Daniel O. Graham - Political Activism

Political Activism

Graham was chairman of the American Space Frontier Committee, the Coalition for the Strategic Defense Initiative, and in 1978 he became co-chairman of the Coalition for Peace through Strength.

After retiring from the army, Graham's goal was to promote a defense against nuclear weapons. The father of seven, said he felt it was unconscionable to fail to protect the American public against nuclear attack. Also, as a student of military history, he was keenly aware that no weapon was abandoned until a defense made the weapon obsolete.

In 1981 Graham founded High Frontier, Inc., a private organization that promotes a kinetic-energy weapons approach to space-based defense with help from members of President Ronald Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet". According to Graham, he is considered by most to be the actual originator of the Strategic Defense Initiative concept. However, the plan as put forward by Reagan also included an emphasis on directed energy technologies such as lasers and particle beams, in addition to the cheaper, "off the shelf" kinetic energy technologies promoted by Graham and High Frontier.

The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization was renamed by President Bill Clinton to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization on May 13, 1993 and continues today.

He was also a member of the American Freedom Coalition and was vice chairman of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, and served on the advisory board of a Unification Church sponsored anticommunist association, CAUSA- USA.

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