October 1984 AN EARLY MENTION OF SUITCASE NUKES

 The New York Times

October 29, 1984, Monday, Late City Final Edition

REAL SUPERTERRORISTS WOULD PREFER SUITCASE NUKES

SECTION: Section A; Page 22, Column 4; Editorial Desk

LENGTH: 324 words

To the Editor:

In ''Bolt From the Blue'' (Op-Ed, Oct. 15), William Safire argues that we need a space-based defense to defend against future terrorist attacks. His fear is that ''superterrorists'' may one day acquire intercontinental missiles armed with nuclear warheads, and thus set up a confrontation of ''terrorism versus civilization.''

This idea, sometimes bandied about in last-ditch fashion by ardent proponents of Star Wars defenses, should be seen for what it is: a fig leaf for the protection of missiles and command-and-control centers under the rubric of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

When all the rhetoric is stripped away, the Strategic Defense Initiative will in all likelihood never be able, or be designed, to protect population centers, so Mr. Safire's plan will not be implemented. In any event, superterrorists who were so clever as to build or buy long-range weapons will surely be capable of shorter-range delivery (e.g., suitcase bombs or air-delivered weapons, which could not in any case be covered by space-based lasers shooting down into the atmosphere). Finally, the most humorous of Mr. Safire's assertions concerns that related to the President's ''historic'' offer to share space-defense technology with Moscow. Lieut. Gen. James A. Abrahamson of the Air Force, director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, stated in the industry newsletter Defense Daily of Aug, 7 (page 196), ''There is no policy at this time to share S.D.I.-related technology with the Soviet Union.''

I suppose, however, that if you can believe that we're building inordinately expensive and fragile defenses in space to stop terrorists, then you can believe that we'll share state-of- the-art high technology with the Russians.

JONATHAN B. STEIN Washington, Oct. 16, 1984

The writer is a fellow in energy and defense studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University.