cover image Claiming the Heavens

Claiming the Heavens

William J. Broad. Crown Publishers, $17.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8129-1647-8

The Strategic Defense Initiative, to many, is an impossibly complex and confusing issue. This useful and timely book, an expanded version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning series that ran in the New York Times in March 1985, is an objective survey of Star Wars, in which basic questions are asked and either answered or intelligently speculated upon. How did the program originate? Is it merely a new wrinkle on the old Mutually Assured Destruction policy? Will it stabilize or destabilize world peace? How will it work? What could go wrong? What is the Soviet reaction, and why? Does the program have enough political appeal to survive the departure of President Reagan, its strongest booster? The five authors discuss the impact of Star Wars on arms control and provide a forum for the views of advocates and skeptics alike. (February 18)