Kennedy Charges Administration With Escalating Arms Race Again

Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) told a crowd of 2000 people at M. I. T.'s Kresge Auditorium Friday that the Nixon administration is undermining the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) by insisting on the immediate deployment' of ABM and MIRV weapon systems, and that "If the Administration will not act rationally, then the Congress must."

Kennedy aides termed the address-which opened a two-hour symposium on the arms race-a major policy statement.

Kennedy urged a freeze on the deployment of the two new weapon systems and said he would lead a bipartisan effort in Congress to cut off funds for ABM and MIRV.

About 2000 more people listened to Kennedy's remarks over loudspeaker systems in the lobby of Kresge and in the M. I. T. Student Center. The greatest response came when Kennedy suggested that American development of MIRV might force the Soviet Union to adopt a "launch on warning system."

"To reestablish a situation where the world is in jeopardy of a programmed response to a blip on a radarscope is the height of irresponsibility," he said. "It will have brought us to the final absurdity in which an automatic response by machines created by man shall determine the end of man."

Kennedy also lashed out at Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, saying that his latest policy statements "presented a distorted picture of the strategic balance which can only panic and mislead the American people into accepting an escalation of the arms race."

After Kennedy's address, the panel-made up of George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology, Abram J. Chayes '43, professor of Law, Paul M. Doty, Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry, Jerome B. Wiesner, M. I. T. professor of Biology, and George Rathjens of M. I. T.-answered questions from the floor.

Most questions were directed at Kennedy, and few had anything to do with the arms race or his speech.

In answer to one question, Kennedy said that the impeachment of President Nixon was rather impractical at this time, and that "rather we should cut off funds for the war."

Chayes backed up Kennedy's reply, suggesting that those thinking in terms of impeachment "should remember who's next in line."