Secrets of the Strategic Defense Initiative

Declassified CIA docs on Reagan’s “Star Wars” strategy show difficult balance between projecting power - and projecting too much power

Source

Lets get started.

EXCERPTS FROM THE DOCUMENT "STAR WARS NOW"
Document Number (FOIA) / ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP96-00788R001900680015-3

PDF: Download


Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 1983

On March 23, 1983 in a televised address to the nation, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced his intention to embark upon groundbreaking research into a national defense system that could make nuclear weapons obsolete. The research took a number of forms which collectively were called the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI.

The main focus of the SDI program was to develop a space-based missile defense system that could defend an entire country from a large-scale nuclear attack. The idea relied on both current and experimental technology, which included advanced laser systems that had not yet been developed.

The CIA’s database tells two parallel stories: Searching for “Star Wars” shows the very public PR battles over the program, including debates about its price and efficacy, while searching for “Strategic Defense Initiative” shows the less public, but no less delicate, internal battles around how the program was perceived among agency heads and foreign nations.

The CREST database was published online after a MuckRock lawsuit proved mostly successful, giving us new insight into the Cold War missile defense program (SDI), being developed by the US. The CIA was very mindful of the public's perception, but even more nervous about the Soviets learning that the program was too powerful for it's time, which would lead to an offensive arms race between both countries.


For example:

One PR program appears to have boosted favorable books that aligned with the CIA’s goals, while allegedly slowing down the publication of books that did not promote the accepted narrative.

One of the books they liked? Alun Chalfont’s Star Wars: Suicide or Survival? Agency personnel recommended Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey write the author a congratulatory note:

The CIA also had a clipping from New York magazine’s "Intelligencer" column, claiming that the CIA had deliberately slowed the pre-publication release of one book, while the Pentagon simultaneously rushed the release of a report that undermined the impact of the book’s claims.

There are literally hundreds of newspaper clippings contained in the CREST database that indicate the CIA had a vested interest and duty to manipulate the public's perception of the program.


The clipping below is another great example, highlighting our academia’s concern at the time that classified, government funded research was stifling academic freedom. That is, until they sold-out to the same funding.

In fact, three different former directors of the CIA weighed in at various points on the program, often providing a minor “course correction” to public expectations about the utility of the missile defense system.

From the Washington Times:

Privately, discussion was more nuanced. Casey, for example, had concerns that the program was putting the cart before the horse, and not sufficiently factoring in what the Soviets would actually think of the deterrence program.

Other reports detail Chinese concerns with the program as well as feedback from the European allies (mostly supportive, as long as they could reap some of the benefits).

And now... ladies and gentleman, we have reached the aluminum foil stage of this thread. Until the CREST database was published, there was only so much data available regarding the SDI. If you thought that “Star Wars” was just another term cooked up by outspoken, conservative pundits, think again.

This is why I became an ATS member.

Another, More Secretive Star Wars program?

Inside the CIA’s declassified vaults is actually mention of another program called Star Wars, and one that seemed to even more summon the destructive power of its Hollywood inspiration.

A document entitled “Star Wars Now” (linked above), details research that scientists hope would allow them to jam enemy communications while disguising the source of the interference (researchers said that it would look like the threat was coming from inside enemy lines).

Ultimately, however, they hoped that they could leverage the Aharonov-Bohm effect to unleash nuclear bomb-level forces, projected from a distant transmitter.

The MuckRock article states that the technology, “never appears to have reached fruition,” but after reading the information contained in the “Star Wars Now” document, it’s hard to believe that such capabilities were not pursued. In my opinion, they go “dark” and turn into the dreams of conspiracy theorists.

Here is an excerpt from the document below:


Do yourself a favor and read all three pages in their entirety. From a healthy skeptic’s perspective, it all sounds too good to be true and is the reason why I decided to make this thread.


I wonder if the information was designed as propaganda, used to scare the Soviets into deescalating the war. If the US could sell a concept to them as a tangible threat, they would likely go bankrupt building up a defense against a nonexistent threat.

So, without further ado, here is CIA-RDP96-00788R001900680015-3:


files.abovetopsecret.com...


files.abovetopsecret.com...


files.abovetopsecret.com...

The implications of the information above are staggering.

(I'm out of empty spaces)

Thank you for reading.

I have often wondered where the trillions of unaccounted dollars disappear to... No accounting, No GAO, nothing as if just business as usual.

Well done thread S&F salute

originally posted by: eisegesis
Part of me thinks that the information was designed as propaganda ...

I can assure you, it was anything other than a propaganda program. I don't know successful the three prongs (I was aware of) became. One of them reached a level of maturity and was moved away from the site where I worked.

I have worked around smart people all my life. I haven't worked around people 'that smart' since way back when.

a reply to: eisegesis

Star and flag just because I found "Thomas E. Bearden is a claimed inventor of various "overunity systems" (perpetual motion) and free energy devices. He is also an advocate of scalar waves." rationalwiki.org...

I had always enjoyed reading his stuff but could never be sure if it was real or just a bit fictitious . Either way it was always interesting to read much like your post ...thanks I may as well add this vid

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Partially real. But his scalar waves is bupkis.
He does touch on sone interesting stuff with his phase conjugation talk.

a reply to: eisegesis

The implications of the information above are staggering.

Imagine the information yet to be uncovered...might make a few synapses misfire - permanently.

We don't always get along, but that won't stop me from recognizing a great thread and appreciating members like yourself.

Top Shelf...

Mad scientists.
Spooks.
mass media control
Star wars?
Doomsday weapons!
Prototype HAARP?
Sounds like a party to me

Just left out aliens.

FLAGGED!

The work alone this should be appreciated. Been mostly dry news around here lately, and here I was thinking finally the place might be ready for some big hard hitting deep reaching pieces to roll out.

Great post.. thankyou

a reply to: eisegesis

If it really was just that... how did Boeing manage to destroy missiles with propaganda?

Though the strategic missile defense concept has continued to the present under the Missile Defense Agency, most of the directed-energy weapon concepts were shelved. However, Boeing has been somewhat successful with the Boeing YAL-1 and Boeing NC-135, the first of which destroyed two missiles in February 2010. Funding has been cut to both of the programs.

Wiki - directed energy weapons

...shelved, funding has been cut for a successful program. Sounds familiar? Dark, dark, dark they go.

a reply to: PublicOpinion

Spending all that money had to have yielded some useful technology, even if lots of research wasnt fruitful.

a reply to: eisegesis

I've "thumbed through this material and find that it is more of a disinfo piece than a discussion of the real SDI program that was to put weapons platforms in low earth orbits.

The real guts of the SDI was the creation of the US Space Force as taken from the US Air Force backed book Military Space Forces: the Next 50 Years by John M. Collins and commissioned by the US Congress in 1989 so their low-brow brethren could somewhat understand what was being done in space.

Basically, as I've reported many times on this site, the whole program was to make the US the supreme controller of space out to and including the area of the Moon.

Personally, I have no doubt that by this time they have secured the necessary facilities in space and on the Moon. Frankly, we should assume that they have also moved on to Mars by this time via the aid of the mysterious black triangles or similar UFO-derived technologies.

a reply to: PublicOpinion

Because they weren't successful. For the YAL-1 to be able to destroy a missile in the boost phase, which was what it was designed to do since they can't hit in the terminal phase, they had to be orbiting over hostile territory, almost on top of the launch site.

Trying to park a 747 over hostile territory would be a guarantee of losing them faster than you could replace them. You'd have no anti laser capability within the first few hours. You also couldn't park them there until they were actively launching, or they'd just start shooting them down before they even launched.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Id use a satellite in geo synchronous orbit masquerading as some normal sat. . With a PC rig and do the 511 thing. Just so long as its scaleable. (Which it is) You got the power (which is probable) and you have no ionosphere noise to screw with targeting. And you have the software set up to finess it fast enough to do its thing. Take out the missiles one after the other. If youre worried about the ionosphere just have something orbit below the ionosphere for a few days at a time before coming down (gliding in and landing) and being replaced by another vehicle similarily out fitted so you have persistant coverage of trouble spots 24/7

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Uh yeah, to say the least...

For those not knowing why this particular part is interesting, it's basically the bedrock LPI/LPD (LOW PROBABILITY OF INTERCEPT/DETECTION) radar systems are built on today.

It's also why there's very real talk out there of offensive and destructive ranged electronic warfare capabilities possibly built into things like the F35 radar.

a reply to: eisegesis

You finished up the thread with these words:

"I wonder if the information was designed as propaganda, used to scare the Soviets into deescalating the war. If the US could sell a concept to them as a tangible threat, they would likely go bankrupt building up a defense against a nonexistent threat."

So after at the end of the piece you tell us that you have some reservations about the jumble of material that you provided?

The real story about SDI starts with a discussion that Reagan had with the Russian President in Helsinki, I believe it was in 1985. He asked Gorbachev to join with the US in building the program, citing that it would be protection for both of us from a enemy from afar. (Some thought that that enemy was aliens and some thought that it was China.) Later back home, Gorbachev told his people that he declined the offer to join us as Russia needed first a lot of simple improvements to daily life such as milking machines.

I have revealed several times on ATS that the true SDI program was far different than the red herrings thrown out for public consumption. The details are in the 1989 book Military Space Forces:The Next 50 Years. ISBN 0-08-037432-8. Its dedication is rather strange: "To America's Military Space Forces: Whose purpose is to protect this country's interests against aggression from or in space." It was commissioned by the US Congress and published through an Air Force Association. It was written for the Congress as an explanation for how tax money should be appropriated. And it's a dumbed down way of explaining to members of Congress what the space race was all about. The guts of the book is told at the start of page one with a rendering of oft quoted words of Halford J. Mackinder's Heartland Theory as adapted for space.

"Who rules circumterrestrial space commands Planet Earth;
Who rules the moon commands circumterrestrial space;
Who rules L4 and L5 commands the Earth-Moon System."

The book goes on to describe how the US Space Force will will organized from the services and its duties. Deep inside it coyly mentions the International Space Treaty signed back in the 1960s by most modern nations but the book is not about peace, it is about military ventures by the US virtually out of this world that reach back to control it.

The book contains not one word about the previous hubbub over some impossible sounding secret weapon that, ah, wasn't so secret. So what was the goal of those massive funds? What did the money buy, equipment, orbit weapons platforms, new transport devices that would put secret bases on the Moon if not Mars, what?

What ARE the vegas ODDS on an existent NSAP?

a reply to: eisegesis

Ugh, look at the supposed source, Tom Bearden. It's total "alternative physics", i.e. unmitigated bull #. Aharonov-Bohm effect is real, everything else in that document.....

There's no such thing as his mythical 'scalar wave' which supposedly is the power behind all this magic technology, and Godzilla's breath, etc.

Back then, there were also delusional hucksters trying to get $$$ from ignorant program managers.

originally posted by: mbkennel
a reply to: eisegesis

Ugh, look at the supposed source, Tom Bearden. It's total "alternative physics", i.e. unmitigated bull #. Aharonov-Bohm effect is real, everything else in that document.....

There's no such thing as his mythical 'scalar wave' which supposedly is the power behind all this magic technology, and Godzilla's breath, etc.

Back then, there were also delusional hucksters trying to get $$$ from ignorant program managers.

If it's just pseudo science BS, why are the CIA interested in it?

a reply to: Mandy555

because the Company spends almost as much time on counter intelligence as they do on regular intelligence