Stage Two for Star Wars

Even as the Reagan Administration, represented by Secretary of State George Shultz, was concluding a successful series of talks with the Soviets, the Reagan Administration, represented by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, was preparing to accelerate a program that the Soviets consider a major obstacle to arms control. Weinberger has decided that the Strategic Defense Initiative will graduate to the Milestone I stage, a Pentagon term meaning that the system is ready to pass from "exploration" to "demonstration." Star Wars, so far tested mostly in theory, will move beyond the blackboard and toward the battlefield.

Six key SDI-related systems will be evaluated: three are intended to track and monitor Soviet ICBM launches, two would fire interceptors to destroy the attacking missiles, and one is a "battle-management" computer for coordinating the entire space- and ground-based program. Using computer simulation, test models and flight testing, the Pentagon will try to determine how well the elements of these systems will work.

Although the hardware to be tested is relatively conventional compared with the laser beams and nuclear-generated X rays proposed for the future, the six systems involved would be central to the initial deployment of any antimissile system envisioned by this Administration. Lieut. General James Abrahamson, head of SDI, is explicit about the purpose of Milestone I. "We'd like to reach a position where in the 1990s we will be able to go ahead with deployment," he says, "and to do that we need the enhanced confidence gained from additional testing." Equally important, the tests will give new momentum to SDI, making it more difficult for the next President to scrap the system.

Many in the scientific community, and even some in the defense establishment, believe that testing is premature. In July members of a panel created to advise the Pentagon's defense acquisition board concluded that the decision to move SDI into Milestone I should be delayed one or two years. Calling the first-phase design "still quite sketchy," the panel found that a "great deal of progress has been made, but much remains to be done before a confident decision can be made to proceed."

The Defense Department insists that by testing only parts of SDI this second phase will still conform to the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which prohibits the development, testing or deployment of any new ABM system. But the Administration is chafing for a broader interpretation to accommodate expanded SDI development.

That has many in Congress worried. Last week the Senate voted 58-38 in favor of a provision that would bar the Pentagon from spending any funds on SDI testing that goes beyond the narrow interpretation of the ABM treaty. The provision, offered by Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, is tied to the $302 billion defense authorization bill. Similar language is included in the House version of the military spending bill. Both are seen as a direct challenge to the President's plans to move ahead with SDI, and Reagan has threatened to veto the defense budget rather than accept the congressional interference.