31.   Powell was taking a routine visit to Asia, while Rice was traveling to Moscow to meet with the Russian president to discuss the missile defense issue.

32.   Ronald Reagan played the defense issue like a master fiddler with a Stradivarius, to mixed results.

33.   Rumsfeld has remained involved in defense issues.

34.   Senior Pentagon officials will testify Thursday on missile defense issues before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

35.   Specter said he frequently calls Powell for advise on national defense issues and worked closely with him when Powell served on the national security council.

36.   That is not true, and it deflects the conversation from a host of important defense issues that the candidates should be addressing.

37.   The consensus opinion among friends and colleagues is that he will leave the Senate, where he is the foremost authority on defense issues.

38.   The Gerald R. Ford Foundation sponsors a pair of national journalism awards, one for stories reporting on the presidency and the other for stories about national defense issues.

39.   The missile defense issue was revived after Republicans took control of Congress last November.

40.   The network has emerged in ongoing federal court cases and extensive research by the Washington-based National Security News Service, which tracks defense issues.