Explanation:During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan initiated the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), an anti-ballistic missile program (ABMP) that was designed to shoot down nuclear missiles in space. Otherwise known as “Star Wars,” SDI sought to create a space-based shield that would render nuclear missiles obsolete.

But something people do not talk about is how he was interested in the ABMP dating back to 1967 when as governor of California, he paid a visit to physicis Edward Tellert the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Reagan reportedly was very taken by Teller’s briefing on directed-energy weapons (DEWs), such as lasers and microwaves. Teller argued that DEWs could potentially defend against a nuclear attack, characterizing them as the “third generation of nuclear weapons” after fission and thermonuclear weapons, respectively (Rhodes 179). According to George Shultz, the Secretary of State during Reagan’s presidency, the meeting with Teller was “the first gleam in Ronald Reagan’s eye of what later became the Strategic Defense Initiative” (Shultz 261). This account was also confirmed by Teller, who wrote, “Fifteen years later, I discovered that [Reagan] had been very interested in those ideas” (Teller, 509).

Reference

NMNSH, (2018). Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Atomic Heritage Foundation. Retrieved fromhttps://www.atomicheritage.org/history/strategic-defense-initiative-sdi

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