Spectral lines: Mixed signals

To a question posed by a news reporter during the presidential debate on Oct. 21, 1984, about whether to ¿share the best of America´s technology in this weapons area with our principal adversary,¿ President Reagan replied, ¿Why not? I hope we can.¿ He was referring to the sophisticated technology for an unnamed defensive weapon to ¿reduce the utility¿ of nuclear arms, as he had phrased it during a press conference earlier in the year.