European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 19, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes thursday february 19,1987 columns Mary Mcgrory Cuomo should have potential rivals worried after listening to Mario Cuomo the Gover nor of new York discourse on he homeless problem. Rep. Chalmers r. Wylie a Ohio summed up pretty much the feelings in the jammed hearing room. If 1 were Gary Hart said Wylie i would be very  the governor had indeed put on a performance hat would dismay anyone who thinks he might be a rival for the presidency. What made it worse for other contenders was that Cuomo came to testify before a House banking sub committee at the invitation of the new speaker of the House. Jim Wright of Texas who Sal beside him at the witness table. The new House majority Leader. Rep. Thomas Foley davash., a sponsor of the bipartisan Bill for the homeless sat on Cuomo s other Side giving the affair the flavor of a Summit among the superpowers of the democratic party. The members seemed mesmerized by the Man with the deep circles under his eyes by the flow of his language and ideas by the Force of his convictions by he echoes from the famous family convention speech of 1984, by bold evocations of the new Deal and the proud picture of new York As a Center of enlightened idealism and kindness to our desperate Brothers and Sisters it was As if a lion had come into their Village. They gazed Al him in something like wonder. It was written All Over their faces were they seeing a future candidate a president maybe he gave no clue capt in the reiteration of his favorite theme that we Are All in this together. Afterwards Wright look Cuomo to the weekly lunch othe Tsas delegation and introduced him according to eyewitnesses in such superlatives that it sounded like an endorsement. Of no protested rep. Ujj. Pickle earnestly " Here was no politics in  there was politics aplenty in the hearing room and he sight of a politician playing at the top of his game. Cuomo is More impressive on the witness stand than he is at the podium. His strangely soothing Tenor voice is More compelling at close Range. Boston mayor Raymond Flynn who was wailing to testify said it s the kind of voice thai my Mother used to say you would stand out in the Snow with your shoes off just to listen  Cuomo seemed to relish the question and answer period and lathered the members with details and figures. Asked about the mentally ill among the Home less he gave a Brief history of do institutionalization. Asked about ways and Means he gave a masterly exposition from the new York experience of whal to do and what not to do i certainly did t come Here to recommend a tax increase he said facetiously at one Point in describing the new York custom of taxing real estate trans William Buckley new Hampshire game id we instead actions of Over $ i million some people would say the 10 percent is a tax. Imagine How thai looks. I Don t recommend it for you. But someone who is reckless enough to recommend raising revenues for this country might take a look at  members chuckled. Someone who has been reckless enough a suggest raising taxes of course is Jim Wright. How could you say no to it Cuomo asked rhetorically of the homeless Bill that has bipartisan support and is sure of passage in the House he was gracious i have taken More of your Lime than i deserve he was provocative the denial of compassion is not respectable we Haven t Fon Jotten who we  he was commanding he told the members to de liver the message that we believe in helping people when there is no  he gave a picture of new York not immediately recognizable to All sensitivity you Lake for granted in new York state. We even get accused of  most members contented themselves with respectful comments about his eloquence. As we anticipated a magnificent speech said subcommittee chairman rep. Henry Gonzalez a Texas for whom at Wright s Behest Cuomo went to a san Antonio fund Raiser last year. Rep. Toby Roth of Wisconsin one of the most conservative republicans in the House sought to inject a critical note into what he dryly called the  How could the governor explain the �37,000 a year paid by new York to House homeless people in Roach infested hotels a matter president Reagan has commented on. The governor turned Ruth into his straight Man using the question to Tell of How he had Cut taxes in new York. He added you could make the same argument on waste in the defense budget. I won t do it because it is a cheap shot his appearance on the stand showed him to be a potent potential candidate. He made an hour in a con Gressional hearing room seem like a functional equivalent of a trip in Iowa Era weekend in new Hampshire nol just Gary Hart May be worried said rep. Mary Rose Oakar a Ohio. How would you feel if you were George Bush . Space defense cheaper than soviet icbms have you heard of the Niue criterion sen William Proxmire Al a joint press conference with sen. J. Ben Nett Johnston recently called attention to it apropos the question of deploying defences against nuclear attack. The Nitze criterion demands that any . Defensive mechanism deployed should be cheaper than the Cost to the soviet Union of circumventing it. A favourable Cost ratio in Short. Cost ratio at the margin gives us the acronym cram very useful Here. The cram tells us How Many additional Dol Lars the soviets will need to spend in on scr o counter our defense. Of the cram is larger than 1.0, thai Means the Sov icis will need to spend More than one Dollar to counter one Dollar s investment by the United states in defense which is bad news for the soviet Union. By contrast if he cram is less than 1.0, then our projected Early 1990s defense system is accomplishing nothing except to cause the soviet Union to spend Mare Money though less Money than we arc spending. We Are Prity Well prepared now to make a Saber estimate of the cram and this has been done by National re View in its current Issue. We speak now of a technology defined and to the Rele vant degree tested. It is the heat seeking kinetic Energy weapons envisioned As our partial space shield for the 1990s. Kinetic Energy weapons destroy soviet icbms by sensing the heat they Emit and then zeroing in on the rockets colliding with them at nig,1 speeds. Sort of like a big Mac sidewinder. These kinetic Energy weapons Are designed to be based in space on orbiting satellites that pass Over the soviet Union. They Are called quite logically space based kinetic kill vehicles so Kovs. Three different contractors have estimated for the department of defense thai the Cost of each of these missiles will be $1.5 million. Bui of course we have just begun. We have accounted for the Cost of the , but not for the satellite on which it rides double the figure which is now s3 million. But keeping those satellites doing what hey arc supposed to do requires maintenance. Ever 10 Yean $3 million Worth. So what you now have is a Cost of s6 million per so Kkt. But the worst is yet to come. We know where the great soviet ss-1b missiles Are and we can describe an Orbital path for our satellites that takes them Over missile Sites every Lime the satellite Circum Navi gales the Globe. But at any Given moment when the soviet Union decided to launch 90 percent of cur satellites would not be in effective Range on those mis Siles. That requires us to multiply the figure of is million by 10 j60 million to cover that vulnerability still More bad news a satellite hover ing Over a soviet missile in the boost phase is going to have a very Good kill record bul not a perfect one. One out of four soviet missiles will get away so that we Are required to multiply the $60 Mil lion figure by 4/3, giving us $80 million. So it costs us so million to Knock out one soviet icbms ss-1b. How much docs it Cost the soviet Union to Manu facture an ss-18? answer $200 million. That Means that our cram is j200 million the soviet Cost of an additional icbms Over 180 million the . Cost of knocking Down an icbms. Or 2.5 to 1. This clearly satisfies the Nitze criterion. Such figures As these Are not difficult to assimilate but energetic Ameri can minds Are going to have to do their Homework Ana to keep these figures in mind in order la guard against the Snake Oil being used to discredit the program. Bear in mind that it is not Only kinetic Energy kill weapons that we have in mind to deploy. These arc stage one later stages contemplating the use of Par Ticle beam and laser technology. The objective and never lose sight of this is to make it so unprofitable for the soviet Union to attempt a first strike thai in will simply eliminate this possibility from its repertoire of approaches to winning the is niggle for the  Are other ways of conquering. The .s.r. Has never needed atomic weapons in aggressions against Berlin or Afghanistan or Ethiopia or Angola or Cuba or Vicinal or Nicaragua nor to maintain its Imperial grip on Eastern Europe. Bul to end the soviet capacity to threaten the United slates with extinction is a dream that could come True. In tuft us Pil