STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE (SDI)

1983

ECOCIDE
noun
destruction of the natural environment,
especially when deliberate.

STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE (SDI)

(Directed-Energy Warfare)

James A. Abrahamson

(Director, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, 1984-1989)

The Official Story

JAMES A. ABRAHAMSON
(Director, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization,
1984-1989)

James Alan Abrahamson (born May 19, 1933) is a retired U.S. Air Force general who served as a designated astronaut, associate director of NASA and former director of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative from 1984 until 1989. He is a businessman who served as chairman of the board of GeoEye, a company he helped to transform into the world’s largest space imaging corporation and that merged with DigitalGlobe Inc in January 2013. Previously, he served as chairman of Oracle Corporation’s board of directors from 1992 until 1995.

Strategic Defense Initiative

Abrahamson was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to be the first director of the Strategic Defense Initiative (“SDI”) in April 1984. The “Star Wars” program, as SDI’s detractors dubbed it, was initiated to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system that would prevent missile attacks from other countries, particularly the Soviet Union. Some countries opposed to U.S. missile defense efforts raised concerns about the program “contravening” the strategic defense systems portion of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement (SALT I) in the years before the program was enacted.

Ultimately, concerns about the objectives of SDI and fiscal budgetary constraints forced the Reagan administration to announce the program would cease.

Abrahamson was promoted to lieutenant general on July 21, 1982. He retired from the U.S. Air Force on March 1, 1989, and entered professional life.

Source: Wikipedia