Carter weighs bomber to replace the B-52

August 15, 1980

The Carter administration is pondering plans for a new strategic bomber to replace the aging B-52. Also, the president should decide before the end of the year on exact sites for deployment of the MX missile, the Defense Department said Thursday.

Congress, meanwhile, is showing renewed interest in an antiballistic- missile system, which coula affect the proposed mobile MX system, designed to make US missiles harder to knock out by first strike. Expanding antimissile missile use would, however, violate the 1972 ABM treaty with the Soviet Union.