When Push Came to Shove

Hustling to head off a Senate defeat on AWACS

Opposition has surged, then faltered, then lately surged again. Now the final tally is too close to call. The Reagan Administration appears to have tried everything from crude offers of pork-barrel projects to invocations of biblical Armageddon to defend its proposed sale of AWACS radar planes to Saudi Arabia. Yet when the Senate votes on the sale this week, conceded Reagan's Senate proconsul, G.O.P Leader Howard Baker, "it may still be lost."

Something would be lost even in victory. Approval of the sale would enrage...

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