As President of the United States he said- It is very important to find a defense against missiles and, he said- I am convinced it can be done. Many of us, including me, were invited on the occasion when he gave this speech. I had a few opportunities to reinforce details about that possibility before he gave that talk. Eventually he did something that I believe is important and exceptional. He accepted our emphasis on defense, he accepted our optimism on the feasibility, he did not quite accept our way of trying to do it. Originally we put emphasis on the energy of the defensive explosion. He said- Maybe, but let- let's try to do it without nuclear explosives. And particularly under the leadership of one of the younger member of our community, Doctor Lowell Wood, we developed a method that depends much less on the size of the defensive explosion, and much more on accuracy. Indeed, the plan which Lowell called Brilliant Pebbles, was based on a violent collision of a small defensive object with the much bigger incoming object.