Dr. Enthoven, what did you get your doctorate in?

In uh-- I, I got my doctorate in economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

You're not a general?

No. I'm an economist.

That's how you characterize yourself professionally?

Yes, right.

Let's avoid the "yeses" and just --

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, my, my professional training was in economics.

We've been living in the missile age for 30 years now. We take it for granted. But when you got involved in your work at RAND and the Pentagon, you were really riding the crest of a new age. And we forget the revolutionary dimensions of it. Help us-- remind us of what the new-- of what your concerns were, just in broad terms.

Well, nuclear weapons introduced an entirely new dimension into warfare. Uh, before the arrival of nuclear weapons, people fought for territory and tried to control territory. With the large scale availability of nuclear weapons, it's possible to destroy vast amounts of territory and vast populations. Nobody ever figured out how nuclear weapons could be used in a... uh, in a rational way to, to uh, accomplish traditional military purposes. So, the arrival of nuclear weapons made it necessary to do a complete rethinking of military strategy and to think through how would nuclear weapons and forces relate to the rest of our uh, national defense posture.

You're talking about nuclear weapons, what about missiles?

Well, uh, I'm talking about nuclear weapons and all of the different ways to deliver them, which include missiles, aircraft. We used to say, we have missiles launched from submarines, we have missiles launched from aircraft, we have aircraft launched from missiles, aircraft launched from submarines and so forth and so on, and all the different possible combinations.

One of the first things you did when you got into the Pentagon was, as I understand it, was to examine the force structure. Now, what was the mandate, the broad mandate?

The military of the 1950s was based on two large perceptions. First, that the Soviets had a massive superiority in land forces in Europe. And second, that we had a massive superiority in strategic nuclear forces. So out of those two perceptions developed a strategy for the defense of Europe. Defense against the threat of invasion and against Soviet intimidation. And the strategy was, in effect, Russians, if you invade Europe, then we strike you and destroy you with our superior nuclear force. The strategy was often referred to as tripwire and massive retaliation, that is, our forces in Europe are a sort of tripwire, and if the Russians trip over that tripwire, it unleashes the Strategic Air Command. Um, in his presidential campaign, President Kennedy criticized that strategy. While it might have made sense for the early 1950s, that when we did have the massive superiority in nuclear weapons, the President and many of us could see -- or the Candidate Kennedy then, and many of us could see that that was no longer true, that the Russians were acquiring missiles in submarines, for example, and ICBMs, that they could, uh, strike back and destroy many of our cities. So we were getting a strategy that was dangerous and ineffective, and, and not believable. It was vulnerable to what, uh, it, it gave us the choice, as Kennedy put it, of suicide or surrender. If the Russians put pressure on us in Europe, as Khrushchev was doing in the case of Berlin, uh, if the only response we had was a massive nuclear strike, our choice was suicide or surrender, holocaust or humiliation. We had young people in Europe saying, "It's better to be Red than dead." And we were thinking, "No, it's better to be alive and free." So, Kennedy campaigned on the inadequacy and inappropriateness of our then existing strategy. As I say, it might have suited the times earlier, but it was not going to be suitable for the 1960s, and we needed to come up with a wholly new uh strategy, in particular a whole new way of relating nuclear weapons to our national defense. The strategy of the Kennedy administration was, we want to make nuclear war unlikely, in two ways. First, we need to have survivable, invulnerable, strategic retaliatory forces, so that if the Soviets were to strike us, our forces would survive the attack and be able to strike back in retaliation. And that's why, right away, we stopped production on the bombers, stopped Atlas, stopped Titan I, stopped a whole lot of weapons systems that were vulnerable, and accelerated drastically the production of the Minuteman ICBM based in concrete and steel silos underneath the ground and missile-launching submarines with Polaris missiles. So that was part one of making nuclear war unlikely. That is, have survivable, invulnerable strategic retaliatory forces. Part two was, we shouldn't be in a position where because of weakness, we are forced to be the first to use nuclear weapons. Therefore, we should build up our conventional forces in Europe so that we have conventional forces that are strong enough that they can effectively oppose the uh, Soviet forces, and therefore we would not have to rely on the threatened first use of nuclear weapons. Our view was, nobody can fight and win a nuclear war. Nuclear war is extremely dangerous and destructive. And, uh, y-you're not likely to be able to survive it. There are no winners. Therefore the thing to do is to avoid it.

In your force structure decisions, what did you-- were B-52s invulnerable? What was your concern about B-52s?

Well, in our force structure decisions for strategic retaliatory forces, our main concern was survivability. The main problem with the B-52s as well as the B-47s, the B-58s and the B-70s, the bombers, was that they were soft, concentrated, parked wing-tip to wing-tip out there on the air base, uh, let's say 15 B-S2s on a, on a squadron base. And one or two Soviet ICBMs could knock out the base and destroy the bombers. Now, it's true that we had some of those bombers on alert, with uh, warning systems, so that if warning of attack came, the-- maybe a third of the bombers could be launched. It would still be the case that that was an awfully costly, uh, process to get one-third of the bombers uh, launched, you lose the other two-thirds and, and the base. I mean, com-- so that you lose an awful lot of your force when the, when the bomber base is knocked out, compared to, uh, what you lose when one Minuteman silo is, is knocked out. Uh, I think we felt that reliance on, on warning was shaky and unreliable. The idea of launching hundreds of bombers in a crisis seemed dangerous and unreliable, threatening. The Russians wouldn't know whether we were attacking them or not. You know, in crises there's just a lot of uh, of uncertainty. And certainly launching a large number of bombers would, would uh, threaten to exacerbate the crisis. We didn't see the ability to launch uh, bombers in the face of warning as a very attractive alternative to, for example, Polaris missiles in submarines under the sea that could sit there calmly for months while, uh, we all sorted ourselves out.

What specifically was wrong with the B-47?

Well, the B-47 was a product of an earlier age. In the 1960s, it was uh, obsolete. Uh, it uh, was expensive, had short range, required a tanker to refuel it. Uh, but it, it par- partook in the inadequacies of all the bombers. Mainly, it was invulnerable on the ground-- it was vulnerable on the ground.

What was wrong with the B-58?

Uh, the B-58 was expensive and vulnerable on the ground.

What was wrong with the B-70?

The B-70's problem is that it was extremely expensive, I don't believe it could have what, what was claimed for it. Vulnerable in the air because it's flying at three times the speed of sound up at 70 thousand feet, an easy mark for a Soviet surface to air missile, and vulnerable on the ground. And terribly expensive.

What did you do with these airplanes?

Well, uh, McNamara ordered a phase-out of the B-47s, stopped production of the B-58, stopped production of the B-52, don't produce the B-70.

Now, Atlas was an ICBM...

The Atlas was our first uh, intercontinental ballistic missile. The first Atlas ICBMs were based above ground, soft and concentrated, vulnerable to a Soviet missile attack.

What did you do with them?

Cancelled them. Phased them out.

The Thor?

Uh, the Thor, an intermediate range ballistic missile, based in Britain, soft, concentrated, vulnerable, highly vulnerable to Soviet attack. What did we do? Phased it out.

The Jupiter?

Well, the Jupiter, uh, same story as the Thor, basically, except that unfortunately the desire of President Kennedy to, to uh, uh, phase it out - the Jupiters were based in Turkey, and that got caught up in a whole complex, political thing, uh... a fear on the part of the Turks and possibly some of our other NATO allies that in some sense we would be withdrawing nuclear support. And, and so it got tangled up in the politics. But we felt the Jupiter out there made no sense. Completely vulnerable to a first strike by the Soviets. Uh, shouldn't have been there to begin with. It's-- has, has no survivability, so its only use would be to threaten a first strike and to irritate the Russians, uh, for no purpose.

The Snark?

The Snark was a unmanned airplane, combined some of the worst features of the bomber with the worst features of the missiles. Vulnerable on the ground, like the bomber, uh, couldn't be launched subject to recall, and slow time to target, unreliable, like the missile.

Qhat'd you do with it?

Cancelled it.

Regulus?

Regulus was an air-breathing submarine -- Regulus was an air-breathing, submarine launched missile, that is, a little unmanned airplane. Uh, one of the problems was uh short range. Uh, it didn't have the range to reach uh Soviet targets which were far inland. It was quickly becoming obsolete and superceded by the Polaris, which was a very successful weapons system.

What did you do with Regulus?

Cancelled it.

Dinosaur?

Dinosaur was a ... uh, to be a ... a... let's see, how can I... sort of an airplane that would fly along on the outer edges of the atmosphere and then circle over the Soviet Union and be able to, to shoot uh, uh, missiles from, from the outer atmosphere down onto Soviet targets. Uh, too expensive. Cancelled it.

Skybolt?

Skybolt was a, um, got complicated in-- got very complicated in the, in the politics of the whole thing. But basically, Skybolt was a ballistic missile to be hanging on the wings of the B-52, so the B-52 would fly out to someplace not far from Russia, and then launch these uh ballistic missiles at targets in the Soviet Union. In our view, uh, in a di-- a different way from Snark, Skybolt combined the worst features of the bomber with the worst features of the missile. Vulnerable on the ground, like the bomber; slow time to target, like the bomber; expensive; it had the relative unreliability, inaccuracy apd small payload of the missile. Should never have been started.

Didn't the air force put up quite a stink when you started cancelling these things, particularly the bombers?

Yes. The air force -- I'm going to start this one again -- The air force put up a great deal of resistance, uh, to this process of stopping bomber production, phasing out bombers and, and so forth, and replacing them with, with Minuteman missiles and, and uh, Polaris missiles. I have a lot of sympathy for them. These were men who spent their whole careers uh, developing bomber forces, developing, organizing and perfecting uh, the intercontinental delivery of nuclear weapons. They did a magnificent job of organization. They loved flying. They built a, an outstanding, magnificent, beautifully organized flying organization, and the tragedy was that uh, it became obsolete. It was all rendered obsolete by the arrival of uh, of the ballistic missile. I remember once, uh, Tommy Power, the Commander in Chief of the Strategic Air Command talking to me, and saying, "Alain, we've built this magnificent flying organization, and now you're destroying it." I'd say, "I know, Tommy, and I, I think it's terrible. I really am sorry but, but the strategic requirements of the United States, the advancement of technology just demands that we go to survivable, protected, retaliatory power, and that appears to be best done with Minuteman missiles in concrete and steel silos underground, and Polaris missiles in submarines under the sea."

The air force didn't fight the hardening of missiles. My general question is, weren't they concerned about vulnerability too? I want you to tell the Herman Kahn SUC story. That's what I want.

Um, I don't think the air force was really concerned about the vulnerability of our strategic forces. Some air force officers clearly were. But I think the, the overview of the institution, if you like, was directed toward uh, preserving the bombers and didn't like the implications of accepting the, the existence of the problem of vulnerability, which would mean you've got to do something to put bombers and misiles underground. And that's not very glamorous, that's not much fun. That's not why we went to flying school, to go underground.

Do you feel comfortable telling Herman Kahn's story about the Strategic Air Command? If you do, I'd refer to him as "my colleague, Herman Kahn."

The, the uh, uh, the idea of putting the bombers and missiles underground just didn't have a lot of appeal. These are men who went to flying school, and were a part of, of uh, leading us into the age of, of aviation. They were excited by it, they were brave, heroic pioneers, who, who put their lives into this, into this process. And now along comes some people who say, you've got to go underground. I remember once, my friend and colleague, Herman Kahn,uh was back at the Strategic Air Command giving a briefing, and I was along with him. And, and um, he was explaining what he thought was the future of the Strategic Air Command. And he said, "I envis-- envisage that uh one day, instead of SAC -- Strategic Air Command -- we're gonna have SUC -- Strategic Underground Command. And uh, they-there'll be a film about it, and it's going to begin with uh, some people deep down in a deep underground shelter. And they're playing cards, and they're dealing, and, and suddenly there's kind of a big crash, and things rattle and shake. And uh, one of the people says, 'What was that?' and the other one says, 'Oh, only about ten megatons.' And the third one says, 'Come on, deal.'" Herman was trying to conjure up the vision of the need for serious efforts to protect our forces from a first Soviet strike.

You were McNamara's emissary to SAC.

Yes.

Do you have any stories about when you first visited SAC, and saw the SIOP for the war plan...

Uh ... well... yes. I was uh, I had sort of informally, you might say, the position of being Mr. McNamara's emissary to the Strategic Air Command. Of course, I'd been there a number of times before, when I was with the Rand Corporation. I remember once, uh, when I was at Rand, going with Herman Kahn, and he was, again, giving a briefing about the war plans to General Power, and said, "You know, General Power, you don't have a war plan. You have a wargasm. This is a spasm response, um, surely it would make sense to be thinking about something more selective and deliberate, and we might want to have different choices as to which targets to shoot at." And when I started going out there in the 1960s, one of the things we were interested in working on was the concept of introducing some flexibility in, into the war plans. In particular, having options as to whether strategic attacks would be confined to military targets, to strategic targets, other military targets, or to include cities. And we introduced the idea of, of flexible, selective war plans.