A Missile Shield and Its Unthinkable Risks  Published: May 01,
2001  To the Editor:  Re ''Bush Team Vows to Speed Up Work on
Missile Shield'' (front page, April 30):  Lucas Fischer, the
deputy assistant secretary of state for strategic affairs,
suggests that the standard of the Bush administration's missile
defense program is not perfect protection of the United States
population but enough to complicate ''a prospective opponent's
calculation of success.''  He also said the system should be
effective against launchings by rogue states and accidental or
unauthorized launchings, meaning Russian and Chinese missiles.
Together with the vast scale of the administration's program,
these statements suggest that the purpose of missile defense may
be to revive the doctrine that the United States should be able
to fight and ''prevail'' in a nuclear war. Yet the danger is
that an untested, flawed missile shield will tranquilize
American planners and the public to the catastrophic
consequences of using nuclear weapons.