The Ploy That Fell to Earth

One night in June 1984, a test ICBM soared up from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Thousands of miles away in the middle of the Pacific, another rocket was launched on Kwajalein Island. It contained an infrared sensor powerful enough to detect heat from a human body 1,000 miles away. Closing at 15,000 m.p.h., the rocket locked onto the ICBM, intercepting it in midflight and destroying it by sheer physical impact. So devastating was the hit that the remaining shards of the ICBM's warhead measured less than an inch across.

Pentagon officials were ecstatic about the results of the $300 million test. It was, declared one official, like "hitting a bullet with a bullet." Moreover, it was proof of the potential of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. It seemed to signal an important first step in building a high- tech astro-shield against nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles from the Soviet Union. A Wall Street Journal editorial proclaimed, STAR WARS WORKS.

But did it? Last week a report in the New York Times alleged that the test was a fraud and that the results had been rigged. While that may have served as part of a cold war strategy to deceive the Soviets into spending their way into oblivion to counter SDI, similar misinformation was provided to Congress to persuade it to fund the program with huge sums -- $31 billion to date. Clearly stung, Defense Secretary Les Aspin, a former Congressman, ordered an internal investigation at the Pentagon. Said he: "Any allegation that the Congress has been misled raises serious questions." Said Senator David Pryor, whose long-standing probe of SDI seems to have triggered the revelations: "It could totally discredit the testing process and the credibility of the Pentagon."

Sources apparently within the SDI program told the Times that the 1984 launchings did not prove the efficacy of the heat-seeking infrared sensor. Rather, the target ICBM carried a beacon that guided the interceptor rocket toward a set-up collision. Officials involved with the test have vigorously defended the test results. Said General Eugene Fox, the retired Army missile- defense chief: "We didn't gimmick anything." William Inglis, the experiment's civilian test director, dismissed the accusations of an SDI hoax as "technical nonsense." There was indeed a beacon, but, said Inglis, it served only for "range safety" purposes, allowing ground crews to destroy the ICBM if it went off course.

Inglis admitted to TIME, however, that some aspects of the test might have enhanced the results and made it easier for the interceptor to find its target. The warhead, for example, was preheated before launch to 100 degreesF to provide a clearer infrared signature. The target warhead also carried explosives to increase the detonation and thus assist ground observations. Says a congressional staff member: "Either could have served to skew the tests."