As a former Secretary of the Air Force, Missouri Senator Stuart Symington has developed a keen sensitivity to one sign of the approach of spring. "Here we go again," he sighed last week, as he noted the emergence of "warnings of grave new dangers to this country because of developments in Soviet weaponry." The annual congressional committee hearings on defense appropriations were under way and, sure enough, U.S. military intelligence had detected evidence that the Soviet Union might be deploying a new intercontinental ballistic missile.
The news surfaced in a curious way. President...