THIS IS THE FIRST TAPE OF THE INTERVIEW WITH DR. JOHN S. FOSTER. JUST OUTSIDE OF CLEVELAND, OHIO. WHAT WERE YOUR CONCERNS AT THAT TIME, WHEN YOU LOOKED AT THE STRATEGIC POSTURE OF THE UNITED STATES, VIS-A-VIS THE SOVIET UNION?

At the end of the '60s, 1969, the concerns that we had... in the area of strategic systems were several. First, we were concerned that the Soviets were building large ICBMs. Now, that wasn't really important, in the sense that we had large ICBMs ourselves, in the Titans. What was kind of ominous was... we had 54 Titans, and they had already built more than... 54 large missiles. We called them the SS-9s. Uh, what was... worrisome about it is that each year, as we looked at the intelligence picture, we had to increase the number of missiles that were projected for the Soviet Union. Each year we seemed to think they were going to stop, but they didn't. So that was worrisome. They also had, in 1969, about a thousand smaller missiles, so their total number of missiles was about equal to ours. But they were still building. That was worrisome.

WHAT ABOUT THEIR ABM SYSTEM? WAS THAT CONSIDERED A THREAT?

They also had an ABM system--

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The Soviets also had an ABM system that they were putting into place. It wasn't completed, but it was fairly far along. And what was troubling us was the fact that they seem to be getting an I-, an ABM system of ballistic-missile defense but we didn't have one, and we had no plans to get one, unless the Congress would approve the proposed program by the administration. Uh, the Soviets also had a large sub building program which gave them the capability to launch ballistic missiles from their submarines. And we were concerned that in future years those submarines would be off our coasts, in short range of our bombers, which were based mainly in the coastal areas, because that's where a lot of the population lives, and people like to live where the rest of the population lives, the pilots in particular.

WHAT DID YOU SEE AS THE POSSIBLE PURPOSE FOR THIS GROWING OF STRATEGIC STRENGTH FROM THE SOVIET UNION?

Well, what was worrisome there... was that in the case of the Soviet large ICBMs... the fact that it could carry as 20 or a 25-megaton warhead, kind of awesome didn't particularly worry us if the, if the number of such large missiles was just, say, 50 or 100. However... they were looking, and, and testing...three warheads on that missile, we called it the Mod 4 and, when they flew that missile with three warheads, we noticed that the spacing between the warheads, as they came in, changed from shot to shot, and that the distance between these three warheads, when they impacted the ground, was about the distances between the Minuteman missiles in the Minuteman fields. That and some other intelligence led us to believe that the Soviets were attempting to get the capability to attack our Minuteman. That certainly was worrisome. It was a little worse because of the fact that our missiles were so small, namely the Minuteman or the Polaris-type missiles, that while we could MIRV them, and indeed were beginning to, the combination of the small payload, in small missiles, and the accuracy, meant that there was not enough yield and accuracy to destroy Soviet silos. So while we were MIRVing, we were MIRVing to penetrate large, mainly to penetrate Soviet defenses, rather than to attack Soviet silos. On the other hand, the Soviets looked, to us, like they were attempting to get the capability to knock out our Minuteman force.

WHAT SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE STANDOFF BETWEEN THE SOVIET UNION AND THE UNITED STATES WOULD THAT SIGNIFY?

Now, all of this added up to a situation where, while we were not really at vulnerable, really vulnerable to the Soviet Union at the time, we... were concerned for the period five to 10 years beyond, when the Soviets might attain a capability that had characteristics quite different from our own, and in particular, the characteristics that they had, might have, would be the characteristics of being able to knock out our Minuteman force, take out our bombers, before they could be launched, and then the resulting US retaliatory tack, attack, might be quite ragged, and their ABM system might be able to intercept a fair fraction of it. Those kinds of things worried us because it didn't look to us like we were going to be able to attain any such capability, since neither the administration nor the Congress believed that it would be a good thing for the United States to attempt to achieve a first-strike capability.

IN 1969, NIXON AND KISSINGER ORDERED A REVIEW OF OUR STRATEGIC POSTURE. WERE YOU A PART OF THAT REVIEW?

Yeah, in 1969s the President asked –

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In 1969 President Nixon asked Henry Kissinger and Secretary Laird, to conduct a review of our strategic posture. And, of course all of the key members in the Department of Defense, as well as, as those in the White House and State and the intelligence service, were all involved in that review.

CAN YOU SAY A LITTLE ABOUT WHAT THE FINDINGS OF THAT REVIEW WERE?

Now, the findings of that review were that as a matter of prudence, the United States should take a number of actions. First, we should deploy a light area defense of the United States. Particularly with the option to provide significant defense of the Minuteman fields, should that become necessary. Second, we should pursue the... placement of multiple warheads on our ICBM and our sub-launched missiles. Third, we should perform some studies on the possibility of a longer-range missile for a larger ballistic-missile submarine; we should continue the B-1 bomber development program; a standoff missile for that bomber, and so on.

WHAT DECISIONS WERE MADE REGARDING THE CONSIDERATION OF STRIVING TO MAINTAIN SOME KIND OF SUPERIORITY OVER THE SOVIET UNION WHERE IT WOULD HAVE AN EXTENDED DETERRENT EFFECT?

Uh, during that period, and in, and in particular the portion just preceding it the United States went through a series of descriptors of its posture: we went from the discussion of superiority on the part of the United States, to one of parity, to one of rough parity to one of sufficiency, and I think in retrospect a lot of that might be considered as, as a certain amount of sophistry. Um... the fact of the matter is at each stage... we made a conscious judgment that the force levels were now so high on both sides, that slight amounts of difference were not really very important, and that to attain the kind of overall superiority which the United States possessed in the early '60s in a later period, late in the '70s, would just be an enormous expenditure. And for the same reasons, I suspect we came to the general conclusion that for the Soviets to maintain such a large disparity in their forces as compared with ours, would also be financially perhaps too hard for them.

WHAT DID THAT MEAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS WERE GOOD FOR, IF BOTH SIDES WERE GOING TO MAINTAIN ROUGHLY THE SAME USABILITY RATIO?

The US response, in 1969, to these concerns about the Soviet strategic activities, were several fold. Let me just mention a few. First, to counter the buildup of a ballistic-missile defense, in the Moscow area, the US instituted the MIRV program: multiple warheads on our Minuteman and Polaris missiles. Second, to counter concern about the Soviet possibility of getting multiple warheads that could attack our Minuteman, we proposed the deployment of ballistic-missile defense with some special capability to intercept missiles coming in to the Minuteman fields. To counter the Soviet missiles and submarines off of our coasts, in the future, we made arrangements: to move the bombers inland, so that they would have more time to an-, to escape and attack. Those and some other studies were the main elements of our response.

AT A TIME WHEN EXTENDED DETERRENCE WAS NO LONGER VERY EFFECTIVE BECAUSE OF THE STATE OF ROUGH PARITY, WHAT WERE NUCLEAR WEAPONS GOOD FOR?

At that stage, we...had a large number of strategic weapons. So did the Soviets. So large that an attack by either sides would... likely result in so many weapons still undestroyed that the retaliatory strike would paralyze the original attacker. And so therefore the value of the weapons: deterrence. The result of an exchange, by either, initiated by either side, would be simply unacceptable. Mutual... deterrence.

THERE WAS SOME QUESTION, IN THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION, WHERE THE CONDITION OF MUTUAL DETERRENCE WAS ACTUALLY SOMETHING THAT WAS GOING TO BE ACCEPTED.

I think it, I think... there were people, certainly, who felt that, that living in a situation where your survival was really going to be determined by an action by another country was not an acceptable solution. That's true; the only difficulty with that position is, the reality was, the weapons existed, and we were not able, despite efforts by both sides, we were not able to... get the situation really under control, or even make any reductions.

WHEN WE TALKED WITH HENRY KISSINGER, HE INDICATED THAT MUTAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION WAS NEVER ACCEPTED BY THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION.

Uh... for myself, at that time I, I had grown up with the... 15 or 20 years of of gradually understanding... the reality of these weapons, and recognizing the difficulty of providing a perfect defense, and therefore, the realization that we would likely have to go forward for the foreseeable futures with the possibility that our future was dependent on whether or not the Soviet Union would strike us. And so, I... would much rather have that situation under our control rather than theirs I... don't see any, didn't see any other alternative but to accept that situation. And make sure that the war did not start.

WAS DR. KISSINGER STILL HOPING THAT WE COULD RETAIN SOME KIND OF EDGE OF SUPERIORITY?

I'm not sure what Dr. Kissinger's feelings were at that time.

WE SAW AN INTERVIEW YOU DID ON "ISSUES AND ANSWERS" WHERE YOU SAID THAT THERE WAS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC SUPERIORITY. WHY WERE YOU FEELING THAT AT THE TIME?

Okay, now, with regard to questions of superiority, uh... as I've said earlier, it's very, very difficult to imagine, at the very large levels of forces that were on each side, that somehow one side would be able to obtain several fold as much military strategic capability as the other, that seemed to be financially not in the cards. Uh, however, with regard to superiority, even at that time it did seem to me important for the United States to have superiority, and in this sense, I'm referring to technological superiority. I believe that our best counter to the veil of secrecy that the Soviet Union uses so effectively, we needed to , be technologically ahead, not everywhere, but in a number of areas, so that when we began to get fragments of evidence of what was going on in the Soviet Union, we would have been there ourselves before then; we would have understood what it was that we had found out, and we knew what to do about it. So it seemed to me that the best counter for the West, to Soviet secrecy, was superiority, broadly, in technology.

CAN YOU DESCRIBE A LITTLE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ACCEPTANCE THAT YOU GRADUALLY CAME TO OF A DETERRENCE STRATEGY WITH ONE THAT WAS BASED MORE ON A WAR-FIGHTING STRATEGY?

Well, I think at... at every stage since the development of the nuclear explosive people have tried to think through how one might actually conduct nuclear warfare, whether it is strategic or tactical. And I think there is a broad range of, of possibilities there. The general conclusion that most people reach is that once started, the forces in motion tend to drive you to a totally unacceptable end for both sides. Uh, I'd like to point out, however, that's one side of it. There are still others who see that if one side takes a particular action, the other side will realize the result of a continuous escalation, and stop at that stage. However, if they don't, it's up to the other side to stop. And in those tense periods, there is a strong argument for...

YOU WERE EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCE OF OPINION IN THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT AND HOW THAT WAS WORKED OUT…

So, so the ne...

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Okay. Whether or not escalation will take place, of course depends very much on the... the scenario, what is causing it the powers that are... the individuals that are involved let me just explain. Uh, suppose the... an engagement took place at sea, and a nuclear explosion occurred. That's very very different from an ICBM being launched from one country to another. Uh, still that's very different from an invading force, going into another country, and the defending nation using a nuclear explosive on its own soil for its own defense. However, in the end, a lot of people will get killed, and so the... the commanders, the heads of nations may feel that that situation's unacceptable no matter how it occurred. And it's that particular thing that leads one to, to be very concerned about the possibility that there would be ex, escalations.

YOU WERE DESCRIBING A SCENARIO THAT SOME PEOPLE EXPECT, THAT IT WOULD ALL BE OVER ONCE ONE SIDE USES NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

And of course there is the other situation, in which an invader attempts to enter a country with a large conventional force, and while it recognizes that the a country it's attacking may have nuclear weapons, or does feel there's a good chance they won't be used. However, suppose one is used, or several. That may change their whole plan. They may decide that even at that stage, their losses are not worth the prize, and they back off. Now, it seems to me at this stage impossible to really decide between the two. The fact is, they exist. They seem to be effective in the sense that they deter.

SO YOU'RE SAYING THAT AT THE TIME, IN 1969, YOU WERE ARGUING THAT WE SHOULD STRENGTHEN DETERRENT RATHER THAN WAR-FIGHTING CAPABILITY. IS THAT TRUE?

And at that time we... it seems to me... were focusing most of our attention on... on capabilities in the US forces that would prevent war, so that it would not occur, rather than having forces that could ride out attacks, and prevail regardless of the actions taken by the enemy.

AND WERE THERE INDIVIDUALS WHO WERE HOPING FOR SUPERIORITY AND WAR-FIGHTING CAPABILITY?

Now, of course there were individuals at that time who were concerned about the fact that we may not be able to deter war, and in that event, should it occur, we should take whatever actions we could, so that we would survive. So that we would even prevail. But, it did not seem to us in the cards to attempt to attain a degree of superiority that would guarantee that, because that would take several times as many forces as were possessed by the Soviet Union at that time.

IN A SITUATION AS YOU DESCRIBED, WHERE THE SOVIETS ARE BUILDING MISSILES AT AN ONGOING RATE AND WE HAVE STOPPED BUILDING, WHY DIDN'T WE GO AHEAD AND BUILD? WHAT WERE OUR OPTIONS AT THAT TIME, TO COUNTER THAT THREAT?

Now, in that time frame, the Soviet Union was, as I mentioned... building up its strategic forces very rapidly. So — at that time, even though the total numbers were roughly comparable, ours had been stagnant for a number of years, while the Soviet forces were continuing to grow. And so we had to reckon with the possibility that in five years or ten years, there may be a considerable disparity of forces. Now, under those conditions, what we did was to make a, what you'd call a strategic decision. We decided, rather than obtaining larger numbers of missiles, rather than going for larger missiles... rather than getting more bombers, or more submarines, what we would do is increase the quality of those forces. And that's why we put multiple warheads on the Minuteman and on the Polaris, which would then be called Poseidon. We put multiple missiles on the B-52s, and based them inland so they would, they would be less vulnerable...we planned to put ballistic-missile defense over the Minuteman fields, so that they would be less vulnerable; we hardened the Minuteman silos; and we made studies to see if we could actually take the Minutemen out of those silos and put them into a few of a large number of holes, so that we could play a shell game.

AT THIS TIME, THE PRIMARY PREOCCUPATION OF THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT, I ASSUME, WAS THE WAR IN VIETNAM. THERE WAS ALSO AN ATMOSPHERE OF GROWING CIVILIAN PROTEST AGAINST THAT WAR, AND AGAINST MILITARY EXPENDITURES. CAN YOU DESCRIBE, FROM YOUR VANTAGE POINT, HOW THE VIETNAM WAR AFFECTING THE PLANNING AND PROCUREMENT OF WEAPONS?

Now during this time, there was, of course, a war going on in Vietnam, and had been going on for quite a few years, and there was growing concern in the, among the US public, over that war. And it seemed to me that to first order our concerns and activities to cope with that situation... had little effect on our planning, to provide for national security and in particular the strategic forces.

WHY DID WE NEED TO PARTICIPATE IN SALT NEGOTIATIONS?

Now, the question that's frequently asked: why... does the United States need to, uh –

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Why did the United States feel it necessary to engage with the Soviet Union in strategic, in talks about strategic systems? I think the answer is pretty clear. Um... if there were no animosity between the United States and the Soviet Union, no difference in objectives there'd be no need for strategic forces, no need for those expenditures, no need to run the risks. And therefore... it, it seemed logical for these two nations to get together and see if there weren't some steps that they could both agree would be in their own interests... even small steps. Uh... it might be that there are concerns on our part that that are unwarranted. Perhaps the Soviets have no such intention. Perhaps they could demonstrate that. Perhaps the same thing would be true on their side. And if these arrangements could be made perhaps the tendency that, to, to get polarized, one way or another, for long periods of ten-, of, of time, and enter even more tense situations, could be avoided. I think that's the purpose of SALT negotiations.

WAS THERE A SENSE THAT WE HAD TO STOP THEIR ONGOING PRODUCTION OF MISSILES, BECAUSE WE WEREN'T PRODUCING ANY?

I think it's true that some people felt the necessity to, um, have the Soviet Union stop production of their weapons system, particularly the large missiles. Uh, because it was, the large missile, missiles were viewed as, as leading to strategic instability. Uh, however it's clear that if, if the concern is that the Soviets could target our ICBMs we have some alternatives. We could make those ICBMs mobile, so that the enemy could not target them. Or we could put in enough defense to absorb the Soviet strike. There were alternatives. The trouble with that, of course, is that the additional Soviet missiles cost them money; the moving, movement of our missiles cost us money; protection of those missiles cost us money; all of it does not add to security. And therefore by sitting down and chatting with them, you know, perhaps we could work out a deal that would be better for both.

SO IS THAT SORT OF SAYING THAT WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS, NO MATTER HOW MANY YOU BUILD, NEITHER SIDE IS GOING TO GET ANY SUPERIORITY, SO WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST STOP WHERE WE ARE, AND RECOGNIZE THAT WE'RE IN A HOLDING PATTERN?

That does lead to a kind of a natural position for one to take, and that is that... we may have, have together enough missiles, enough weapons... certainly making the situation such that they're even larger forces doesn't seem to be necessary or make sense, and therefore perhaps one could even lower the number of missiles... the number of weapons. That's true.

SO WHY WERE WE PUSHING AHEAD AT THAT TIME WITH FURTHER PROGRAMS, WITH THE SAFEGUARD AND WITH THE MIRVING PROGRAM?

Now, one can ask why, why does the United States, at that time, propose to put multiple, multiple warheads on its missiles. And I think the answer is, is kind of clear. Uh— first, multiple warheads on a missile can make that missile much more effective. More effective to do...either of two important jobs. The first job from our point of view, was to penetrate Soviet ballistic-missile defense. The second job is to send each warhead to a different target. That's a different kind of reason for putting multiple warheads on missiles. Now for us, as I said, the primary purpose was to penetrate, penetrate, ballistic-missile defense. For the Soviets, as far as we could see at that time, the primary purpose was to attack United States Minuteman forces. Now, those are different objectives of MIRVing.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE SOVIET INTENTION WAS?

The reason we were concerned about Soviet MIRVing of their large missiles... was that when one MIRV a very large missile, like the missile we called the SS-9, one is putting on a warhead of high yield, in the range of two to five megatons. One can then get accuracies in the range of a tenth to a quarter of a knot of a mile. That kind of yield, with that kind of accuracy, could at that time destroy the US Minuteman.

NOW WHY COULDN'T THE SOVIETS HAVE SEEN OUR MIRVING AS HAVING FIRST-STRIKE POTENTIAL AGAINST THEIR ICBMS?

On the other hand, looking at the US MIRVing activity, you see a Minuteman, for example Minuteman, when we put multiple warheads on that missile, were much lower yield, by a factor of ten, roughly, and hopefully had a little more guidance, but the combination of the accuracy we had, and the yield of that warhead, would not give it a high probability of killing a Soviet missile in a silo.

WOULDN'T WE STRIVE FOR INCREASING OUR TECHNOLOGICAL SUPERIORITY? WOULDN'T OUR OBJECTIVE BE TO INCREASE THE ACCURACY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF OUR WARHEAD AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE...?

Now, at that time there were those who felt that it would be a good idea for us to work hard to get a higher, a better accuracy, so that with the available yield that we could put on a missile, like the Minuteman, we would have the capability to knock out a Soviet silo, and missile. The problem was twofold: first, we didn't know how to get... the accuracy at that time with high confidence, and second, much more important... the... administration, and the Congress, came, time after time, to the judgment that if the US were to obtain what one... would call a first-strike capability that is to say, a capability in our ICBMs, that could, in a first strike, wipe out most of the Soviet land-based ICBMs, that would be viewed by the Soviets as too threatening, and therefore, cause them, in any period of tension, to strike first. Use those missiles before they were lost. That instability was considered to be unacceptable to the US administration and to the Congress.

AND HOW ABOUT TO YOU?

And I agreed with that position. However, I...

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I agreed with the position of not attempting to get a capability for what is called a first strike against the Soviet Union. But I did believe, I came to believe, that there were a number of targets in the United States in, better start this again. Sorry. I did believe that it was important for the United States not to have a first-strike capability against the Soviet Union. That would be too dangerous. But I came to believe that there were in the Soviet Union a number of very hard targets, that were important for us to have the capability to destroy. Not necessarily, it depended on the scenario. And therefore, I felt that we needed the capability to take on a few very hard targets, either by a large warhead with the necessary accuracy, or just a very large number of warheads, even at relatively low accuracy, poured in on that target to make sure we could destroy it.

NOW WHY, IF WE DON'T BELIEVE THAT WE COULD HAVE A LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR, WOULD WE WANT TO GO AHEAD AND TARGET A FEW SELECTED HARD TARGETS IN THE SOVIET UNION?

Whether or not one wants to get such targets has to do with their nature. They could be command-and-control targets, in which case you may want to destroy them, in order to avoid having that center manage a subsequent operation, or you want to make, may want to make sure that you do not destroy those. It depends very much on the scenario, but at least it seemed to me sensible to have the capability. Either by some tactical use of the forces, or at least have some technology that would do it in a combination way.

NOW, IF YOU'RE ABLE TO GO AHEAD AND TARGET SOME VERY HARD TARGETS, WHY WOULDN'T THE SOVIETS VIEW THAT AS ALSO BEING ABLE TO TARGET THEIR LAND-BASED DETERRENT?

Now, whether or not the Soviets would feel threatened by this depends very much on our capability. If it is clear, from our testimony to the Congress, and the capability in being that we could only attack, say, 50 or 200 such targets, it would be clear to the Soviets, who had, say, a thousand or more silo'd missiles, that we have no capability to knock out most of their missiles.

THIS DECISION TO GO FROM A SENTINEL TO A SAFEGUARD PROGRAM, COULD THAT BE SEEN AS A SYMBOL OF THE GROWING ACCEPTANCE THAT THERE WAS NOT A WAY TO DEFEND OUR POPULATION, THAT MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION WAS IN FACT AN UNAVOIDABLE CONDITION AT THAT TIME?

In, in the US ABM program…started in 1967 by the decision of President Johnson, our objective there was to provide a light defense across the United States with 15 sites. Uh, recognizing that it would not be possible, with that technology, to create an impervious shield over the United States, no matter how many sites we put in, no matter how many missiles. That was clear to us that it was just technologically not, not available. On the other hand, we felt that that kind of deployment would... take care of an accidental launch from the Soviet Union; it could take care of a... light attack from China mainland China over the next few years; and it would also provide for defense of Minuteman in the future, should the large missile threat mainly the SS-9s, in the Soviet Union, continue to increase. Now that was called Sentinel. A couple of years later, when the Nixon Administration came in again the President, President Nixon reviewed it and, with Secretary Laird and others, and the decision was made to change that deployment. And we changed it to a 12-site system, which would start with the deployment around the Minuteman field, specifically Maelstrom and Grand Forks. And the reason for that was, the Chinese threat had not grown as rapidly as we had feared, and second, the Soviet SS-9 buildup continued, beyond our expectation, and so we had to start by putting in sites in the Minuteman fields.

YOU FELT AT THE TIME THAT IT WAS FEASIBLE TO PROTECT OUR DETERRENT, BUT IT WAS NOT FEASIBLE TO PROTECT OUR POPULATION.

So to summarize it seemed to us, technologically, we could provide a very light defense of the population, but... we could do a better job against a light attack on the Minuteman forces, force. Uh, however, even that was difficult, and so not only did we have a initial deployment plan, but we had to technologically dig deeper, and come up with a, a planned attack, a planned attack on the problem with different equipment later on.

YOU BASICALLY DECIDED YOU COULD NOT DEFEND THE POPULATION.

So we accepted the fact that we could not defend the population against a heavy attack. We could defend it against a few missiles coming in, tens or even hundreds of missiles. But recognizing that... for tens or hundreds of missiles coming in, there would be some leakage, there would be some cities lost, but of course, most of them would survive. So it wasn't perfect, but it was certainly better than nothing. However, we thought we could do a better job in defending the Minuteman field, simply because if a third of them or a half of them were destroyed, we would still have a deterrent.

SECRETARY MCNAMARA AND OTHERS IN THE HEARINGS MADE ARGUMENTS THAT TO BUILD AN ABM THAT WAS TRYING TO DEFEND POPULATION CENTERS WAS PROVOCATIVE, TO THE EXTENT THAT THE ONLY RESPONSE TO IT WOULD BE TO BUILD MORE OFFENSIVE MISSILES ON THE OTHER SIDE, THAT WOULD CANCEL OUT WHATEVER INCREMENT IN DEFENSE WE HAD ACHIEVED. WHAT WAS YOUR RESPONSE TO THAT?

Now the... arguments were made, at that time, that it was likely that if one would put in defense of population, or defense of, military forces that the most likely response, on the other side, would be to simply provide more missiles, and penetrate that defense. Now, to some extent I think that's a good argument. It, it has, it, it seems to work with simple arithmetic; that is to say, you add a hundred defensive missiles, and then you add another hundred offensive missiles, and they cancel one another out. Uh, that, however, does miss a point, and it's an important point: and that is… for the, attacking force, a defense that it must penetrate is a lot more worrisome when you really get down to the targeting problem, than it appears at first sight. That is to say, in the US ABM proposal, a number of very talented and knowledgeable and able people argued that it would be easy to penetrate that, and they would describe the scheme to the US Congress, for example. Now that's true; in principle, it's possible to do just what they said, and it might be that easy. But there's an interesting observation, and that is that at that time, we certainly would not have used those tactics to penetrate the Soviet ballistic missile defense. So, from a simple technical point of view, you might argue, "Well, it's easy to penetrate ballistic-missile defense. All you have to do is add a few missiles," when you actually get down to planning to conduct a very successful campaign against that, it turns out to be a lot different job, and a lot more difficult. And so... when the US did its planning to penetrate the, the Soviet defense around Moscow, it was very different from any of the proposals that were advanced by the detractors of the US ABM proposal, as a mechanism to defeat it.

WE WERE DEVELOPING, AND GETTING READY TO DEPLOY, MIRVED WARHEADS THAT WOULD OVERWHELM A SOVIET POTENTIAL ABM ATTACK, AND SCIENTISTS WERE SAYING THEY WOULD DO THE SAME THING. THEY WOULD CREATE MANY MORE WARHEADS IN ORDER TO OVERWHELM OUR DEFENSE. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THAT?

I think it, it's...we'll have to start this one all over again.

(DISCUSSION)

Of course it is it can be argued, can I start this all over again?

(DISCUSSION)

The US MIRVing of the Minuteman force, and the Polaris force, as I said, was intended to penetrate the Soviet Moscow, ABM system. Uh, in that case it's clear that if a few get through... the city is destroyed. Let's look at the other side of it. Soviet ICBMs, being MIRVed to attack the Minuteman force, Our defense of the Minuteman force recognized that a number of missiles are going to get through, dozens, hundreds. The point is, the defense had to be adequate to assure that several hundred Minutemen would survive, as a retaliatory force. So the difference is, deterrence was maintained in our case even though hundreds of missiles got through. In the... case of our attack on the Soviet Union, just a few getting through would certainly assure destruction of the target.

IN ORDER TO KEEP SOME SORT OF ATTACK RATIO, THE OTHER SIDE WOULD HAVE TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF WARHEADS THEY WERE PRODUCING... THE ARGUMENT WAS BEING MADE THAT YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING BY DEPLOYING A DEFENSE, BUT INCREASING THE NUMBER OF WARHEADS THAT THEY'RE GOING TO SEND OVER HERE.

But it is true that in the end, if an offensive force wants to... Let me take it over again, sorry.

(DISCUSSION)

But it's certainly true that if one power decides that it will provide the forces to overwhelm a defense, and it can do it quickly enough, and before the defense can respond, it can overwhelm it. That's certainly true.

THEN WHAT KIND OF A POSITION WERE YOU IN, TESTIFYING BEFORE CONGRESS IN '69 AND '70-'71, WHEN YOU WERE BEING CONFRONTED BY SENATORS WHO WERE SAYING, "WHY SHOULD WE SPEND THE MONEY ON THAT?"

The US position, in... proposing to the Congress that we prepare to deploy ballistic-missile defense, and particularly of the Minuteman force, also had with it another aspect. We said to the Congress, and they supported it, the idea that we would go to the Soviet Union and, at the conference table, discuss the possibility of putting a limit on these things, avoiding having large amounts of ballistic-missile defense. So as in turn to require more and more offensive forces. That was a part and parcel of the whole package to Congress at that time.

THROUGH THESE VARIOUS ARGUMENTS BACK AND FORTH, DID YOU COME TO THE REALIZATION THAT PERHAPS THE BEST COURSE, INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY DEPLOYING ABMS AND HAVING TO MEET THAT GROWING THREAT, WAS TO IN FACT NEGOTIATE?

And one of the safeguard would get propositions that was put on the table by both sides was that we would get rid of ABM, or perhaps limit it to the, the present deployment or current plans. And in fact, as, as we know, that was what... was agreed to.

WHAT KIND OF POSITION DID THAT PUT YOU IN CONGRESS IN 1970, WHEN YOU WERE SUPPORTING THE PRESIDENT'S PLAN THAT WE NEEDED AN ABM PROGRAM, AND YET YOU ALSO KNEW THAT SOME OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST WERE ACTUALLY EFFECTIVE?

Now of course... at that time, there were a number of forces at work. There were forces that argued for the, the program to deploy a ballistic-missile defense. There were other forces that argued, "Look, if you deploy a ballistic-missile defense, in whatever form, the other side will simply mount the missiles necessary to defeat it." But there was a third force. And the third force said, "Look, the Soviets have a ballistic-missile defense program. They have a deployment; it's nearly completed. The way to handle that situation is to have, on the table, a plan to proceed, approved by the Congress, so that the United States could have a ballistic-missile defense. With that agreed to, then we can sit down with the Soviet Union. Perhaps then they would agree... that we could make a balanced trade, to the benefit of both of us."

IT SEEMS THAT A MAJOR RATIONALE FOR US GOING AHEAD AND FUNDING THE ABM PROGRAM AT THE TIME WAS TO COUNTER THE SOVIET ABM PROGRAM...WERE YOU MAKING THAT ARGUMENT THAT THE TIME?

And, and I'm sure, if one looks back into the testimony, one will find at that time, that in the last vote, to support... the safeguard system, there were some members of Congress who voted for it because they believed this country needed a ballistic-missile defense, and there were some members of Congress who believed that, in voting for it, they were voting to give the President of the United States a system which he could use at the bargaining table with the Soviet Union.

FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW...IN A SENSE, YOU WERE FIGHTING A DIFFICULT BATTLE, BECAUSE THE LOGIC OF OVERWHELMING AN ABM DEFENSE WAS FAIRLY STRONG. WAS IT GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND THAT WE NEEDED TO GET THIS PROGRAM, EVEN THOUGH WE CAN'T SAY THAT WE WANT IT.

Now, for the technical folk, there were two challenges. One, we had to successfully defend the request for a ballistic-missile system for the United States before the Congress, and second, we had to support the administration in going to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviet Union. What we had to do in that case was to provide a description of the constraints on ballistic-missile defenses that would be so good that would, could be sure that the Soviets would never have a very effective ballistic-missile defense system. So on the one hand, we had to describe a very effective ballistic-missile defense system for the United States, and at the same time describe conditions, on both countries, that would limit the effectiveness of those defenses, so as to assure that one would not need to build up large strategic offensive missile forces.

ARE YOU SAYING THAT IN GIVING TESTIMONY THERE'S A SENSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS ON YOUR PART THAT THE SOVIET UNION IS LISTENING IN?

Now, of course, in all of this testimony one has to realize that there is, the transcripts of, of that testimony is available, not only to us, but also to the Soviet Union. And that's an asymmetry that's rather worrisome. We have an open debate about critical issues in this country, and the Soviets can listen in and play their cards correctly. And...that makes it especially difficult for us, because not only do they have this, this very effective secrecy shield, but they also have a very active program called Maskirovka, "deception." And they sometimes tell us what we really would like to hear.

WAS YOUR FEELING AT THE TIME THAT IF CONGRESS HAD SAID, "OKAY, YOU GUYS THINK WE NEED AN ABM SAFEGUARD PROGRAM, WE'LL GIVE YOU THE MONEY," WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN YOUR CHOICE?

If the Congress had authorized the full deployment, and we were not able to, um, get agreement with the Soviets in the strategic talks then I suppose that the ABM deployment would have been completed; the test program had gone well, as well as the best of our systems so I imagine it would have been deployed. And I suspect there would have been, over a period of several years, there'd be some evidence of Soviet reaction to it. And of course the concern would have then been that the Soviets might mount an overwhelming capability to defeat the defense, say, of the Minuteman fields. Uh, and we had to cope with that. And there were a number of things we could have done. We were looking at much more effective radars improved missiles. But we were also looking at other things: we were looking at having a large number of holes into which we could put a small number of missiles, and move them around, so that the Soviets would not know which one to attack, and yet they would not have enough warheads to attack them all. That was an alternative.

(INTERRUPTION)

You know, but it seems to me that there is a, another kind of problem that we would have had to face, and that is, we were not looking at the problem in the same way. That is to say, the United States was some how trying to target Soviet cities. Uh, tar-, target... Soviet forces that were within our capability to hit. The Soviet Union seemed to be... from our point of view, focusing in on our strategic retaliatory attack. And I think sooner or later the two countries would have had to come, had to come to grips... with that asymmetry in strategy. We would have had to make it very clear to the Soviet Union that we could not tolerate the Soviet effort to deny our retaliatory capability. And perhaps between us we would have agreed that we could not have ever-increasing ballistic-missile defenses of the populations. Perhaps we would have ended up considering the possibility that we ought to reduce the number of strategic forces.

HOW DID YOU FEEL WHEN THE ABM TREATY WAS CONCLUDED? WERE YOU BASICALLY RELIEVED THAT WE DIDN'T HAVE TO GO AND STRUGGLE TO MAKE THESE DEFENSES CONTINUALLY EFFECTIVE AGAINST OFFENSIVE THREATS?

Of course when the ABM Treaty was concluded, we then went from one set of problems to another set of problems. Uh, without a treaty we had to be concerned about the possibility of a very large deployment of ballistic-missile defense throughout the Soviet Union, and the possibility that we would not be able to tell which parts of the system were really... effective defense against ballistic missiles, as compared with air-defense capability. They, these tend to merge with time. On the other hand, with a treaty, we then had to see... how to be sure that that treaty really would be effective, because the hope that people had in conducting the, negotiations for the treaty was that we would stop the increase in the ballistic-missile capabilities and forces on both sides. Because in the absence of ballistic-missile defense, there would no longer be a need for ever-increasing forces.

(INTERRUPTION)

So here's another way to attack that. Um... with the completion of the ABM Treaty, we then had removed, with good luck, one part of the strategic problem: that is, the problem of penetrating ballistic-missile defense. It was now capped; it was limited. There remained, however, another problem, and that is the vulnerability of our ICBMs at their bases: vulnerability to a Soviet ballistic-missile attack.

AND HOW DID THAT CONCERN YOU?YOU HAD TESTIFIED, AND YOU'VE STATED HERE, THAT THE MOTIVATION FOR DEVELOPING THE MULTIPLE WARHEADS WAS IN ORDER TO PENETRATE THE SOVIET DEFENSE. NOW YOU HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO MAKING AN ABM AGREEMENT, SO NEITHER SIDE IS GOING TO HAVE AN ABM AGREEMENT. WHY DID YOU GO AHEAD WITH MIRVs?

With the...completion of the ABM Treaty, it was then clear that there would be a limit to the number of...ballistic missile defenses in the Soviet Union, and therefore a limit in the need for... forces to penetrate that. And what that meant, then, was that one could ask do you still need to MIRV, put multiple vehicles on each of the Minuteman and Polaris forces. Uh, and I suppose... that to some degree, that's a pretty good argument. Except for, kind of, two things. First, we were not sure, with the details that we were able to negotiate with the Soviet Union, we were not sure that we had really capped the ballistic-missile defense capability of the Soviet Union. Now, let me be a, a little specific here. As to the number of... Soviet... radars and missiles, the that constituted the so-called Moscow system, I think we felt pretty comfortable. Where we were uneasy, and had been uneasy for a number of years... was with regard to a very aggressive Soviet an-, what we called anti-aircraft system, which had... very large radars, and long-range missiles, with relatively high performance. And it seemed to us that those... so-called "air defense systems" could possess, with time, some capability to intercept sub-launched ballistic missiles from the Polaris force, and perhaps... reentry vehicles from the Minuteman force. And so that was a... serious concern. The other side of it was that with the MIRVing of the Minuteman and Polaris forces, we were in a position—

(INTERRUPTION).

The second point was that as the multiple warheads were put on the Polaris force, and the Minuteman force, the... people who were doing the planning found that it was much better to use a small warhead on a target in the Soviet Union, something that's, say, 40 kilotons, rather than using a megaton. And so they found that while we were, would put in more warheads, the total mega-tonnage would go down, and the effectiveness with which we could target the Soviet Union's targets was improved. And so, if one were to stop the MIRVing, one would remove that opportunity to use the for-, force much more effectively.

LET ME DO THE FIRST PART OF THAT AGAIN COULD YOU SORT OF SUMMARIZE THE TWO POINTS YOU WERE SAYING?

For the United States, the MIRVing of our missiles permitted us to do two things. One was to penetrate Soviet ballistic-missile defense. With the existence of the treaty, that need was now much less. Second, the MIRVing of missiles permitted us to put small-yield warheads on a target in the Soviet Union, rather than very large ones. And in some cases this meant using 40 kilotons rather than a thousand kilotons, so it was a much more efficient use of the force and used roughly one half of the total mega-tonnage.

WAS THAT AN IMPORTANT ENOUGH OBJECTIVE TO GO THROUGH WITH THESE NEW LEVELS OF WARHEADS?

Now, a number of people had been concerned that in the process of putting multiple warheads on our missiles, what we were really doing was increasing the number of warheads, and that was bad: that is the so-called arms r-race. Now, actually, another way to look at it is, the total amount of mega-tonnage was going down by roughly a factor of two. Putting it another way, for whatever level of capability one wants, or one needs, the use of multiple warheads on a missile is the cheapest way to go.

WHY WOULD IT GO DOWN BY HALF?

Now many people have, have noticed that when one went to the multiple independent reentry vehicle on our systems, one increased significantly the total number of warheads in the inventory, and that is a concern to them. The point that one ought to remember, however, is that when one takes a single warhead off that missile, that single warhead is one megaton, roughly. And you replace it by three warheads, and the total mega-tonnage of the three warheads is at most a half a megaton. And so there is actually less total military raw power, total...less total fallout. So it is not all just an escalation in the armament; it is a more efficient way to achieve whatever level of military capability you desire.

NOW ONE OF YOUR CHIEF CONCERNS AT THE TIME WAS TO PROTECT THE LAND-BASED DETERRENT. THE ARGUMENT THAT WAS MADE AT THE TIME WAS THAT ONE OF THE THINGS THAT MAKES THE LAND-BASED DETERRENT THE MOST VULNERABLE WOULD BE IF THE SOVIET UNION ACHIEVED A MULTIPLE WARHEAD STATUS, AND COULD THEREFORE TARGET OUR ICBMS IN THEIR SILOS. HOW WAS THAT CONCERN DEALT WITH?

During the period when we were negotiating the ABM treaty with the Soviet Union, there were concerns about the ongoing program of MIRVing, both by the United States and the Soviet Union. And there were actually considerations by both sides: that is to say, the US and the Soviet Union tabled, in those strategic arms limitation talks, positions regarding MIRVing. As I recall, however, it was not possible to come to an agreement. Perhaps in part because the purposes, and the objectives, on both sides were different. The agreement to... limit, or stop, ballistic-missile defense, had a direct effect on US MIRVs. It made them less important to us. However, it had no effect on the Soviet Union. Excuse me, I'd better take that back — that's not true. Uh—

(DISCUSSION)

At the time...the Soviet Union and the United States were negotiating...the ABM Treaty, consideration was also given to the possibility that one might put limits, or stop, the MIRV programs on each side. Uh, the argument being that if we could have an ABM Treaty, then there, the US would have much less need to penetrate a large Soviet ballistic-missile defense and therefore we wouldn't need MIRVs. And on the other side, the Soviet Union if it knew that the United States was not going to have a heavy defense over the Minute-man fields, it would not need a large number of MIRVs on its large ballistic missiles. Now, that's a pretty sensible argument, and it turned out that each side submitted, as I recall proposals around 1970 to do just that. However it didn't come to pass, and I don't know exactly why that was; I suspect on the one hand the United States felt that this more efficient use of a ballistic missile...was important to us; perhaps the Soviet Union, on the other side feeling that they were a little behind in that technology, didn't want to give up the opportunity to become technologically equal.

HOW DID YOU FEEL AT THE TIME?

You know, as, as I recall, looking at that, at that issue of including MIRV bans with a ballistic-missile defense ban, um, I did not feel comfortable in having both together. And if you ask me why, I, I suppose it's a little along the following lines: I was very uneasy about the confidence we would have that the so-called ballistic-missile defense capability of the Soviet Union, excuse me- [I have to change that, 'cause there's no such thing as so-called ballistic missiles.]

(DISCUSSION)

From a technical point of view, it seems to me that... my view at the time of that situation was that, uh, given that we could obtain a treaty on ABMs, I would have preferred to not have the MIRV included as part of that package. Now it's a kind of a marginal decision but the argument I would have... favors at least that view, was that first I was really concerned that the Soviet ballistic-missile defense might be in the end far more than just what we would call the Moscow system. Rather there might be so-called air-defense systems, or transportable systems, or tactical missile defense systems... somehow excluded by the treaty in the, in the eyes of the Soviet Union, perhaps not by us, and all of that could raise enough difficulty so that we would need to have the flexibility of a MIRV capability to do it, without resorting to larger numbers of missiles. That's on that side. Uh, however, taking that position admits that the Soviet Union could have MIRV, and that could threaten the Minuteman force, and we would not be in a position to have an adequate ballistic-missile defense. It was for that reason that we said, "All right, we will look at one or two alternatives. We will look at making Minuteman mobile, so it cannot be targeted, MIRV or no MIRV. Uh, second, we will have so many holes there, five thousand, ten thousand -- and be able to put the thousand Minuteman into those holes and move them around. And so there could be more holes than the Soviets would care to target, and...that's a possible option." And so there's a way to defeat MIRV if, if the purpose of MIRV is to attack a strategic force.

WHY WAS IT MORE IMPORTANT TO GO AHEAD WITH THE PROGRAM, KNOWING THERE WERE ALL THESE OTHER THINGS WE WOULD HAVE TO RIG UP IN ORDER TO COUNTER THE THREAT ON THEIR SIDE OF A MIRV. WHY WAS THERE SO MUCH PRESSURE TO MOVE AHEAD?

There was, of course, in addition the, the factor that the United States and, I suspect, the Soviet Union at that time, had aggressive programs underway...to MIRV the forces. And once set in motion, one has to have pretty good arguments for stopping it. And, as I said, both sides tabled positions on MIRV at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, but it was not possible to make any progress.

SOME PEOPLE SAY THAT NOT GETTING A BAN ON MIRV AT SALT I WAS A REAL MISSED OPPORTUNITY... HOW DO YOU RESPOND?

The other side of it is that it can be argued that we missed an opportunity, that we should have taken more time, gone around the, the horn another time on the discussion perhaps even put in a pause, although I'm doubtful that you could get that verified on both sides. Uh, whether or not that would have been good one doesn't know. It was a missed opportunity; however, history does not reveal that alternative.

WHEN YOU LOOKED BACK ON IT LATER, DID YOU WISH AT THE TIME THAT YOU MADE MADE A STRONGER ARGUMENT FOR PAUSING?

Looking back on it I don't feel strongly that that we... we missed a very important opportunity. Let me just say why. Uh... for very large missiles just... efficiency argues that they ought to be MIRVed. For very small missiles, they cannot be MIRVed, there is not the payload capability to do so. So the issue really, I believe, is not MIRVing or not MIRVing. The issue is, large missiles, or small missiles.

BUT AT THE TIME, THERE WERE A LOT OF ARGUMENTS MADE THAT THE ONLY WAY OUR LAND-BASED DETERRENT COULD BE PROTECTED, ONCE THOSE LARGE MISSILES THAT THE SOVIETS HAD WERE MIRVED, WE WERE GOING TO FACE A LOT OF PROBLEMS.

However... not having agreed to MIRV — excuse me, want to start that again.

JUST START WITH NOT HAVING AGREED...

Not having, been able to agree to ban MIRVs.

(INTERRUPTION).

Not having agreed to ban MIRVs, we were then in a position where we had to reckon with the likelihood that the Soviets could attain the capability to successfully destroy most of the US Minuteman. And that meant, then, that we had to cope with that situation, since we probably would not agree to tolerate it. And that meant either arranging to make sure that if there were an attack, the Minutemen would not be in their holes, or... the Minutemen would be deployed on... some mobile system, trains, trucks, whatever, or, the Minutemen would be put into a very, an array of a large number of holes. So that in a sense, the force would not be targeted.

IN SUMMARY, THEN, YOU FELT AT THE TIME THAT WE NEEDED MIRVs BADLY ENOUGH THAT WE WERE WILLING TO LET THE SOVIETS GET THEM AND THEN GO THROUGH ALL THESE MACHINATIONS TO PROTECT OUR FORCES.

You know, as I look back on it one of the things that strikes me as bothering us a bit... was that, um, when one, uh... tries to have a ban on MIRVing... you have to reckon with this whole matter of how are you sure that you've been effective. How do you provide the, the necessary confidence that there's no MIRVing on the other side? And the difficulty is that there, there had already been some flight tests by both sides. Um, there also could be tests that perhaps could provide MIRVing capability... without our being able to know whether that had occurred or not. And so the whole general matter of verification the fact that those three warheads or those ten warheads would be inside of a shroud, and the likelihood that you would not be able to get agreement to examine that kind of detail probably led to a little less confidence on, on our part, that we could force the Soviets to go that far, with regard to on-site inspections.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SALT AGREEMENTS, AND THE OFFENSIVE AGREEMENTS, AT THAT TIME?

Well, the SALT agreement did provide for some limitations; the problem seemed to me, and I suspect a number of people at that time, felt that, um, in a sense... the limits were only... limits that permitted us to do what we planned to do anyway, and so we permitted...MIRVing; it therefore permitted an increase in, in the number of missiles by, oh, I don't know, fivefold on their side and maybe fourfold on our side;sit also permitted them to complete the construction on a number of submarines and silos and missiles and so on that they had underway, and that was a rather special advantage for them, because we had very little underway on our side. Um, but looking back on it, it did have it did have some limits, if continued into the future, year after year after year, it put at least some pause... some reason for second thoughts on each side, some opportunity for discussion, because I think most people would agree there is, there is, if anything, too much installed strategic nuclear capability.

DO YOU REMEMBER, HALFWAY THROUGH THE SALT NEGOTIATIONS, THERE WAS A POINT WHERE KISSINGER ACHIEVED A BREAKTHROUGH WHERE HE GOT THE SOVIET UNION TO AGREE TO LINK AN OFFENSIVE AGREEMENT TO THE DEFENSIVE AGREEMENT. OUR CONCERN AT THAT TIME WAS STOPPING THEIR OFFENSIVE DEVELOPMENT DO YOU REMEMBER THAT?

At that time it seemed to me that there were a number of serious concerns. Uh, one was, had to do with the degree to which, regardless of specifications, a ballistic-missile defense capability could emerge in the Soviet Union, by whatever description. Uh, second, we had limits on numbers of launchers, and yet that's not a very good description of the total payload, and the Soviet Union already had more missile payload than the United States, and that was a worry. But on the other hand, you know we were counting launchers because that's what we could count. Uh, counting payload is much more difficult, and at least it was very difficult to negotiate. Also, when one counts offensive forces to some degree they can be negated by defensive forces, so one has to take both of those into account, you know? That, that's easy to say, but it's sometimes very hard to negotiate. So in this first round of SALT, it, it seems to me we took the first cut. We negotiated what was possible. It had left, I suppose some degree of dissatisfaction on all sides.

DID YOU FEEL THAT WE COULD TRUST THE RUSSIANS IN AN AGREEMENT LIKE THIS, WITH SOMETHING AS PRECIOUS AS OUR NATIONAL SECURITY AT STAKE?

Uh, through it all, I, I must confess, I... did not feel comfortable that we could trust... the Russians; rather, I felt that the Russians, in particular my counterparts, would do everything they could to provide for their security within the ground rules, and within the rules of their state, which meant that they would have to hide whatever they could hide, and they would deceive wherever they could deceive, if it was in their advantage.

WOULD THAT MEAN THAT WE WOULD HAVE TO DO THE SAME?

And for our part, we would have to mount a more capable intelligence effort in an attempt to find out in fact what was going on; we would have to mount an aggressive technology program, to make sure that we could find out what was possible, make sure that our technical efforts, to the degree they were critical here and there, were at least ahead of the Soviet Union, so that we knew what to expect, likely we would have to face... and, and knew how to cope with it.

AFTER SALT I WAS ACHIEVED, THERE WERE MANY PEOPLE WHO OBJECTED, IN PARTICULAR SENATOR JACKSON… WHAT DID YOU FEEL?

Following the, the agreements SALT I there were a number of people, and I was among them, who...still felt concerned, because while we had negotiated on numbers of missiles, there was still this disparity in total payload. Uh, not that the existing systems were all that effective but that they could be, so as one looked ahead... the technological opportunities that were open meant that we could face a rather asymmetrical situation if we were not careful. And that's why we instituted a number of actions at that time, to sort of preserve the deterrent capability.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS CONGRESS'S ROLE IN THIS WHOLE THING?

Of course... through it all, the Congress played a large role. They played their role. And, you know, looking back on it, it seems to me it was a very important role. Because there were members of Congress who were every bit as concerned as members of... the Department of Defense. And there were other members of Congress who were really thinking about the future of humanity, and particularly concerned about the—

IN YOUR ROLE OF BEING CONSTANTLY CHALLENGED BY CONGRESS. WHAT POSITION DID THAT PUT YOU IN...?

Well... well, through it all, Congress, of course, played its role, a critical role. They were the final determinant as to whether or not such a thing –

(INTERRUPTION)

Through it all, of course Congress played its role — an important role — they were the final determinant as to whether or not there would be such a treaty. And in the process, uh, they, looked at every aspect. Uh, they... there were members of Congress who felt extremely concerned about what we were doing; worried that we would perhaps put ourselves in a very vulnerable position downstream. And there were others who felt that we had an insane situation going between the two national powers, and humanity was at risk. So in between these two extremes the administration had to deal you know, its cards, and defend them against all views.

WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?

Well, you know, the fact is, this situation, these situations are so complicated, and there are so many facets that it is... relatively easy for a person to take a look at that wealth of information, and extract from it selective pieces that fits his point of view, and present what appears to a layman... as an overwhelming case. The difficulty is, you can, with a different point of view, select a different set of pieces of information, and make another overwhelming case that is exactly opposite to the other one. The problem for the administration is that it has to present a case, and successfully defend it, in the face of all of the others. Huh?

(INTERRUPTION).

Through all of this, of course, there were so many points of view. It's in fact a very complicated kind of situation. It has so many facets. There is so much information. In fact, it is possible for a person who has a particular viewpoint to go in and selectively pick up pieces of information, and build a case, which looks like a absolutely overwhelming convincing case for his position. Another person with a different view can go in and pull out bits and pieces of information and selectively build his case, and it looks solid. And it is exactly in opposition to that first case. The problem for the administration, as McGeorge Bundy once says, once said, the administration had to live with the whole. It had to successfully present and defend a position, in the face of all of those very different views.

WAS IT FRUSTRATING HAVING TO TALK TO PEOPLE WHO HAD LESS EXPERTISE THAN YOURSELF?

Of course as a member of the administration, I was trying to present at least the technical military position of the administration. And during those sessions with the Congress one would frequently come up against a situation where a member of the Congress felt terribly strongly, from his vantage point and his experience, and his objectives for the United States that was very different...to the position of the administration. And you know, through it all one got the feeling that while one understood the technical military situation reasonably well, and felt that you could present it reasonably well, the situation had such dimensions, and the members of Congress had had such exposure to a wide range of things in this country, that when they come in from a different position, they had some legitimate reasons for that position. And so in fact it takes a lot of discussion, a lot of hearings, a lot of days.

WHEN YOU LOOK BACK, IS THERE ANY SORT OF LESSON YOU CAN DRAW FROM THIS PERIOD OF TIME?

The ABM Treaty permits, uh –

(INTERRUPTION).

The ABM Treaty permits the defense of ballistic missiles the Minuteman sites. It also permits defense of the so-called National Command Authority. That is, the Washington area. Um, of course we... did not choose to install, the system around Washington. And the reason seems to be tied to a historical position of the Congress. The Congress seems unwilling to provide, special defense for the Congress, the President, and so on. Uh, rather... they would prefer, if they're going to be defense, it should be uniform across the nation.

WHAT'S THE REASON FOR PROTECTING THE PRESIDENT AND THE CENTRAL POWERS?

Now, from a technical military point of view, the reason for providing that kind of a defense is simply to provide time, additional time, for the President to make a decision on what he wants the retaliatory forces to do.

AND WHAT'S THE ADVANTAGE TO THAT? AT THE TIME YOU HAD A DIFFICULT DECISION TO MAKE ABOUT MIRVs, AND FOR SOME REASON THERE WAS AN INCREDIBLE URGENCY THAT WE HAD TO GO AHEAD AND BUILD THEM FIRST... IS THIS THE ESSENCE OF AN ARMS RACE?

Now, I, I realize that not achieving a ban on MIRVs can lead one to conclude that we were not able to stop the increase in the number of warheads. And so one could say, "Well, look, you did not put an end to the arms race." Now, as a matter of fact, I, I don't believe that's a proper term. Uh, neither nation is racing, as a matter of fact, but it's a nice term to use. However, as a matter of fact, while these numbers of warheads were increasing, they were also getting smaller — that is to say, the yield of the warheads was going down faster than their numbers were going up. So in a sense it can be argued that the total destructive power was being reduced, not only in the United States, but also in the Soviet Union. So what is probably a better measure than numbers of missiles is total payload. Total payload in ground-based missiles, sea-based missiles land-based bombers, that's probably a better measure.

WHAT YOU HAVE SAID IS THAT THERE'S A NEED FOR THE UNITED STATES TO TRY TO MAINTAIN AN EDGE... OBVIOUSLY WE KNOW THAT THE SOVIET UNION IS ALWAYS GOING TO TRY TO MATCH THAT. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR THE FUTURE?

Now, as... time passes, it's clear that technology will permit us to do things in the future that we cannot do today. And what that means is that offensive systems can become threatened--

(INTERRUPTION)(QUESTION REPEATED)

Okay... now, with the passage of time technology will permit us to do things in strategic forces in the future that we can't do today. Uh, as a consequence, it will be necessary to change the strategic forces in order to be able to provide deterrents, to deter war. Now, changing the force is, is not bad; it's good. It assures that you can... prevent war. Perhaps the worst thing one can do is to let the strategic forces stagnate, to cause uncertainty to grow in our ability to deter war; on either side, increasing uncertainty seems to me to be a bad thing, a dangerous thing, and therefore continued pursuit of technology, applying it whether it comes from military research and development or civilian research and development, applying it to military forces to keep them modern, to have confidence in their capabilities, is an important aspect of deterring war.

HOW DO ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS FIT INTO THAT EQUATION?

Now of course in pursuing such research and development, realizing the importance, in fact necessity, of doing that, particularly on the side of the United States, it then means that in negotiating agreements with the Soviet Union, you have to leave open the flexibility, the flexibility to conduct research and development. And you're doing it for two reasons: one, to make sure that the United States can stay technologically ahead of the Soviet Union to counter their secrecy, and second, that if you do get into trouble, if there is, despite that effort, something that happens on the other side, that endangers your security, you're in a position to conduct the research and development necessary to redress that situation.

THE ARGUMENT THAT YOU'RE MAKING IS THAT WE BOTH NEED TO KEEP AHEAD SO WE CAN KEEP A BALANCE OF DETERRENCE. IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THE NATURE OF TECHNOLOGY THAT DRIVES FORWARD SOPHISTICATION AND EXPENSE...?

It can be argued that all of this...research and development leads to more and more deadly weapons, and therefore we should put an end to all of these research. Not permit it. Now the trouble with that is twofold: first, if one takes the present systems and simply keeps them the way they are, what you find is they deteriorate, and they have to be maintained. Now imagine trying to maintain a 1923 radio. Where would you get the tubes? Would you really want that 1923 radio? Would you like to use that as your communications system, to assure peace? Now the answer is, it doesn't make any sense. A second reason it doesn't make any sense is that because the Soviets have such an effective seal, field of secrecy, we are not in the position to know what's going on. We have not been able, in our negotiations with them, to get an agreements, to get agreements that would permit us to look in detail into the Soviet Union. From their point of view, that whole area is part of their national security, and they have no intention of letting us pry into that. So our only defense, given that situation, is to pursue an aggressive research and development program in the United States.

SO WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO CONTINUE TO DEVELOP AND DEPLOY NEW WEAPONS SYSTEMS. IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK?

So it seems to me that...for the foreseeable future, the US really has no choice but to continue research and development on our military forces, and at the same time, do everything we can to work with the Soviet Union, to see that we minimize the strains, certainly avoid the unnecessary military developments, and if possible, actually reduce the levels of forces.