Further Reading
Hill, Anne E.Gwyneth Paltrow. Philadelphia: Chelsea
House, 2002.
Milano, Valerie.Gwyneth Paltrow. Toronto: ECW Press,
2000.
Amy Sisson
See also Academy Awards; Film in the United
States; Pitt, Brad.
Patriot missile
Identification American air-defense missile system
Deployed during the Gulf War, the Patriot missile attracted
great interest based on the U.S. Army’s claims that the sys-
tem was capable of shooting down other missiles. The effec-
tiveness of the system has since come into question.
The Patriot missile (officially designated by the U.S.
Army as the MIM-104) is a ground-launched missile
designed to shoot down airborne targets. Develop-
ment of the Patriot system began in 1964, when the
Department of Defense initiated the Surface-to-Air
Missile Development (SAM-D) project to replace
the existing Homing All the Way Killer (HAWK) sur-
face-to-air missile. After successful initial tests in
1976, the Army renamed the SAM-D the Patriot, an
acronym for “phased array tracking radar to inter-
cept of target.” After prolonged development, the
Patriot system became operational in 1984. Patriot
introduced several new technologies to the battle-
field. Instead of a traditional rotating radar system,
Patriot used a stationary phased array system that
“aimed” the radar beam. Once in flight, the Patriot
missile engaged its target using track-while-scan,
with which the missile received radar information
from the ground and also tracked the target with its
own onboard radar. The missile constantly com-
pared the two radar images to ensure a hit. The mis-
sile also came packaged in its launch container, re-
quiring no maintenance from the operating crew.
Patriot made its combat debut in the 1991 Gulf
War. Deployed initially to Saudi Arabia and other
friendly Persian Gulf states, the Patriot system per-
formed its designed task of air defense against Iraq’s
air force. The Iraqi use of Soviet-made SS-1 Scud mis-
siles, however, forced the U.S. Army to use the Pa-
triot as an antiballistic missile weapon, a task for
which it was not designed. Over the course of the
conflict, the Patriot engaged more than forty Iraqi
Scuds fired at Saudi Arabia and Israel. The military
credited the success of the Patriot in downing Iraqi
Scuds with preventing damage to coalition forces
and defeating Iraq’s hopes of provoking Israel into
entering the war.Impact Although claimed at the time to be a tech-
nological miracle, the success rate of the Patriot pro-
voked some dispute. The system failed to intercept
one Scud attack on Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that
caused the death of twenty-eight U.S. soldiers. While
the Army claimed a 70 percent success rate, some ob-
servers claimed the Patriot was not nearly as accu-
rate as the Army claimed. Despite the controversy,
the U.S. military continued to use the Patriot as an
antiballistic missile weapon, with the latest Patriot
Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) upgrade to the Pa-
triot capable of defending four times as much air-
space with vastly improved accuracy.Further Reading
Hildreth, Steven A.The Patriot Air Defense System and
the Search for an Antitactical Ballistic Missile System.
Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Ser-
vice, 1991.
Mitchell, Gordon R.Strategic Deception: Rhetoric, Sci-
ence, and Politics in Missile Defense Advocacy. East Lan-
sing: Michigan State University Press, 2000.
Steven J. RamoldSee also Arnett, Peter; Cheney, Dick; CNN cover-
age of the Gulf War; Defense budget cuts; Gulf War. PDAs
Definition Personal digital assistants are
computers small enough to be held in the
hand, generally with a simplified operating
system and application software
Manufacturer Apple Computer, 3Com, Research
In Motion
The development and proliferation of these small computer
devices led to the increasing ubiquity of computing.
A computer that could fit in the palm of one’s hand
and be carried everywhere had long been a staple of
science fiction. The earliest realization of the idea
was the pocket calculator of the early 1970’s, but itThe Nineties in America PDAs 659