealt with that before.

I served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1970-1977 as an enlisted man. There are checkable points involved.

12267 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.hRspbsqKdXg.636487@.f28e622/13915 includes this:

For an atomizing nozzle that was a dual purpose device - a way of investigating mixing fluid mechanics, for internal combusion engine emission control and other purposes - - and also an idea that interested people at Ft. Dietrick concerned with preparation of anthrax and other spores. The idea was that if you could flash dry an aerosol where, odds were, there was only one spore per droplet . . you could get some very "good" agents. I wasn't exactly proud to work on that. But I did. Under false pretenses, too.

Did much of that work at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, as an investment of the University - - and penetrating some classification defenses - and giving a report of scramjet mixing. ( The effort got messed up when I got a very low draft number - and had to get into a Army Reserve unit on a day's notice, and go to basic training - leaving a couple of my friends stranded at APL while I did that time.

Note - Milton Eisenhower told me to go to an Army Reserve station, take an aptitude test - and serve my time. It was a small breaking of the rules - and I would have gone to Vietnam if asked - but it seemed a reasonable compromise. I served seven years in the Army Reserve - not working at it very hard - but doing my duty as I saw it, and getting a "feel" for military administration from an enlisted perspective.

- - - -

I don't have "the average military man's" perspective - wasn't supposed to - but I worked on the problems I was assigned to do. The assignments came from people I thought had sufficient rank to make that work both an honor and a duty.

lchic - 04:48pm Jun 6, 2003 EST (# 12359 of 12363)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Eisenhower, Milton Stover, 1899–1985, American educator and public official, b. Abilene, Kansas, grad. Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, 1924; brother of Dwight David Eisenhower. After a brief teaching career, he served in the Foreign Service and the Agriculture Department. In 1942 he was asked to direct the relocation of Japanese-Americans in California. In 1943 he became president of his alma mater. He was later president of Pennsylvania State Univ. (1950–56) and of Johns Hopkins Univ. (1956–67, 1969–70). He served as a close adviser to his brother on foreign policy, most notably as special ambassador for Latin American affairs (1957–60). In 1968–69 he was chairman of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. His book The Wine Is Bitter (1963) describes his experiences in Latin America; The President Is Calling (1973) distills his thoughts on political compromise and the responsibilities of leadership. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0816901.html

------

Ike bio

http://www.polisci.com/almanac/exec/potus/eisenhower.htm

- Today, the name Eisenhower is synonymous with dynamic leadership in a complex international environment.

- Eisenhower had the knack of saying the right thing to gain others' cooperation. His strong personality and overwhelming good nature inspired trust. Classmates regarded him as a natural leader who looked for ways to smooth over disputes and organize a group's efforts toward a common goal.

- Marshall knew Eisenhower by reputation as a man who would assume responsibility, but he put that reputation to a test immediately. When Eisenhower reported for duty, Marshall posed a problem to which he already knew the answer. He asked for a recommendation on how the entire Pacific strategy should be handled. Eisenhower returned to the Chief of Staff s office a few hours later and briefed a strategic concept with which Marshall agreed. The Chief of Staff ended the interview with clear instructions. "Eisenhower," he said, "the Department is filled with able men who analyze their problems well but feel compelled always to bring them to me for final solution. I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they have done."

- Eisenhower approached his job by trying to put himself into Marshall's place and resolve a problem the way his chief would do it, had he the time. The results were good, and Marshall soon gave Eisenhower increasingly demanding problems that tested his abilities to the fullest.

- Eisenhower drafted a document that was in effect a precis of the next three years of the war. He observed that there were many desirable objectives the alliance might pursue, but warned that the resources did not exist to tackle every problem. Instead, he wrote, it was crucial to concentrate exclusively on those operations that were necessary to defeat the Axis. In his view, such a resolutely disciplined strategic conception offered the only hope of victory.

In a tightly focused summary, he sketched the actions necessary to prevent defeat while the Allies armed and organized themselves to take the offensive. Holding rigidly to the distinction between the necessary and the desirable, Eisenhower delineated a plan that included security for the North American arsenal, maintenance of Great Britain, and lend-lease to keep the Soviet Union in the war.

- The Supreme Allied Command in Europe would never have worked without Eisenhower, for he virtually invented the concept of Allied unity of command and persuaded the British to accept it in lieu of the committee system to which they were accustomed. His personal qualities played a large part in gaining acceptance of a much more centralized and powerful Allied command

- Since the days of his tutorials with Fox Conner, he had despised rigid adherence to preconceived plans as unimaginative, closed-minded, and potentially dangerous. Thus, while

(4 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense