Projectile breakup in the reaction: Be-11+Pb-208

It has been argued that the role of nuclear couplings in the breakup of neu tron-rich weakly bound radioactive beams cannot be neglected. In many insta nces nuclear breakup should be, in fact, the dominant process responsible f or projectile fragmentation. It is thus somewhat puzzling that earlier calc ulations relying only on the electromagnetic processes did not immediately exhibit their inadequacy. We exploit the case of the reaction Be-11 on Pb-2 08 to advance a possible explanation for this apparent discrepancy. [S0556- 2813(99)03001-0].