New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 07:22am Jun 26, 2001 EST (#6057 of 6058)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I say here that I knew Bill Casey a little.

And of course, everything's deniable - I'm not sure anybody has any records at all. Maybe I'm a literary figure -- call me Ishmael.

The story I like best about me, in this regard, is that I'm just a guy who got interested in logic, and military issues. A guy who got concerned about nuclear danger, and related military balances, and tried to do something about it. Based on what he knew - with no access to special information of any kind, he made an effort to keep the world from blowing up, using the best literary devices he could fashion, consistent with what he knew or could guess.

Let me go on with another story.

I don't think of Casey as a critter, a phrase Dawn used above -- though he was capable of almost any evil at all. In fact, though I have mixed feelings, some of those feelings for Casey are of great respect. In significant ways, Casey's sophistication and morality seem to me to much exceed the sophistication and morality of the leaders who succeeded him.

I didn't talk to Casey often, but during the '70's and 80's we had a number of meetings, each about 2 hours long, each at the Hotel Pierre in New York.

They were intense, careful, interesting meetings -- and I left them, every time, with a lot of respect for Casey's intelligence and sophistication. I also left with real feelings, but not unmixed ones, that Casey had a real and intense desire to act in good faith when he felt he could. I also left those meetings relieved. But still afraid, though not so afraid as I was when I went into them.

In my interaction with The New York Times , I've been doing just exactly what Casey coached me to do -- ordered me to do -- what I promised Casey I would do.

When I got a problem solved (really several problems solved) after giving people a chance to take me in through other channels -- I was to come in through The New York Times. Casey thought that was what was going to have to happen -- but thought it had to be a last resort .. I should try other things -- things I did try -- first. ... But Casey felt that the TIMES was a last resort that would work. The TIMES would have the connections, when the situation seemed right, to get things moving gracefully and well -- the way America, in Casey's view, and mine, was supposed to work.

When I figured out the "buried problem" in applied mathematics, and "figured out how to really talk to the Russians" -- and figured out what a stable stand-down of nuclear terror was to be like -- I was to come in. They wanted the answers, but weren't sure how they'd accomodate them, and would have to sort it out at the time.

Its been rougher than that, for reasons, I believe, that Casey might be ashamed of.

I've been doing my duty, I believe -- making decisions I've felt I had to. In this regard, a phrase that Casey used in an answer to me occurs. He said, with a twinkle in his eye -- but a menacing twinkle (people who knew Casey may remember such twinkles) that, under difficult circumstances "it was easier to get forgiveness, than it was to get permission."

I've often thought, writing on these forums, about whether I've been keeping faith with Bill Casey -- doing things that, on balance, he would have thought reasonable, and right, on balance, under the circumstances. So far, weighing what I've known and believed -- I've always judged that I have. I believe that now.

rshowalter - 07:23am Jun 26, 2001 EST (#6058 of 6058)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'm needing to weigh what to do - and while I do so, I'd like to post links to a Guardian thread where I've said many of the most important things I'd like people to know. Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0

including the key story, #13.. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/13 ...to #23.. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/24

note #26 ... http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/25

To see many references to this that thread, and to the movie Casablanca , search "casablanca" for this thread.

Here are some postings connected to the Casablanca story that interest me especially today.

MD3044 rshowalter 5/2/01 5:31pm .... MD3045 rshowalter 5/2/01 5:31pm
MD3046 rshowalter 5/2/01 5:32pm ...

MD3831rshowalter 5/14/01 12:09pm .... MD3523 rshowalter 5/8/01 4:12pm

Summaries and links to this Missile Defense thread are set out from #153 in http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/159
MD4778 rshowalter 6/11/01 7:31pm

gisterme , raises the threat that I'm committing treason. I think not. I also think that the people saying so have been in such violation of the real interests of the United States, for so long, that they may not know what treason is --- because they have come to embody it themselves.

They may have much good in them, too. The world is a complex place.

We shouldn't let the world blow up. As of now, it could.

And the world is far, far uglier than it needs to be, because people don't face up to facts, and deal, as responsible human beings, with things as they are.

Lies are dangerous. We need to deal with some of them, that keep the Cold War going, when we should put it behind us.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense