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[These are passages from the Annotation feature from Harper's Magazine, 
September 1988.  The annotation by Alexander Cockburn (columnist for 
_The Nation_, _In These Times_, and _Zeta Magazine_, among others) and 
Ken Silverstein (freelance journalist)]

The System That Brought Down Flight 655: Zeroing in on a Pentagon
	boondoggle, by Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein

[letter] - refers to a letter from John Lehman to Rep. Denny Smith
[annot] - refers to Cockburn and Silverstein's annotation

[letter]
	Dear Mr Smith,
[annot]
	Rep. Denny Smith, Republican from Oregon, forced a new round of
	tests of Aegis in May 1984 after actual sea tests a year later
	impressed no one buut the Navy and RCA, the prime contractor. In
	these new tests, Aegis performed marvelously, "downing" ten of
	eleven drones sent its way. It was aided in this enterprise by
	the fact that those operating the system already knew the path
	and speed of the drones making up the "surprise" attack.
[letter]
	I am responding to your..[questioning of]..the integrity of the
	AEGIS system...
[annot]
	In the rush to judgement after the U.S. downing of..[flight 655]
	..no guilty party was more carefully hidden in plain sight than
	Aegis...This most costly package of electronic complexity
	mistook an Airbus (length: 175 feet, 11 inches) for an F-14
	(length: 62 feet, 8 inches), miscalculated the altitude of the
	plane by some 3,000 feet, and determined that the Airbus was
	descending when it was actually climbing..
[letter]
	Reports of inadequate testing of TICONDEROGA and its AEGIS
	system are not correct. AEGIS is the most carefully tested
	combat system ever built..
[annot]
	The "care" was mostly exerted to deceive Aegis's many critics.
	In one important series of tests, the Navy set up components of
	Aegis in a meadow near Exit 4 of the New Jersey
	Trunpike--"operational tests," the Navy called them. There Aegis
	performed such difficult tasks as monitoring the comings and
	goings of civilian air traffic over New York airports. As the
	Navy well knows, radar reflections off land are entirely
	different from those off water, and meadows don't pitch and
	roll--but then the object of the exercise was not any serious
	testing of Aegis but the extraction of more funds from Congress.
[letter]
	TICONDEROGA establishes an entirely new level of sea-borne
	anti-air warfare capability -- it is the first Navy ship
	desgined to counter large scale anti-ship missile (ASM) attacks.
[annot]
	To counter missile attacks, ships such as the Ticonderoga and
	the Vincennes utilize the SLQ-32, an electronic system allied to
	Aegis that works like a Fuzzbuster--it identifies approaching
	ships and planes by the radar they emit. The SLQ-32 on the
	Vincennes, however, was unable to distinguish between the
	weather radar aboard an Airbus and the combat radar installed in
	an F-14.
[letter]
	The fast reaction time and high fire power of the AEGIS weapon
	system have proven successful in countering ASM threats in
	operational testing against the lowest flying and fastest
	targets available to the Fleet.
[annot]
	Nonsense. Aegis is particularly inept at detecting planes and
	missiles at low altitude, the most likely path of any agressor.
	In two 1983 tests, Aegis missed six of seven low-altitude
	targets.
[letter]
	TICONDEROGA, acting in concert with other battle forces,
	provides a quantum leap forward in the defense in depth
	capability of our carrier battle groups.
[annot]
	Aegis in fact imperils every ship on which it is installed. The
	system emits four megawatts of energy--equivalent to 40,000
	100-watt light bulbs--the moment it is activated, turning the
	ship into a powerful electronic beacon and making it an easy
	target, especially for the radar-homing missiles the Soviets
	have sensibly developed.
[letter]
	I appreciate your support in a strong Navy.
[annot]
	Support indeed--each Aegis costs the taxpapers about $500
	million, half the cost of the cruiser on which it is installed.
[letter]
	Sincerely, John Lehman
[annot]
	John Lehman--who as Secretary of the Navy was the patron and
	close friend of Melvyn Paisley, the key figure in the current
	procurement scandal under FBI investigation--thought the expense
	of the Aegis system "entirely justified." Admiral Thomas Davies,
	who before retiring tried to kill the program, calls the system
	"the greatest expenditure to get the least result in
	history"--which should be adopted as the motto of today's
	military procurement system. A pair of binoculars could have
	told the officers of the Vincennes what was flying overhead. But
	binoculars don't cost half a million dollars. The more complex
	the weaponry, the deeper the pork barrel and the more swollen
	the bottom line. This is the system that produced Aegis, and did
	in the 290 passengers aboard Flight 655.

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