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There was some feeling, however, that Reagan's challenge to a system of deterrence that is based on the threat of mutual destruction could be a welcome element in the debate over nuclear policy. "Reagan now suggests that we slowly start investigating whether in the next century technology may offer a solution to our security that does not rest on the prospect of mass and mutual death," noted the Washington Post. "It is the product of Ronald Reagan's peculiar knack for asking an obvious question, one that has moral as well as political dimensions and one that the experts had assumed had been answered, or found unanswerable, or found not worth asking, long ago."
Moscow's response was far less generous. For the second time since coming to power, Andropov chose to respond personally to a U.S. initiative through an interview with Pravda. He began by conceding that part of what Reagan said was correct: "True, the Soviet Union did strengthen its defense capability. Faced with feverish U.S. efforts to establish military bases near Soviet territory, to develop ever new types of nuclear and other weapons, the U.S.S.R. was compelled to do so." But then he struck back, saying of his American counterpart: "He tells a deliberate lie asserting that the Soviet Union does not observe its own moratorium on the deployment of medium-range missiles [in Europe]." When he addressed Reagan's idea of space-age defensive ABMs, Andropov became heated. "It is a bid to disarm the Soviet Union in the face of the U.S. nuclear threat," he said. The relation between offensive and defensive weapons cannot be severed, he argued. "It is time Washington stopped devising one option after another in search of the best ways of unleashing nuclear war in the hope of winning it. Engaging in this is not just irresponsible, it is insane."
Reagan invited a group of 52 scientists and national security experts to the White House Wednesday night to view his speech and be briefed by top officials. Some of those who attended, such as Teller and David Packard, a co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard Co., were longtime advocates of ABM research. Said Packard: "Technology has moved ahead to the point where we could design a ballistic missile defense system which could be fully effective. If both sides had a defensive system, it would be stabilizing."
But other scientists who were at the White House briefing, including Victor Weisskopf of M.I.T., Hans Bethe of Cornell and Simon Ramo of TRW Inc., are troubled by the plan. "I don't think it can be done," says Bethe, a Nobel laureate in physics. "What is worse, it will produce a star war if successful." Ramo, one of the developers of the ballistic missile, likes the idea in theory but says, "We don't know how to do it." He also worries about the awesome offensive power that would be inherent in what are conceived of as defensive weapons. Asks Ramo: "Who says that this technique will be used only to knock out missiles in the sky? If it's such a good technique, why not use it to knock out things on the ground?"