Veterans of the great Reagan-era debates over nuclear weaponry and the Star Wars missile defense are suddenly in demand again on Capitol Hill, what with all the hearings on the Chinese satellite-launch program and the India-Pakistan arms race. Sen. Thad Cochran's May 21 hearing on technology transfers to China almost had the flavor of a class reunion -- there was Dr. William Graham, once an Air Force project officer on the Minuteman ICBM, later science adviser to Presidents Reagan and Bush, William Schneider, the one-time undersecretary of state for security assistance, and, yes, anti-nuke activist John Pike, whose testimony was requested by Michigan Democrat Carl Levin.
Pike noted his 15 years as director of space policy at the Federation of American Scientists, and he was admirably modest about his own credentials. With good reason, it turned out. Pike -- whose Web site proudly and probably accurately proclaims that he "did more than any single individual to throw sand into the gears" of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- told the senators that he "attended Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn., as an undergraduate."
The wording was crucial. Pike had previously told Senate staff that he earned a B.A. in "science policy" from Vanderbilt in 1974; Vanderbilt, on the other hand, said that Pike had attended the school at various times from 1971 to 1978, but had never received a degree (reminding THE SCRAPBOOK of Bluto Blutarsky's lament in Animal House when Dean Wormer finally expelled the Delts: "Seven years down the drain"). Pike pulled a Clinton when he learned that Vanderbilt had blown the whistle on his resume, saying he had run out of money after earning most of the credits he needed and had claimed a degree because "that's what my momma told me to say."