(QUESTION INAUDIBLE)

In the technology that we have at Livermore, the free electron laser, we have a growth in the mid-’70s of very powerful accelerator technology that was being developed for shipboard missile defense. Anti-ship missile defense to defend ships against Cruise missiles. Now, in the early ‘80s, in order to see whether we could use these kinds of electron beams or powerful forces of microwave power accelerated to high energy physics for pure research and for fusion, that is power, we found out that we could convert the energy very very efficiently, 40 percent efficiently, from the electron beam into electro-magnetic radiation. That made a dramatic possibility that one could build laser so unprecedentedly high power levels. So, in this example of free electron lasers, that's why that’s... this technology has come to the fore, is that for other reasons we are developing a technology and we had all the success we could have ever hoped for.

LIVERMORE IS A WEAPONS LABORATORY. YOU GUYS HAVE DONE... WEAPONS RESEARCH.

Right.

WHEN YOU COME ACROSS, YOU, COLLECTIVELY, WHEN YOU COME ACROSS A... SYSTEM CAN YOU INSTANTLY SEE THIS WEAPONS... HOW DO YOU, HOW DOES THAT WORK? I MEAN, YOU'RE DEVELOPING THIS FOR ONE THING AND SUDDENLY YOU SEE ANOTHER POSSIBILITY?

Well, at the time we developed the free electron laser, there was already a very strong program in the development of very powerful lasers. Originally, in the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency and then later in the SDI, for space based laser defense, now, many people have been concerned that any object which is in space can be destroyed easily. Once you know, you know how to, that you can build very powerful laser sources that could be located on the ground, then the possibility... rather easily. You’re in a... in which these possibilities are always discussed and you know about the kinds of work that are being pursued by other organizations. So its a very natural kind of thing to think about.

IN AS SIMPLEST TERMS AS YOU CAN, TELL US WHAT A LASER WEAPON IS.

The way that the beam of light destroys something is that the beam of light contains an amount of power, which is extremely large. For example, people often talk about tens or hundreds of megawatts. Now, to put that into some perspective, a kilowatt, a thousand watts is enough, or 2,000 watts is enough to keep somebody supplied with electricity in their homes. So, a million, a few million watts is enough to keep a thousand supplied with electricity in their homes. And we talked about strategic defense with thousands of million mega watts. So, that's the kind of power we're talking about, very high-powered. Now, in these beam weapons, that power is concentrated for very short periods of time, less than a second, on very small spots, maybe so big around... maybe so big around.. That energy is, soaks into the material, the skin of a missile, and heats that to the point of vaporization. So, you literally melt the missile off. If you reduce the amount of the time of the energy is on the missile to even shorter periods, like a millionth of a second, and deliver the same amount of total energy, then, in fact, that vaporized material from the missiles blows off and creates, if you will, a small rocket on the side of the missile, which actually crushes the object. So, that's the other way that these powerful beams can kill objects.

IS IT ANTICIPATED...

If you actually were to shine a laser against a warhead, the warhead could detonate, which is one reason that we talk about doing the actual destruction of the missile in space or in the boost phase when the detonation is over the enemy's territory. Now, the warhead need not detonate. But it is in the, the opponent would have the option to let it detonate, once it's determined it was under attack. Microelectronics nowadays work incredibly rapidly and there is enough time for such decisions to be made, automatically, of course, by the warhead.

...HOW FAR ARE WE FROM THE REALIZATION OF THAT? NOT JUST... BUT BEING ABLE TO ACTUALLY DO THAT?

Before we can really build a powerful beam on the ground to destroy missiles coming from the other side of the earth, we have to do several things. First, we have to show that we can build very powerful lasers, lasers with powers which have never been built before. Secondly, we have to show that we can build light directors, telescopes, inverse telescopes, reverse telescopes, which are big enough so that the defocused light of the lasers does not destroy them. And be able to do that at an affordable price. We have to then show that we can take these unprecedentedly large laser powers and pass them through the air without the air absorbing enough of the energy the laser. And it wouldn't take very much. Such that the air would defocus the laser beam, so that it would be defocused and spread harmlessly in space. We then have to show that we can gather this light up in very large mirrors in space and transmit it, relay it along to a so-called fighting mirror and then focus it back down on to the object. And then we have to show that we can make control systems that can make all of that process work automatically in times which are short compared to a second, maybe a tenth of a second or a hundredth of a second. Because if we're to do strategic defense against an all-out assault we will have a very large number of objects coming up at us in the boost phase which right now is as long as a couple of hundred seconds, could be made to be a few tenths of a second long. So, you'd have to be able to pass from one target to the next. But it's a very long list of very hard technical problems that have to be solved. They are only working on the, on the first stages of those.

WE'RE NOT, ARE WE WORKING ON THOSE PROBLEMS OF...? ARE THERE PEOPLE CONSTRUCTING MIRRORS NOW? ARE WE WORKING ON THOSE SIMULTANEOUSLY?

Well, presently we’re working on every single one of those problems as we're going on. Some areas have more work going on than others. It's not necessarily a uniform balance across the board. But, yes, all of those areas are being worked on and the, the first two, the building of a powerful laser, the building of an appropriate beam director and the testing of whether you can bring the light through space, that is the object of an experiment called the ground based laser integration experiment, which will be conducted by the army at the White Sands Missile Range in the early 1990's. That's, it's ...laser for... experiment which is the focus of all our efforts at Livermore.

IS IT YOUR EXPECTATION THAT WE ARE ESSENTIALLY ON TARGET WITH THAT TIMETABLE FOR EARLY 1990S...?

We are right now limited, certainly we are limited by money that's being, that we can afford, the nation can afford to spend on this.

DOES THE SPEED AT WHICH WE MOVE FORWARD DETERMINE, IS THAT DETERMINED BY THE MONEY WE PUT INTO IT?

It seems like it is. But you actually integrate all of these extremely ambitious advances, all of the one system. It's a difficult job, the difficulty which is hard to express when you haven't even built the pieces yet. So, it may be that we're not that far away from the maximum amount of money we can spend intelligently. We probably could spend in this particular technology area a factor of two more money intelligently. Where that makes sense in terms of a, the real balance across all of the particular jobs that the SDI has to do, like know where the missiles are and then decide what actions have to be taken. That's a very hard judgment to make down, that's the role the SDI office in Washington. But skipping that question, right now we are, we could go considerably faster had we the funds.

I HAVE TWO REACTIONS TO WHAT YOU'VE JUST BEEN TALKING ABOUT AND ONE IS I'VE GROWN UP IN A TIME WHERE I'VE SEEN MIRACLES TAKE PLACE. I'VE SEEN COMPUTERS GO FROM MECHANICAL THAT GO UP AND DOWN TO TAKE A FAST... TO DO RELATIVELY SIMPLE COMPUTATIONS TO MINIATURE CHIPS THAT DO MUCH MORE. SO, I SAY TO MYSELF NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE. ON THE OTHER HAND, AS I HEAR YOU, I SAY TO MYSELF, WE ARE A LONG LONG WAY FROM THIS BEING ANY KIND OF A REALITY. DO YOU HAVE A COMMENT ON THAT SPECTRUM?

We do have a very long way. The only, and if you look at all of the technological miracles that are required to go from where the technology of lasers, of ground based lasers of today, to where it would have to be, you could be, you could get very discouraged. However, if you look at the speed at which each of the components of technology have developed, it's very easy to say that it is certainly a prudent gamble on the part of the nation to invest in this technology. That is, we have a reasonable expectation that we should be able to pull off all of the technological miracles successfully, in a reasonable amount of time. And let's say that we could in ten or so years we would know whether this is a reasonable course to pursue if the nation decides politically it wants to pursue it.

WHEN I TALK TO POLITICAL OR MILITARY SUPPORTERS OF SDI... THE SENSE I GET IS THAT WE ARE JUST AROUND THE CORNER FROM REALLY BEING ABLE TO DO ALL THIS STUFF. WHEN I TALK TO SCIENTISTS LIKE YOURSELF, I FEEL MUCH MORE CAUTIOUS, MUCH MORE CAREFULLY CHOSEN WORDS. AND, IS THERE A, I MEAN, AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY, IS THERE A DISCREPANCY BETWEEN THE HOPES OF THE... SYSTEM, THE ABILITY TO DESIGN, TO PROVIDE WHAT THEY HOPE FOR?

I think the coach always thinks it's a little easier game than the guys on the field say. You know how hard, well, I think we know how hard the problem is and we feel that every day. The coach has some sense that the problem is large, he believes that when you say the problem is large, but he doesn't feel the same fire at his backside. So, I think that's the contrast. Also, I think scientists, by nature, tend to be a little more cautious. It's easy to focus on today's, when you're in the field it's easy to focus on today's problems than to take the longer view and say, you know, “You will, you’ll solve all those problems. And, so, we’ll forget about those waves and you really will solve them. "So, and I, maybe the political people are right. But usually it's the balance between the two.

...ACTUALLY SEND ONE OF THE POWERFUL LASER BEAMS INTO SPACE TO SEE WHETHER IT DETRACTS OR WHATEVER HAPPENS TO IT. I KNOW WE'RE GETTING WILDLY SPECULATIVE, BUT WOULD YOU SPECULATE ON THE TIME IT WOULD TAKE FROM THEN TO WHEN IT CAN ACTUALLY BECOME A FIGHTING SYSTEM, ASSUMING THAT THERE ARE NO, THAT FINANCING, AND THIS IS AN ENORMOUS ASSUMPTION, BUT ASSUMING THAT FINANCING WERE ADEQUATE, AVAILABLE FINANCING WERE ADEQUATE...

I believe that if those experiments are successful, that, in fact, given the commitment to move forward, one could move, I think, very rapidly through a system limited capabilities, that is to a single... how fast from that point could you build a single laser weapon that could guard against accidental launches. That's suddenly a five year proposition from that point, given the commitment. And the question always is that we say, we live in a very dangerous world. We always do have to fight conventional squabbles. Can the country spend that much money that fast or does it have to invest in conventional defensive technology which is very important. Sometimes it's very irresponsible for the nation to send out sailors on to ships worth $2 million when those ships have a very hard time defending themselves. And should the nation spend the money on those? A question. That happens to be, try to address that question as the aim of the other part of our program here, in beam research. That's a very hard balancing decision to make.

IS THERE A PRICE TAG ON THE EARLY 1990S EXPERIMENT?

I’m sure there's an overall tag and the overall tag for such experiments... in the end billion dollar class experiment. And whether they are somewhat more or somewhat less, they in the end when you start to add up all the costs and add up the operating costs, the country has to learn that it has to spend that much. But if you ask... how much the first MX missile cost, the first missile number one cost $6 billion. It's a number, very large. Because, you know, it's paying for not only an experiment but an awful lot of research and development... accrued against the cost in the first place.

DO WE HAVE ANY IDEA, HAVE YOU DONE ANY, HAVE ANY PROJECTIONS BEEN DONE ON WHAT THE PROJECTED COST MIGHT BE FOR A DEPLOYED SINGLE SYSTEM.

We haven't looked at what the cost of the deployed single system is. What we have done is to ask the question how much must our command, must our laser system cost in terms of dollars per unit of laser power if it is to be able to be cost effective at the margin... that criterion. And, so, we have cost goals, which if we cannot meet, the offense really can beat the system by just adding one more missile, adding more missiles... Those costs are certainly smaller than the amount of costs to build the first lasers that we can think of building right now. But the cost of all these things always comes out dramatically, as you learn things and as you build, as you learn all this production engineering things, techniques that industries used to, applying to mass production. So yeah, I don't have a price tag. I do know what our particular costs so far, and I think if I quote those, it doesn't give a lot of information to the layman. But it does, we have a big challenge ahead of us.

IF THE NATION DECIDED TO ACTUALLY BUILD THIS 1990’S EXPERIMENT... HAS IT BEEN A TOTAL BUST? HAVE YOU JUST WASTED A BILLION DOLLARS OF THE TAXPAYERS' MONEY?

If the technology that we're pursuing here goes ahead through the 90's, through the experiment at White Sands, we will have, in the process, developed a directed energy technology, which I believe will have extremely high potential to do conventional defense, at short ranges. Now, not necessarily using the laser. We may be using the electron beam by itself, but we believe that it is possible to defend large capital ships from Cruise missiles and even Cruise missiles launched with nuclear missiles with nuclear warheads. When I read "Red Storm Rising," I was very, most impressed by the fact that we have a lot of men out on ships that are basically sitting ducks. And in some sense, our inability to defend those men, our inability to defend our naval mission, the mission of our naval fleet and the surface fleet, is a very severe defense lag. So, I believe the nation will get, and that's something which there will be if it's not the Persian Gulf, there'll be another incident where a U.S. ship has to defend itself against a $200,000 or $100,000 Cruise missile and we would really like to be able to do that in the future. So, I think there's going to be a very big payoff, even in conventional defense. We have a lot of payoffs in pure research for high-energy physics. I feel sure we'll have research spin-offs in medicine, in commercial power. [But you have good reasons for doing the project and I believe that from the point of the Defense Department, the Defense Department get a big payoff, whether or not we decide to deploy these things for strategic defenses.]

DO WE KNOW WHAT THE SOVIETS ARE DOING IN THIS SPECIFIC AREA?

Well, we know that the Soviets have pursued the development of induction linex for just as many years as we have in space. In fact the development of these kinds of accelerators has run a very close parallel with that in the United States. We know that they became interest in free electron lasers, using induction linex to generate intense microwaves, presumably for any future... at about the same time as we did here... We know that they have had an extremely aggressive laser program with far more workers in it than we have in the in the United States. And if one looks at the kinds of reports, photographs, aviation leak, I think you can see that there is the commitment, very large facilities for this kind of technology, which is greater than that in the United States. Now, that's not to say that they're ahead of us. Not to say that we don't get more for the dollar than they do. I really do believe that we get more for the dollar and that we shouldn’t consider that a grave threat. But I’m not saying that I can identify what it is they're doing at some of these very large multi-billion dollar class facilities. But what I can say is that those facilities have the appearance of being built for the military. They're directed toward the sky, that we have taken a bum wrap at starting war in space. And that, that's, we do not have a similar level of commitment to such projects is worrisome. And that we ought to have at least some well-measured response to what they're doing. So, that's why I believe in the end the Soviets can make, it's also, I believe, the Soviets can make a bargain on SDI and on strategic defense. Because they have shown through 30 years of actions that they believe in strategic defense. And it's only a matter of finding the right deal. I think that they're very worried about having a strong driver of high technology in this country. And that's a very real worry for them. But I think that as the grounds for a better, the grounds for agreement, because in the end they really do share the same philosophical hope and that is really, it is possible defend and it is better to defend.

IF THEY DID AN EXPERIMENT LIKE...

We know that the Russians have been involved in building the same kinds of accelerators that we have here at Livermore and the development in the Soviet Union of these kinds of accelerators has paralleled very closely that in the United States. We know that the Soviet Union has had researchers that have actively pursued using these... accelerators to build to electron lasers and to build free electron lasers to make powerful microwaves just as we did in the United States. We know that they were successful at about the same time as we were in the United States; namely, a few years ago. We also know that the Soviets have a very large number of people that are involved in laser research. In fact, we know they have more people involved in laser research. And then finally we know that there is a commitment, if you look at the pictures of it published in The New York Times and Aviation Week. We know that there is a commitment to very large facilities which look like they could be related to directed energy and which look like they have a military connection. And that those facilities are of a magnitude indicative, they are facilities which indicate a level and a time of commitment which is greater than that of the United States in a time which is, than that in the United States. That is not to say that they are so-called ahead of us or that we should be extremely worried. I do believe that we do get more for the dollar and far more per practicing scientist than the Soviets get out of their system. Then, by and large that's due to the fact that we have an extremely strong industrial infrastructure which the Soviet system does not allow them to have. But it says that we should have some thoughtful response to their level of commitment. And it says that we have a reason to hope that the Soviets can come to an agreement with us on strategic defense. And that's because they first of all believe a strategic defense is possible. They have missiles defending Moscow. They are working on directed energy pointed toward the stars. Secondly, they believe that strategic defense is preferable to offense. And there are certainly lots of examples in the literature in which they said that they believed in defensive technology. But there is the, is the reason for margin, what's the sticking point? I believe it's that the Soviets are very worried that the SDI represents an extremely technology driver for the United States and one which has not only, spin off in the commercial world, where they really want to come up with... but in also in the tactical military world. It's almost certain that the technology being worked on for SDI or sensors, that is, compact objects that can see approaching threats like missiles. If those sensors and the computer control system that move those sensors and then get weapons to react, will certainly have an impact on the conventional battlefield. And that has to worry the Soviet Union.

IF THE SOVIETS CONDUCTED AN EXPERIMENT LIKE THE ONE THAT WE PLAN FOR THE EARLY 1990’S, WITH THE FREE ELECTRON LASER GOING UP INTO SPACE, WOULD OUR SATELLITES DETECT THAT?

I would hope so? But there is certainly the possibility that they could do a test in a clandestine way. However, if we look at, because we know it will take us to do the experiment. It is a very large facility. We certainly know that there are places, we should certainly be able to identify suspect facilities and then if we use our national technical means, identify some level of activity, which should betray that they're doing experiments. It's probably very unlikely that we can tell whether those experiments are successful or not short of seeing them deploy a large number of these objects.

JUMPING BACK IN HISTORY NOW, AT THAT TIME IN 1983, WHEN YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES AT LIVERMORE HEARD THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH, WERE YOU... "OH, THERE'S THE PRESIDENT AGAIN," AND IT DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING? OR WAS IT IMPORTANT NOW? IT COULD REALLY GET GOING?

I think people were amazed. The President’s speech was clearly the kind of message that was going, that the bureaucracy, ringing for a long time. I think that people, even at the Cabinet level, find it very hard to move a bureaucracy and it takes a real drive every day from a Cabinet level department or it takes a strong push, not necessarily every day, from the President. And I think it was very clear that the President's speech was something that was going to drive the Defense Department very hard to react. I think we saw, we realized, he knew rather immediately that this was an opportunity, that we also that it was a danger. Because the fact that a particular thing is a Presidential priority does not mean that it will become a national priority. Of course, the President was very strong politically at the time, so that the betting on that was good. There was always the worry that SDI, because the only way a program can be formed rapidly, which is what the President wanted, was by gathering up lots of technology which had already been going on in other defense research agencies. But by doing this SDI would take all of this research and focus it into one target and that was a danger. So, you had that the political clout of the President was going to be enough to send the program, which it did. So, I think we look at as an opportunity. I think we realized immediately that it was, it would be very significant. The flavor of exactly what the program was going to be seems to have changed and the only question, are we ready for early deployment? Do we have to do many many years of research before we can do anything? Do you dare push the Soviets to so-called responsive threats, that is by arming their missiles, by making fast burn missiles, those are political debates. I was very gratified that it focused the political debate on what I think the most important question is, namely, making nuclear weapons or the continued acquisition of nuclear weapons undesirable for both countries. So, I think it's focused the political debate in the right place and it's had a, it's had profound technical effect. Now, technology is not the answer. In the end, it’s apolitical question. And we can only provide means for politicians to make decisions. And the political aspects of this are far from being one sided.

LET ME ASK YOU A PERSONAL QUESTION... FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW, HISTORY BOOKS ARE BEING WRITTEN, THEY'RE REFERRING TO THE REAGAN YEARS IN A CHAPTER AND THERE'S A PARAGRAPH IN THE CHAPTER ON THE PRESIDENT'S CONTRIBUTION TO, SPEAKING ABOUT STRATEGIC WEAPONS. WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY'LL SAY?

I believe that the most important thing that will be said is, was that... I think the most important thing that will be cited is that the President took several actions which will really direct it at reducing the number of strategic weapons, that the Administration was one which believed that the arms control regime which had existed, that time was one that only guided the increasing arsenal, the direction of the increasing arsenal of strategic weapons did not successfully cap those arsenals... reduce those arsenals. And that there was a strong commitment, albeit one directed in a unilateral sense, and we looked for ways to be able to reduce the importance of nuclear weapons unilaterally as opposed to via negotiation but that there was a very strong commitment to do that. And the upshot of that was first the, now been the INF. It may become a START agreement with 50 percent reductions and it may become some sort of strategic defense which whether it's capable of doing defense against massive strike, not clear, we'll have to see, but which certainly could make cheating in a START agreement where one has drastic reductions down to the sort of 5 percent that Gorbachev suggested. It could make cheating on those levels operationally irrelevant, so that either country, although it might be nice that we could verify, we not only, if we suddenly couldn't verify, it would be irrelevant. And if it's irrelevant the country's will spend their resources elsewhere.