They Called It Star Wars

摘要

President Ronald Reagan surprised friend and foe alike with what came to be known as the "Star Wars speech" on March 23, 1983. It was a short insert added to the end of an otherwise routine presidential address on the defense program. "What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant US retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our soil or that of our allies?" Reagan asked. He called on the nation's scientists "to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete" and announced a long-term research and development program with the "ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles," a formidable task "that may not be accomplished before the end of this century."