Wyoming
Former US Sen. Malcolm Wallop: The Wyoming Rancher Who Helped Save Israel
An award-winning journalist credited the late President Ronald Reagan with saving Israel last weekend with the missile defense systems the United States built in the 1980s.
Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger praised the defensive effort in his Wednesday piece titled “Ronald Reagan Just Saved Israel From Iran’s Attack.” He also poked fun at President Joe Biden who, despite beaming over the effort’s success, was a critic of the defense project that led to it.
And that project — nicknamed “Star Wars” — owes its success to a Yale-educated rancher from Wyoming.
Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyoming, was an early leader of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a program to build weapons that could intercept and destroy ballistic missiles before they reached their targets.
He introduced the first of several amendments to the Defense Authorization Bill in 1980, which led to a provision of law directing the U.S. secretary of defense to build space laser weapons.
Wallop’s original plan was to build space lasers. As far as the public knows, the program didn’t yield space lasers. It did build an arsenal of ground-, air- and sea-based missile interceptors, which Israel quickly gained permission to develop alongside the United States.
“By universal acclamation, the hero of last weekend was Israel’s missile-defense systems,” Henninger wrote, referencing Iran’s 300-munition attack on Israel on April 13, which American and Israeli defense systems largely thwarted.
Everyone Deescalate
Reagan was campaigning for the presidency in 1980 and making bold statements about improving national defense and the failures of President Jimmy Carter’s peace efforts with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Three years later, March 23, 1983, Reagan publicly introduced the SDI program in a televised speech, calling it a tool for “free people (to) live secure in their knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack.”
But “behind closed doors,” Reagan also heeded politicians and bureaucrats pushing for arms control, the notion that nations can deescalate their arms development and adhere to weapon-limiting treaties, according to Wallop’s 1987 book “The Arms Control Delusion,” which he co-wrote with his staffer, international relations expert Angelo Codevilla.
Appointees who touted themselves as the D.C. establishment “called upon their raw bureaucratic power” and pressured Reagan to choose between their de-escalation strategies, and the host of unknown reactions the USSR could have to the development of robust American missile defense system, Wallop wrote.
Prodding The President
So Reagan vacillated between deescalating with the USSR (thereby limiting the United States’ defense production) and bolstering the Star Wars program.
Wallop was an outspoken critic of the president’s indecision. He coauthored a 1986 New York Times opinion piece with Rep. Jack Kemp, R-New York, blasting the president for “reportedly” offering to defer deployment of any American defenses against Soviet missiles for another five to seven years.
His book criticized the president for treating Star Wars like a research program or a bargaining chip, rather than an immediate response to the USSR’s daunting aspirations. He accused the president of “sugar-coating” his messaging to keep both the arms controllers in Washington, D.C., and the American people happy, while ignoring the realities of what war with the USSR would mean.
“The administration has consciously put off the time when Americans would have protective weapons, and … it has increased the chances of those weapons not working right,” Wallop wrote. He ridiculed the idea that mere treaties could influence Soviet behavior.
The Soviets contended between 1983 and 1985 that SDI was a threat to the USSR’s security, and that it was too expensive a program for the Soviets to keep pace in their own arms development.
Cold War Ends
Wallop was so intent on keeping Star Wars in place that he hopped from the influential Senate Finance Committee in early 1989 to the Armed Services Committee, where he remained into 1992, Wallop’s former chief of staff, Rob Wallace, told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday.
It was an unheard-of leap from the powerful Senate committee to a lesser one. Wallace called it a reflection of how serious the senator was about American defense systems.
“That probably reflects the time he was most worried about the commitment of the administration to the (SDI) initiative,” said Wallace.
SDI did stretch U.S. finances, but it contributed to the end of the Cold War, according to the Besa Center.
The Soviet Union could not keep up its arms race with the U.S., and it ultimately collapsed in the end of 1991.
Biden Not Safe From Criticism Either
Henninger’s column teases the current president, contrasting Biden’s recent praise of America’s role in shooting down Iranian missiles against Biden’s open mockery of Star Wars.
Biden insisted in a 1986 speech that Star Wars was reckless and irresponsible, and threatened arms-control agreements buttressing American security.
Wallop’s book also criticizes then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, as a meddlesome defender of USSR interests who coaxed politicians into looking the other way when the Soviets broke international de-escalation pacts. Biden dwelled on technical aspects of those compacts to keep the U.S. from holding the Soviets responsible for their arming-up, Wallop wrote.
“Senator Biden has strongly expressed the wish, no doubt sincere, that he not be taken as the Soviet Union’s defender,” wrote Wallop. “But how else can one characterize his invitation not to be alarmed by activities that are clearly threatening to Americans, but that might possibly be shielded by some technicality?”
He Didn’t Buy MAD
Wallace remembers his former boss as “instrumental” in the SDI effort, as did another former Wallop chief of staff, retired Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Bill Hill.
Wallop pushed SDI so hard because he didn’t buy the strategy of mutual assured destruction (MAD), Wallace said.
Mutual assured destruction is the idea that if a nation launched nuclear missiles at another nation with nuclear capabilities, the stricken nation would counter-strike and inflict casualties and destruction so massive that no one would dare launch nuclear missiles in the first place.
“Malcolm thought, ‘That’s a really dumb idea,’” Wallace recalled.
The late senator’s book compares mutual assured destruction to some politicians’ technocratic hubris. Because a MAD fallout is almost incomprehensible, entertaining it logically made arms control even more tempting for some, he wrote.
The United States should not develop counterstrike weapons that could take out a quarter of the Soviet land mass, he wrote, adding that powerful defense systems were not only more effective at preserving humanity, but more ethical.
Wallop died at his home near Big Horn, Wyoming, in 2011 at age 78. The New York Times eulogized him as “a leading conservative light in Washington.”
Contact Clair McFarland at clair@cowboystatedaily.com
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
Much of Wyoming outside of Yellowstone and Grand Teton also struggles with emergency response time.
By Katie Klingsporn, WyoFile
Wyoming’s U.S. Sen. John Barrasso is pushing legislation to upgrade emergency communications in national parks — a step he says would improve responses in far-flung areas of parks like Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
“This bill improves the speed and accuracy of emergency responders in locating and assisting callers in need of emergency assistance,” Barrasso told members of the National Parks Subcommittee last week during a hearing on the bill. “These moments make a difference between visitors being able to receive quick care and continue their trip or facing more serious medical complications.”
The legislation directs the U.S. Department of the Interior to develop a plan to upgrade National Park Service 911 call centers with next-generation 911 technology.
Among other things, these upgrades would enable them to receive text messages, images and videos in addition to phone calls, enhancing their ability to respond to emergencies or rescues in the parks.
Each year, rangers and emergency services respond to a wide range of calls — from lost hikers to car accidents and grizzly maulings — in the Wyoming parks’ combined 2.5 million acres.
Outside park boundaries, the state’s emergency service providers also face steep challenges, namely achieving financial viability. Many patients, meantime, encounter a lack of uniformity and longer 911 response times in the state’s so-called frontier areas.
Improving the availability of ground ambulance services to respond to 911 calls is a major priority in Wyoming’s recent application for federal Rural Health Transformation Project funds.
Barrasso’s office did not respond to a WyoFile request for comment on the state’s broader EMS challenges by publication time.
The bill from the prominent Wyoming Republican, who serves as Senate Majority Whip, joined a slate of federal proposals the subcommittee considered last week. With other bills related to the official name of North America’s highest mountain, an extra park fee charged to international visitors, the health of a wild horse herd and the use of off-highway vehicles in Capitol Reef National Park, Barrasso’s “Making Parks Safer Act” was among the least controversial.
What’s in it
Barrasso brought the bipartisan act along with Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.).
The bill would equip national park 911 call centers with technological upgrades that would improve and streamline responses, Barrasso said. He noted that hundreds of millions of visitors stream into America’s national parks annually. That includes more than 8 million recreation visits to Wyoming’s national parks in 2024.
“Folks travel from across the world to enjoy the great American outdoors, and for many families, these memories last a lifetime,” he testified. “This is a bipartisan bill that ensures visitors who may need assistance can be reached in an accurate and timely manner.”
The Park Service supports Barrasso’s bill, Mike Caldwell, the agency’s associate director of park planning, facilities and lands, said during the hearing. It’s among several proposals that are “consistent with executive order 14314, ‘Making America Beautiful Again by Improving our National Parks,’” Caldwell said.
“These improvements are largely invisible to visitors, so they strengthen the emergency response without deterring the park’s natural beauty or history,” he said.
Other park issues
National parks have been a topic of contention since President Donald Trump included them in his DOGE efforts in early 2025. Since then, efforts to sell off federal land and strip park materials of historical information that casts a negative light on the country, along with a 43-day government shutdown, have continued to fuel debate over the proper management of America’s parks.
Several of these changes and issues came up during the recent National Parks Subcommittee hearing.
Among them was the recent announcement that resident fee-free dates will change in 2026. Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth will no longer be included in those days, but visitors won’t have to pay fees on new dates: Flag Day on June 14, which is Trump’s birthday and Oct. 27, Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday.
Conservation organizations and others decried those changes as regressive.
At the hearing, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), assured the room that “when this president is in the past, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth will not only have fee-free national park admission, they will occupy, again, incredible places of pride in our nation’s history.”
Improvements such as the new fee structure “put American families first,” according to the Department of the Interior. “These policies ensure that U.S. taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in an announcement.
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
Wyoming
Evacuations spread from fires in South Dakota, Wyoming due to strong winds from coast-to-coast storm
CLIMATE TECH: As wildfires grow stronger, faster, and more expensive, a California-based startup is taking a high-tech approach to fight these fires using autonomous drones designed to extinguish flames before they turn deadly. Founder & CEO Stuart Landesberg joins FOX Weather to discuss Seneca’s firefighting drones.
Large, fast-moving fires are causing evacuations in South Dakota and Wyoming due to the impacts of a coast-to-coast storm.
The FOX Forecast Center said winds have been gusting up to 70 mph in the Pennington County, South Dakota area, which has caused the wildfire to spread rapidly.
COAST-TO-COAST STORM CAUSES TRAVEL ISSUES DUE TO HURRICANE-FORCE WINDS, HEAVY RAIN ACROSS NORTHWEST
The blaze, known as the Greyhound Fire, is approximately 200 acres in size. The fire is burning two to three miles south of Keystone and is moving east, according to the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office.
The Greyhound Fire in South Dakota spans 200 acres.
(FOX Weather / FOX Weather)
Highway 40 and Playhouse Road are closed as crews work to contain the fire.
People living along the highway between Playhouse Road and Rushmore Ranch Road have been evacuated, officials said.
TWO KIDS WAITING FOR THE BUS CRITICALLY INJURED DUE TO STRONG WINDS IN IDAHO
Crews are asking anyone in an evacuation zone to leave the area. Officials are advising people in the area to check the Pennington County Public Safety Hub.
A grass fire has caused evacuations in the Winchester Hills section of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
(FOX Weather / FOX Weather)
People in the Winchester Hills area of Cheyenne, Wyoming, have also been evacuated due to a grass fire.
The FOX Forecast Center said winds are gusting up to 75 mph in the area.
The National Weather Service has issued a Fire Warning and says there is a shelter at South High School for evacuated residents.
Check for updates on this developing story.
The University of Wyoming filed a lawsuit this week seeking $2.5 million from an energy company it partnered with to research enhanced oil recovery.
The university in 2024 signed a contract with Houston-based ACU Energy to advance research at the university’s Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media, according to the university’s complaint filed Monday in Wyoming’s U.S. District Court. ACU Energy agreed to pay the university $15 million over the six-year research period. The company, according to the complaint, was to pay the university $2.5 million annually with two payments each year.
While the university kept up its end of the bargain — by assembling a research team, training research members and incurring costs to modify laboratory space — ACU Energy “failed to pay the University even a cent owed under the Agreement, leaving $2,500,000 outstanding in unpaid invoices,” the complaint alleges.
ACU Energy did not respond to a WyoFile request for comment before publication.
The company notified the university in February that it was terminating the contract, and the university notified ACU Energy in May of its breach of contract, according to court filings. The university asked the court for a jury trial.
Enhanced oil recovery refers to methods used to squeeze more crude from reservoirs that have already been tapped for primary production, extending the life of an oilfield.
The university commonly accepts money from private businesses in return for lending resources and expertise to advance research. The Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media is part of the university’s Research Centers of Excellence in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
The Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media, led by Mohammad Piri, a professor of petroleum engineering, bills itself as “the most advanced oil and gas research facility in the world.” The center conducts research at the university’s High Bay Research facility, which “is funded by $37.2 million in state dollars and $16.3 million in private contributions, with an additional $9.2 million in private gifts for research equipment,” according to the center’s website.
The center has received donations from oil industry heavyweights like ExxonMobil, Halliburton and Baker Hughes.
Piri was tapped to serve as “principal investigator” for the UW-ACU Energy partnership, according to the university’s complaint. As of press time, ACU Energy had not filed a response to the lawsuit.
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