And these are the words that Werner von Braun told me in 1974 and I will testify before the Congress under oath about everything I have said. (1)
Rosin provided a second version of this story, which is important enough for us to review here. Here she brings in what she saw at Fairchild Industries in addition to what von Braun told her:
"When I was a corporate manager at Fairchild Industries in 1974 through 77, I met the late Dr. Werner von Braun, in early 74. At that time, von Braun was dying of cancer. But he assured me that he would live a few more years in order to tell me about the game that was being played, that game being the effort to weaponize space.
"Von Braun's purpose in life during the last years of his life, his dying years, was to educate the public and decision-makers about why space-based weapons are dumb, dangerous, de-stabilizing, too costly, unnecessary, unworkable, undesirable.
"The strategy that Werner von Braun taught me was that first the Russians are going to be considered to be the enemy in fact when I met him in 74 they were the enemy the identified enemy. We were told that they had killer satellites. We were told that they were coming to get us and control us, the dirty commies, that whole story. First the Russians were the enemy against whom we were going to build space-based weapons.
"In 1977, I was at a meeting in Fairchild Industries, in a conference room called "the War Room," and in that room were a lot of charts on the wall, with enemies, identified enemies, names of people I had never heard of, names like Saddam Hussein and Khaddafi.
"But we were talking then about terrorists, the potential terrorists. No one had ever talked about this before. But this was the next stage after the Russians against whom we were going to build space-based weapons these terrorists.
"This is 1977 and they were talking about creating a war in the Gulf region when there was $25 billion in the space-based weapons program that " had not [yet] been identified. It wasn't called the Strategic Defense Initiative at least until 1983. This weapons system had obviously been going on for some time that I didn't know anything about.
"So I stood up in this meeting in 1977 and I said I'd like to know why we're talking about space-based weapons against these enemies. I'd like to know more about this. Would somebody tell me what this is about? Nobody answered. They went on with this meeting as if I hadn't said anything."
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