'Just a little bit down and the rest of your life to pay. Why, friend, you can't afford not to own one!'

March 11, 1969

This cartoon used two of Bill Sanders' favorite characters, John Q. Public and a fast-talking salesman in a plaid sports coat, to represent the debate in Congress over the Sentinel Antiballistic Missile System. First proposed during the Johnson Administration, the system would deploy antiballistic missiles (ABMs) to protect the nation's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from attack as well as protect several large urban areas. Emphasizing its "defensive" purpose, the Nixon Administration announced plans to add ABMs to two Minuteman Missile bases in Montana and North Dakota and to eventually construct ten other ABM sites around the country. The opposition in Congress was two-fold. Several senators, particularly Senator John Sherman Cooper (R-Kentucky), were concerned that the system would escalate the arms race and perhaps violate a pending nuclear weapons treaty. Others felt the estimated cost of $6 to $7 billion dollars over the life of the program would siphon away money urgently needed for domestic programs. The Congress ultimately approved President Nixon's request for funding.