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David.
    The public has been misled by arms treaties ... It was good to call attention to Soviet cheating, bad not to follow it up ... Menacing violations . . . Krasnoyarsk . . . The Soviet moratorium on testing is a completely empty gesture ... Height of folly ... Combat environment. .. Some kind of limited scenario ... But yet ... If we so choose to do so ...' The language is notable for its sobriety and caution, with few descents into the colloquial: 'making the rubble bounce', for example, Recruiterspeak for overkill or 'un-deconflicted targeting'. Otherwise, talking to David is like talking to your accountant. But I will certainly never forget the expression on David's face, one of saintly forbearance, as he told me that the US had decreased its overall mega-tonnage in recent years.
    I kept wondering what his friends were like, what his human dealings were. I kept wondering how it went, humanly. Perhaps David was wondering about the same sort of thing, beneath his flat smile of fastidious scrutiny. How flaky was he finding me? Had I shaved properly that morning? What about the width of my tie? David is no keener on a nuclear holocaust than I am. But he is less fearful — that's the difference. Like Perle, a fellow Dangerman, he is 'more worried' about other things. Hang around too long at this end of the nuclear weapons business, and you lose the knack of imagining what nuclear weapons are, what they can do. I asked David if he ever dreamed about his work, if he ever dreamed about nuclear weapons. But David wasn't going to discuss his dreams with a journalist. He assured me that he had 'no problems' on that score. He slept the sleep of the good.
    'The Soviet Union', David had said at one point, 'is only a superpower militarily. Not economically, not politically, not ideologically. Only militarily.'
    At the time I wondered what ideologically was doing in David's sentence. After a while I realised that I had simply been listening to mainstream Reaganism. If the Soviet Union isn't 'really' a superpower, then how many superpowers does that leave?
    Meanwhile, or later the same day, Dr Allan Mense is pacing hungrily around his office in the Pentagon. To get in here you need to go through a door marked SURVEILLANCE, ACQUISITION,   TRACKING AND  KILL ASSESSMENT.   People   Stride in from time to time with documents stamped TOP SECRET (which, in these leak-prone days, means little more than mildly confidential: the top-secret stuff is designated BLACK). On the large wall chart there is a magic-marker diagram showing the earth, the atmosphere, and an incoming missile being briskly zapped by some smart rock, laser beam, or death ray. Dr Mense is tall, florid, early-middle-aged; he sports brogues and braces and a ballpoint-crammed shirt pocket, but the face is wild. He looks like a cop in a Boston precinct station. His barnstorming energy is likable (you feel he would make a fun uncle) and very necessary, too, for Dr Mense is chief scientist on SDI.
    'Okay,' he said. 'You tell me. What is the purpose of SDI?'
    I hesitated and searched my mind for whatever buzz phrase was currently serving as national policy. 'To, er . . . enhance deterrence.'
    Dr Mense was astonished. That's the right answer! Hardly anybody gets it right. Most people seem to think it's some kind of peace shield.'
    I could have said that 'most people' would include the President of the United States, who in June 1986 was still talking coaxingly of 'a shield that could protect us from nuclear missiles just as a roof protects a family from rain'. But I didn't. Any argument I would have with Dr Mense about SDI would be over in ten seconds. He is about Can Do. I am about Don't Do. One's objections to Star Wars need never get as far as the usual haggling points of expense, technical achievability, and so on. One objects to Star Wars because it is just another firebreak. It is just more. And more will mean more. The President's idea sounded appealingly simple, but it