American Notes DEFENSE

The deadly MX missile, which carries ten nuclear warheads, is stationed in hardened concrete silos designed to withstand a near-miss by an atom bomb. But at least one of the 50 MX's deployed by the Air Force over the past three years has trouble standing up. The Pentagon confirmed last week that the warheads from five MX's at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming were removed after one of the rockets slipped from its moorings and fell as much as a foot inside its underground silo last August. An investigation determined that the missile's fall was caused by "structural failure of a support skirt," a device that supports the MX while it rests in its silo. Though the stumble set off warning signals that would sound with the firing of an ICBM, a Pentagon spokesman assured that "at no time was there any indication or chance of accidental launch." By the end of last year, corrective steps were taken to prevent the missiles from falling down on the job again.