ASKS HIM TO REVIEW OPTIONS TO SOLVE PROBLEM OF ICBM VULNERABILITY.

Well there's a long list of them. Many people feel that probably the best way to do it is just get rid of the ICBMs. That if they were attractive targets you could abandon them. Just keep the other parts of your strategic forces, what's at sea and the bombers. And so one is abandon them. A second one that people talk about is defend them. Those are the proponents of the Strategic Defense Initiative and the strategic defenses in general. So one could defend them. Another is hide them. Actually there's a fancy title for that. It's called preservation of locational uncertainty. PLU. But it means hide them. Don't let the other guy know where they are so he can't target them. Another is harden the silos even more. So that they can withstand the blast of a Soviet incoming warhead. Then there's another one is launch them under attack. You do get about 30 minutes notice of a Soviet ICBM coming toward your ICBMs. You could decide to launch your ICBMs before all of his arrived. And then the final proposed solution is arms control. Do something in arms control such that you reduce the Soviet threat to our ICBMs. So that's pretty much the list.

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH CARTER BASING SYSTEM PROPOSAL?

Well I thought it was a very technocratic solution. Technocratically it may well have been…

COACHES ANSWER FORMAT.

I thought the multiple protective shelters idea, MPS, was a very technocratic solution in the sense that if you just did strategic calculations on your computer, it would result in the most MXs surviving after a Soviet attack. But it didn't take into account any of the political dimensions of the problem. For example, imagine telling the people of Nevada and Utah that, "Lucky you, we have this wonderful way to make the MXs survive. We are going to put 4600 targets in Nevada and Utah for the Soviets to aim at and it will take all 4600 Soviet warheads in order to destroy all of our MXs. Isn't that terrific?" Now that doesn't sound so good to the people of Nevada and Utah. Secondly, if you had that number of shelters on our side, what would happen if the Soviets had a similar number of shelters. Two things would be true. First of all we'd be convinced that they knew precisely which of our shelters had missiles in them and we'd be convinced that they had a missile in every shelter. This was just not a good idea.

WHAT WAS PROBLEM WITH DENSE PACK?

Well the closely spaced mode or dense pack as it was sometimes called, was simply not mature either technically or politically when it was proposed. People hadn't thought about it a great deal, they hadn't analyzed it a great deal. And it defied intuition to begin with. The idea that you were going to make your ICBMs more survivable by putting them close together rather than by spreading them apart, did not seem to fit very well with common sense. And probably didn't. Secondly, the danger of it was that every time somebody thought of another way to attack that system, the analysts would have to run off and spend three days because they hadn't thought about that before. So they really didn't have the answers right away and sometimes they just didn't have the answer at all. And this was what I mean by the…technical immaturity of the system and that led to some political immaturity. People had not discussed this very much. It seemed like sort of just another idea to try to put the MX in the ground somehow and makeup a cover story for it.

WHY WAS SCOWCROFT COMMISSION CREATED?

Well I believe the principal purpose of the Scowcroft Commission was to found, to find out how we could get the most MXs we could get. That was the...well it had a much fancier title than that and in principle its scope of activity was supposed to be greater than that. Every member of the Scowcroft Commission was pro-MX. It may have been a bipartisan commission, it may have included both Democrats and Republicans in favor of MX, but they were all in favor of MX. And their task it seemed to me was to make the best argument that could be made for the most MXs we could get.

HOW WAS THAT DONE?

Well it was done first of all by speaking to a wide range of people, some of whom even opposed the MX, although not very many...of those. But rather others who made different kinds of arguments for the MX, for how it might be made survivable, and why it was good for us.

WHAT STOOD IN THE WAY OF MX?

Well there were a couple of obstacles. One, of course, just being a new weapon system it was visible and so those opposed to nuclear weapons opposed it. But more fundamentally than that was we had become very much enamored of this idea of survivable weapons. The problem of ICBM vulnerability had been the key argument against even the SALT II treaty by the Committee on the Present Danger. And Paul Nitze had been pointing out this problem for years. ICBM vulnerability. And along comes the MX which is a new ICBM, to be put in the same vulnerable silos that the Minuteman were in. And so those that were concerned about ICBM survivability saw the MX as no solution to that problem, indeed to some extent, exacerbating that problem, because it was putting a more retractive target in those same silos. And also those concerned about stability in the sense of threatening Soviet ICBMs and increasing their incentive to strike first, also like the MX. So one group didn't like the front end of the MX, that which threatened Soviet ICBMs, and another group didn't like the back end, namely the vulnerable silos.

WAS SCOWCROFT COMMISSION CREATED TO FIND A WAY TO PUT AS MANY MXS IN SILOS AS POSSIBLE?

I really don't think so. I believe they would have liked to get as many MXs as possible and if a solution could be found to base them some other way, that would have given them more MXs, they would have preferred that solution. Now the Air Force of course, their first choice was just put them in silos. They cared about the front end, not about the back end. The Air Force was far less concerned about the vulnerability of these weapons than most civilian analysts were. But, they wanted the MXs and if they couldn't have them in silos, then they'd take them any way they could get them. It turned out that there just didn't appear to be a much better way to base them than putting them in silos. So in the end it became an exercise for what's the maximum number we can get in the silos.

HAD AIR FORCE ALWAYS HAD THAT POSITION, THEY'D RATHER PUT THEM IN SILOS? BECAUSE IMPORTANT PART WAS ACCURATE WARHEADS. DID CONGRESS FORCE THEM TO GO THROUGH OTHER CONVOLUTIONS?

The uniform services generally are very conservative. They tend to put far less credence in these highly imaginative scenarios that require extraordinary technological performance on the basis of their weapons or Soviet weapons. So the Air Force was far less concerned about this theoretical Soviet first strike that somehow magically and through high technology was going to eliminate their ICBM force. They were much more interested in having in their ICBM force something that could threaten Soviet hard targets. That had been a long a consistent policy of the Air Force. Along came the civilian analysts who loved to do technical calculations and don't think in terms of real wars but think in terms of computers. And they were able to do these theoretical calculations that showed that ICBM vulnerability may have been an important problem, and the Air Force felt, well, if that's what we need to get our MX, then we'll talk about the vulnerability problem and talk about how MX will then somehow help to eliminate that. But it never really made sense.

SO CONGRESS BOUGHT THAT ARGUMENT, PUT THEM IN A BIND, AND THEY WERE STUCK?

Once you had the notion that you could not deploy the MX unless it was survivable, that in reality would have meant no MX. And I think that any Congressman who thought about it and understood what he was saying, would have realized that. That was the same as saying, "No MX." And so it forced all of the analysts and the services who wanted the MX to make convoluted arguments about why somehow putting an MX missile in the same vulnerable silo that a Minuteman used to be in would somehow deal with the vulnerability problem.

YET NO AIR FORCE PEOPLE IN CARTER ERA BELIEVED, STILL BELIEVE, IT'S A SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM, THAT THE MX SHOULD HAVE BEEN BASED IN A SURVIVABLE MODE.

Well they would prefer it in a survivable mode to a vulnerable one, but they would much prefer it in a vulnerable one to no MX at all. Nobody really had a good answer to how to make it survivable. The best that people had come up with was the multiple protective shelters and that was simply politically infeasible. It just was not going to happen in the United States and indeed in my view, if the Soviets would have done the same thing that we were proposing doing, we would have been terribly upset. That being simply an unverifiable basing mode. So it wasn't going to happen for a number of reasons.

WHY AFTER ALL THIS WORK IS THE PROPOSAL ONE THAT'S ON THE SURFACE SO POLITICALLY UNFEASIBLE?

I don't know if it's a blind spot in the people doing the analysis, so much as it is they were doing technocratic analyses. They were not doing political analyses. They were simply doing, given the problem, how would you base these missiles such that they would be most survivable for minimum cost. What's the most costive, effective way to have surviving warheads after a Soviet first strike? The multiple protective shelter system was indeed the best answer to that problem. What it left out was all of the questions about implementation. Well maybe that's the best in theory, but could you actually do it? To which the answer to the second question was, No.

WHY WAS IT SO HARD TO FIND A BASING MODE FOR THE MX?

Well this is a hard problem in the sense that an incoming nuclear warhead with explosive power, ten to a hundred to perhaps a thousand times the explosive power of what was a Hiroshima or Nagasaki, makes one large explosion. And one very big hole. So if it lands anyplace close destroy it. One way to put it, in a race between concrete pourers and accuracy improvers, the guy to bet on is the guy that's improving the accuracy of his incoming warheads. So it's a hard problem. Hiding MXs is not easy. In the United States, making them mobile, now you can't just put these things with ten nuclear warheads on the interstate highways, and have them running around all the time. That's not acceptable. If you could do that politically that would be an even better solution. But you can't...but the combination of political constraints and technical constraints to save a system as fragile as a missile against an incoming nuclear attack is an extraordinarily difficult problem.

WHAT WAS HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCOWCROFT COMMISSION?

Well I testified before the Scowcroft Commission on...and tried to make a logical argument for why it made some sense to put some MXs in Minuteman silos, but to try and be honest about what you would achieve by that and what you would not. I mean I had a logical sequence that I can go through quickly if, if you'd like.

DISCUSS

The first question is why do you want survivable ICBMs. Why, is it to recognize what the reasons are? Well the most common reason is to try to discourage a Soviet first strike. If they know they can't destroy your ICBMs that's going to discourage their attempt to do so. The second reason is that even if they do strike first, with your surviving ICBMs you have a reliably prompt weapon with which to attack Soviet targets. It only takes 30 minutes for one of these weapons to get to the Soviet Union. They're easy to communicate with, silos, because it's on your own territory. So it's reliable and it's prompt and you can go after hard targets. And the third reason for wanting survivable ICBMs is just to hedge against the possibility that other parts of our strategic forces might become vulnerable, whether it would be the submarines or the bombers or the cruise missiles. So that's why you'd like to have survivable ICBMs. Can you make them survivable? Well, we looked at a whole bunch of ways to try to do that and it turns out that's extraordinarily difficult to do. Politically, economically, technically. So then you ask yourself the question, well must they be survivable? Is it essential that they be survivable? Well it's not essential although it would be nice. As far as the Soviet first strike is concerned, will just having some ICBMs complicates the Soviet first strike, even if they are not survivable. It's... first of all they have to attack your homeland, and trying to attack your ICBMs at the same time they are attacking your bombers, it turns out is a very difficult task. So it complicates that. In terms of having this reliably prompt ability to retaliate, the scenarios in which that's most important are not the scenarios in which the Soviets have destroyed the ICBMs. For the Soviets to have destroyed the ICBMs means that at least 2000 nuclear warheads have just gone off in the United States. Unless that's happened we still have ICBMs. So we don't have to retaliate promptly. We just have to be able to retaliate. And after a scenario like that. So it's not crucial that these things be survivable. Or is it better to have vulnerable ICBMs than no ICBMs at all? And my argument to that was "Yes" because it complicates the Soviet first strike, because they have to go after our homeland. Because ICBMs can be useful in limited conflicts. Because ICBMs would hold at risk Soviet targets that they value highly. That even vulnerable ICBMs are more valuable than no ICBMs at all. Then I'd ask the question, well we have vulnerable ICBMs, The Minuteman. Why have MXs? Well the MX is... you can think of as a modernization of the Minute-man ICBMs. The answer is not because they would be more survivable. If you put them in the same holes they wouldn't be more survivable. But they would give you more offensive capability. They would hold more Soviet targets at risk. Particularly the targets that the Soviets value highly like their leadership bunkers and hardened command and control facilities. And even some of their ICBMs. The MX is a larger missile. You could put penetration aids on it to help to penetrate any Soviet defenses. So there are good reasons to have some MXs. Perhaps most of all in my mind was to demonstrate the political resolve, that if you setout to deploy this weapons system that you could indeed do it. And it could provide leverage in arras control. I couldn't imagine that the Soviets would be willing to eliminate their large ICBMs if they thought there was no chance that the United States was going to be modernizing its ICBMs. So for all of those reasons I believed it was a good idea to put say 50 to 100 MX in Minuteman silos, simultaneously to develop a small missile, because we didn't have one at the time, that might be based mobilely or in some way that would be more survivable over the longer term. And to enter into arms control negotiations to try to eliminate the need for the MX by constraining the Soviet ICBM force.

SOME ARGUE MX IN VULNERABLE SILOS MIGHT LEAD TO HAIR TRIGGER ALERT.

Well there were those that were concerned about the stability, in the sense that if you have vulnerable ICBMs you do attract a pre-emptive attack by the other side and therefore you reduce stability. That argument is correct, I think it's right. And I believe those that argued that putting MXs in Minuteman silos would enhance crisis stability, to make things more stable in that sense were wrong. And we're just making arguments for the MX. So I accept that. However, I believe we have so many weapons of so many different kinds, deployed in so many ways, that the notion that the Soviets would launch a first strike because they could get some tiny fraction of them, namely these MXs, is silly. We were talking about deploying, imagine 100 MXs. That would be 1000 nuclear warheads. The United States has about 12,000 nuclear warheads directed at the Soviet Union. If they could get that 1000 that are in the MX silos, they still have another 11,000 that are going to be headed at the Soviet Union. We only have about 20 percent of our nuclear warheads in our land-based ICBM force. The rest, are an, on bombers, and on cruise missiles, and at sea. And those are the long-range weapons that can reach the Soviet Union. So these people had the argument Right in that it does undermine stability by putting MXs in silos, but by very, very little in a scenario that's very unrealistic. So you have to compare that cost to the benefits you get from deploying the MX. The political resolve, the caution that the Soviets would have to display in the face of this new threat. The arms control leverage. And I just concluded that those benefits exceeded that cost. But you don't have to pretend the cost doesn't exist.

WHAT WAS THE REACTION OF SCOWCROFT COMMISION TO YOUR ARGUMENT?

Well they seemed quite pleased with it. I'm not about to fool myself since, since this sounded like a logic that supported a conclusion they would like to have. They were pleased with the logic of the argument and indeed if you read the Scowcroft Commission's report, the logic is... in essence the logic that, that I outlined, but it certainly fell upon sympathetic ears. There wasn't anybody I had to persuade that it would be a good idea to put 100, 100 MXs, or I said 50 to 100 MXs in Minuteman silos. All I had to do to persuade them of was this would be the best argument you could come up with.

ASKS ABOUT WINDOW OF VULNERABILITY.

Well there were several. Argument arose largely through the efforts of Paul Nitze and the Committee on the Present Danger. And the scenario that Paul Nitze described and which concerned him at the time, was one in which the surgical nuclear strike against the United States land-based missiles. The ICBMs. And then essentially say to us, all right, United States, either get out of Europe or we're going to destroy your cities. And the so the fear was that because our ICBMs were vulnerable, we would not be able to respond in kind against the Soviet Union. We would not then be able to counterattack in a way that destroyed their ICBMs. Now I consider that to be a faulty scenario, not because it would be impossible, but because it was extraordinarily unrealistic. First of all it may have been impossible. The Soviets did not then have the capability to destroy our ICBMs and do not really have even now with any degree of confidence the ability to destroy our ICBMs. So it's questionable technically. Secondly, if they destroyed all of our ICBMs, we still have about 10,000 nuclear weapons on our submarines and in our bombers and cruise missiles with which we could retaliate against the Soviet Union. So why the Soviet Union would feel this great urge to destroy a small fraction of our nuclear weapons always mystified me, unless you believed that the only thing in the Soviet Union that the Soviets consider important is their ICBMs. The fact that we could destroy all of their cities, all of their military bases, all of their radars, all of their air defenses, all of their industry, most of their population, their defenses on the Chinese border. All of that somehow you have to believe would be relatively unimportant to them. That all that mattered is we could destroy their ICBMs. And finally, if you were really worried about this scenario, why should the Soviets invade our ICBMs. If you thought... excuse me...attack our ICBMs. If you were really worried about this scenario, why do you think it would be important for the Soviets to attack our ICBMs. If it really is a matter simply of showing that they are ready for nuclear war, why don't they attack a playground in Atlanta, or Fort Leavenworth in Kansas? Why do they have to go after ICBMs? And then say, all right, you guys, get out of Europe. If it worried us, if they attacked our ICBMs when we still had 10,000 warheads left, why would it worry us less if we had 12,000 warheads less? So I just never thought the scenario made sense.

BUT THE BASIS OF THE ARGUMENT IS THAT IF THEY WOULD DESTROY OUR ACCURATE WARHEADS, WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO RESPOND. THEN WE WOULD CALL THE SAME DESTRUCTION ON OURSELVES.

If they destroyed our ICBMs. If the Soviets destroyed our ICBMs and only our ICBMs in a first strike, we would not be able to respond and attack their ICBMs because that requires highly accurate warheads which we have really only on our ICBMs. To be able to do that promptly. But there are lots of other targets we could destroy. It's only the ICBMs and the hardened targets that we wouldn't be able to destroy. Now why is it that the only thing that the Soviets would worry about is our ability to destroy their hardened targets. Their cities are soft. We could destroy those. It's true they could destroy our cities in return. But they could destroy our cities anyway. I mean it's independent of whether we attack their cities or not, their ability to destroy our cities. We could destroy their military forces. We could destroy their air bases. We could destroy lots of things that don't require a capability to destroy hardened targets. This was a fixation on one small portion of the strategic forces of the United States. Twenty percent, and a great fear that if those would be destroyed, somehow it made an enormous difference.

WHY WAS THERE SUCH A FIXATION?

Well I think it was, first of all it was largely technocratic. It was a nice little calculatable problem. Secondly, you always tend to focus on your weaknesses and that was the weak leg of the triad in terms of its survivability. Third I think people were really concerned and that this sort of exaggerated the need for finding someway to make the ICBMs survivable. But it exaggerated it in a way that implied we didn't have time…this other. We had plenty of time. As long as the submarine-launched missiles and the bombers were survivable we could take our time and try to figure out how to make the ICBM leg survivable.

IF SOVIETS WERE PLANNING TO TAKE OUT OUR ICBMS, THAT WOULD BE A MAJOR ATTACK, NOT A LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR. ASKS HIM TO DISCUSS THAT.

A scenario in which this idea that an attack upon our ICBMs is somehow a surgical first strike, that we might not respond against unless we could attack Soviet ICBMs, is worth examining a little bit. First of all, for the Soviets to attack our ICBMs requires them to use about 2000 nuclear warheads. Each of these nuclear warheads would have an explosive power at least ten times the explosive power of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together. That is a major nuclear war. That is not a surgical first strike. In addition, it is extraordinarily unlikely that the Soviets would only do that, because they would have a very angry adversary on the other side who still had about 10,000 nuclear weapons. So they would probably try to go after our command and control centers, they would try and get the bombers that they could get on the ground. They would try to get the submarines in port. This is a major, all-out nuclear attack against the United States. This is not some little cutesy, technocratic surgical strike that's played out on your personal computer. And yet the political analysis of this scenario that was done at the time treated this as some cute little surgical first strike that the Soviets did to which we had no cute little surgical response. Well maybe we didn't have a cute little surgical response, but this was no little cute little surgical attack to which we were responding.

BUT THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM IS WE CAN'T DEFEND OUR CITIES. RIGHT?

Well the argument that the danger of this scenario is that the Soviets attack our ICBMs and even though we have all these warheads left we don't have a particular kind, the highly accurate one, but most importantly they've demonstrated their resolve to go to nuclear war and they could next attack our cities unless we're compliant toothier wishes. I would argue, suppose they didn't attack the ICBMs. Suppose you just believed that they did have the resolve to attack our nation. And ask, or told us to get out of Europe or they would attack our cities. Well the question is whether they're going to call...we're going to call their bluff or not. They can attack our cities whenever they want to. Our cities are vulnerable. It is up to them whether or not our cities survive. It takes a tiny fraction of their strategic force to attack our cities. They have more than 10,000 weapons directed at us. If they want to get our 100 largest cities, with 5 weapons apiece, that's 500 out of 10,000. There's a lot left over. We cannot defend the cities. They are not defended now. The Strategic Defense Initiative if it ever were to work, it would be a long time before it can defend our cities. That's the root of the problem and their cities are equally vulnerable to attack, by us.

WITH OUR ROBUST DETERRENT, WHY DID WE NEED ADDITIONAL ACCURATE TARGET COVERAGE THAT MX PROVIDED?

Well primarily, actually, in my view, to make more credible…

[INTERRUPTS]

Even though we have thousands of weapons without the MX, I believe it made sense to deploy 50 to 100 MXs because of the capabilities that those missiles provided. Also, I believe they provide political utility. But the... let's talk about the military capability first. These are hard target weapons that are quite reliable and only have a 30 minute flight time. When would these be most useful? Now this is going to sound like a nutty scenario but it's really the limited war scenarios in which these weapons are usable. It's where the Soviets might use 3 or 5 or 10 weapons against the United States and we wanted to respond with 3, or 5, or 10.There is a certain attractiveness for the Soviets to know that you could choose to hit their leadership bunkers if we chose to do so. That means the people on the other side that are making the decision to start this war, know that among the first people to be killed if we choose to do so, are them. That we can get them. So a highly accurate weapon with enormous explosive power is valuable for that purpose. Also I believe it would make the Soviets more cautious about starting any such a nuclear war. So it's deterrent value, to even inhibit the very start of Soviet aggression I think would be useful. And I believe it would be valuable for arms control negotiations to give the Soviets incentive to reduce their own ICBM forces because they would fear US deployment, especially continuing deployment, possibly eventually larger numbers, of MX missiles which ultimately in large enough numbers could threaten their strategic forces.

ASKS POLITICAL PERCEPTIONS.

Well. The political perception of the MX was, and the reason I felt it is important, is first of all to demonstrate resolve. This has been a weapons system that the United States has been playing around with for a long time, and was it going to deploy it or not? We hadn't modernized our ICBMs for some time. I would prefer not to modernize them if I could have an arms control agreement under which the Soviets didn't modernize theirs either. But I saw no way to get Soviet acquiescence to such a deal unless the US would modernize its weapons. Demonstrated ability to be able to go ahead and deploy a ne weapons system about which they had some doubts. Those are the principal political reasons why I thought it was important.

HOW DOES HAVING CAPACITY TO DO ACCURATE HARD TARGET KILL HELP US IN CONTINUING CONTEST WITH SOVIETS?

Hard target kill capability, which is something about which the Sov...about which the Soviets have a great deal, is something that in the past we have not had a great deal. Largely because we have chosen to build smaller missiles with many warheads on them, and therefore the warheads have less explosive power and are less capable of destroying these hardened targets on the Soviet side. The value of these weapons is in destroying the other fellow's ICBMs, his ICBMs in their silos, and other hard targets like leadership bunkers. Like command and control centers. In point of fact, when you start to think about the scenarios where you play these scenarios out and actually use these things, we blow up the world. There's no advantage to anybody, everybody loses. It is only in the make believe world of the calculations that this is important. And it's important because it helps to deter the other side. Because he's doing the calculations too. You always want it to be clear to the other side that it would be worse off with a nuclear war than without one. And so the notion that you can get his leadership, that you can get his command and control, that the Communist party leaders are going to be gone. That the symbols of their power, the ICBMs, are going to be gone. That makes them all the more cautious, and all the more reticent to begin a nuclear war. Which by the way I believe now, whether we had a hard target kill capability or not, would be the decision that any rational leader would make, that he's better off without a nuclear war than with one.

YES, BECAUSE YOU'VE MADE AN ARGUMENT WE SHOULDN'T WORRY ABOUT VULNERABILITY OURSELVES. BUT WE SEE THE VALUE OF...

I believe that the strongest reason for having the survivable ICBM force is to hedge against the possibility that the other legs of our strategic triad might become vulnerable, either to attack by the Soviet Union or to defenses by the Soviet Union. And by the other legs I mean our submarine launched ballistic missiles and our air-breathing legs, the bomber and cruise missiles. If I could be confident that forever the submarine-launched missiles and the air breathers would be invulnerable and could penetrate Soviet defenses, I'd worry very little about whether our ICBMs were vulnerable or not. It'd be a little better for them to be invulnerable, but it wouldn't matter much. But I can't be positive that forever those other legs of the triad would be able to survive and penetrate and so for that reason I feel more comfortable knowing that my ICBMs are invulnerable as well. And so for that reason I'm in favor of trying to find an invulnerable basing mode. But I do not panic because those other legs now can survive and can penetrate Soviet defenses.

ASKS HIM TO ELABORATE.

Well the other piece of it is not only the legs of the triad being so, but sheer numbers. I want a Soviet leader whenever he even thinks about or has a clever general briefing about why this might be a good day to attack the United States because you'd disarm them, I want it to be so obvious that the US will have so many weapons survive with which to retaliate against the Soviet Union, that that clever briefer should be thrown out of the room. That it's a silly idea. And the way we accomplish that is by having lots of weapons deployed in many different ways with large numbers of them being survivable and capable of penetrating Soviet defenses. The fundamental paradox of the nuclear age, the fundamental paradox is, the way that we try to avoid nuclear war is by assuring that it would be so horrible that no one in their right minds would start one. The danger is that if one starts, it's likely to be as horrible as we've designed it in our attempts to avoid it.

BUT SINCE SCHLESINGER THE IDEA IS WE NEED THE MX TO LIMIT NUCLEAR WAR ONCE IT STARTS. DOES MX FULFILL THAT GOAL?

I don't believe it fulfills it in any significant... Does MX fulfill the goals of limited nuclear wars?

[INTERRUPTS]

Does MX…The argument is made that the MX missile would help to keep a limited nuclear war limited. I think it's a pretty weak argument. It is true that ICBMs help that, but it doesn't have to be the MX. In other words, to the extent that you believe in this fantasy of a limited nuclear war, which I guess is possible although I wouldn't want to bet my planet on a limited war remaining limited, to the extent that you believe in it, there are no better weapons than ICBMs. The, they're highly accurate, which means you can minimize the amount of so-called collateral damage that's done by the weapon, in other words, get very close to the target you're trying to destroy. The command and control is very secure, so that you cou... the President could say, "I want only these three targets, attack those. And no more." So you can be quite selective and you can coordinate the attack very well. It doesn't require MX for that. You can do that with Minuteman, ICBM. The one advantage that the MX has is not in their ability to keep it limited, but rather in our ability to destroy some targets which are so strongly hardened that a Minuteman nuclear weapon simply does not have enough explosive power to destroy it.

IS IT THEN A FIRST-STRIKE WEAPON? WOULD IT BE MORE EFFECTIVE USED FIRST RATHER WHEN SILOS ARE EMPTY?

Very often a distinction is made between first strike weapons and retaliatory weapons, or second strike weapons. And people point to the technical characteristics of the, of the weapons to try to distinguish between them. I don't think that really works very well. Let me give you a few examples. If you ask what is the SovietSS-18 missile. We're going to ask Americans these questions. Which is a large ICBM with ten warheads on it. They will all say that is a first strike weapon. If you ask what is the MX, which has ten warheads on it, a large missile. They will say oh, well that is a retaliatory weapon. If you ask what about Soviet submarine-launched missiles. Oh, those are to use in a first strike against our bombers. If you say what about American submarine launched missiles. Oh, those are for assured retaliation after a Soviet first strike. I think you can see the pattern. By and large, the way you can strike weapons and second strike weapons is by looking at the flag on the weapon. Soviet weapons are first strike weapons in the eyes of Americans. American weapons are second-strike weapons in the eyes of Americans. And the situation is reversed on the other, on the other side. I have a theorem. This is a Carnesale theorem. It is that weapons are dangerous and destabilizing if and only if they are the adversary's weapons. And this theorem applies no matter what language it's stated in.

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT.

There are those who try to distinguish between first strike weapons and second strike weapons. It's not all that simple. For example, if you ask Americans, what about the Soviet SS-18 ICBM which is a large missile that carries ten warheads capable of destroying hard targets. We have always referred to that as a first strike weapon. Our weapon, the MX, also a large missile with ten weapons capable of destroying hard targets, is referred to as a stabilizing weapon. A retaliatory weapon. Indeed, even the names of the weapons. What do we call the MX? It's the Peacekeeper. And what is the NATO name for the SS-18, Satan. Is this a technical difference between those weapons. No, it's whose flag is on it. By and large what you want in your weapons if you're doing military planning, you want weapons that will survive and be capable of destroying the adversary's weapons in a retaliatory attack. Anything that's capable of destroying his weapons in a retaliatory attack is also capable of destroying his weapons in a first strike. So whether it's a first strike weapon or a second strike weapon depends on when you use it, not on its technical characteristics. We assume the worst of their intentions and therefore we look at their weapons and call them first strike weapons. We assume the best of our intentions, we look at our weapons and call them retaliatory weapons. It's the flag that determines it, not the technical characteristics.

ASKS ABOUT PERCEPTIONS ARGUMENT. DON'T YOU IMPLICITLY THREATEN THAT YOU COULD GO FIRST AND WEAKEN THEM?

Yes there are competing notions of stability that unfortunately are at odds with each other. One argument and the traditional technocratic kind of way of looking at this question of stability or crisis stability as it's sometimes called, is, if we find ourselves in a crisis with the Soviet Union where the assessment of the likelihood of nuclear war has increased on both sides, then what we worry about is the vulnerability of our strategic forces that they might be tempted to launch a first strike for fear that otherwise we'll strike them first, and vice versa. That we might belong…tempted to launch first for fear that they might launch a first strike. This is the problem of crisis. Once you're in a crisis you really want those weapons to be as survivable as possible. But if the weapons are quite survivable, then you might feel more comfortable and be more willing to get into crises. The Soviets have a rather different view of this notion of stability. Or a different focus. They tend to focus on what they call political stability. Namely if you have these enormous weapons that might be rather trigger happy to use for fear that the other fellow might go first, then you will avoid crises. You won't be so adventurous. You'll stay out of those situations. So to avoid crises you want weapons that might be vulnerable and therefore dangerous if you got into a crisis. But suppose the crisis isn't avoided. You certainly don't want vulnerable weapons that might, that you might then be tempted to use.

WHEN SCOWCROFT ARGUED WE NEEDED THESE WEAPONS TO MATCH THE SOVIET MISSILES FOR PERCEPTIONS. THAT IT MIGHT AFFECT GEOPOLITICAL EVENTS IN THE WORLD. HOW DOES THAT SCENARIO PLAY OUT?

The argument was made that we needed the MX missiles in order to match the Soviet missiles of comparable capability because this was important for not only Soviet perceptions but our own perceptions and the rest of the world's perceptions...of our relative strength. Actually I don't believe that. I believe it to the extent that those in favor of the MX might have been making this argument so much that they may have come to believe it themselves and perhaps even convinced the rest of the world that if we didn't deploy the MX, there was something terribly weak about us. But that could have been turned around. If we didn't deploy the MX, then we could have argued about how important something else was, like our Trident submarines and simply shifted the, the focus for the coin of the realm of superpowerdom from land-based missiles to sea-based missiles. Which we should have been trying to do anyway since we had superiority there.

WHAT WAS THE ARGUMENT?

I mean I've never understood. What is it that the MX does that the Minutemen don't do? I mean that's... you know me, I try hard to make opposing arguments to my own point of view and think of the best logic for them and think what's wrong them. This one I just never, the only reason this is true is if you keep announcing to the world over and over again that this is terribly important until they come to believe it. This is like the...our big problem now with the Pershing IIs. We kept telling the Europeans over and over again how important they were. Now everybody knows they're not important militarily, they don't matter. But then it became very hard to take them out because we kept saying how important it was. How could you suddenly say they're not important. The argument that was used to try to get the MX was that it is terribly important in this scenario. And will make us look weak if we don't have it. Well, it's going to be hard to convince people if you don't have it. That it doesn't show you're weak. But I don't think there's any logic to the argument. It's, it's got an internal logic but I never saw any external logic to it that if we had 12,000 weapons that somehow didn't both them, this next 500 was going to make the difference. Because they were on MXs. And the others were on other things. I just never really understood it.

WHY THEN WAS IT IMPORTANT TO PUT 50 OR 100 IN SILOS?

I had several reasons for being in favor of putting 50 to 100 MXs in Minuteman silos at that time of the Scowcroft Commission hearings. Why I thought it was a good idea. One is I thought the only real choices for the MX were either to put it in Minuteman silos or no MXs. I did not think there was any other viable basing mode that would be realistically achievable, politically and technically. You were either going to put them in silos or nothing. Number one. So the question I faced was are we better off putting some in silos or not having any at all. I believed it was better to proceed to put them in silos, first of all to get this issue behind us so it would be done. Secondly, because I believed it was useful politically to have the threat of the program of deploying these things to induce the Soviets to agree to arms control limitations on ICBMs. Which I feared they would otherwise have little incentive to do.

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT ANSWER.

I believed at the time of the Scowcroft Commission hearings that it was important for political reasons if nothing else to deploy 50 to 100 of the MX missiles in Minuteman silos. The principle reason was that our nation internally had been wrestling with this problem of the MX for a long time, trying to find a way to base it, getting people in the country unhappy. I thought the most important thing to do was get this issue behind us. The only real choices available at the time were either no MX or some MXs in silos. I thought we should put them in silos, and move on.

CRITICS SAID THAT'S JUST LAUNCH UNDER ATTACK AGAIN...

One of the stronger arguments for maintaining ICBMs, vulnerable or invulnerable, is that it is currently impossible for the Soviets to attack and destroy simultaneously the land-based missiles and the bombers. And the reason is that in order to attack the land-based missiles they need highly accurate weapons of the kind that are only on their ICBMs. Those weapons take 30 minutes to get to the United States. We get 30 minutes warning because our satellites see them launched. And in that time our bombers could be off the ground. So 30 minutes that could get the ICBMs. We could get the bombers up in the air and we could always recall them if we'd made a mistake. We can always get the bombers back. So it's relatively safe. This is not launch on warning in the usual sense because the bombers can be called back, unlike missiles. The way the Soviets could attack the bombers is with submarine-launched missiles. If they could get relatively close to our shores, they could get submarine-launched missiles to the bomber bases in 15 minutes or perhaps even less. That might not be enough time for the bombers to get off. But if they do that, and the bombers don't get off, it will be because all these nuclear explosion have just gone off in bomber bases all over the United States. And even if they launched their ICBMs simultaneously with the submarine-launched missiles, it's still going to be 15arrived and could destroy our ICBMs. That gives us 15 minutes after there have been massive nuclear explosions in the United States and at the bomber bases, in which to launch our ICBMs before ICBMs arrive. So therefore this timing problem makes it valuable to have ICBMs even if they are vulnerable, because in a way they assure that the Soviets can't destroy the bombers.

AS THIS A CLOSING OF THE WINDOW OF VULNERABILITY.

Well the real, of course this has always been true. This notion that you cannot simultaneously destroy the bombers and the submarines. And so the window of vulnerability argument that had been raised earlier only looked at the ICBM leg of the triad. Focused solely on that and ignored the fact that the bombers would survive and that the submarine-launched ballistic missiles would survive. And realized that 80percent of our nuclear weapons are on the bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. So the scenarios, the window of vulnerability referring only to the ICBMs is sort of a silly argument and in essence the Scowcroft Commission, just in pointing this out, closed the window of vulnerability without doing anything about the vulnerability of ICBMs.

WHAT WOULD A SOVIET PLANNER THINK OF THIS PLAN?

Imagine for a moment that you are the Soviet adviser, going in to speak to the Soviet leader and that you're recommending this so-called surgical first strike against the American ICBMs. Here is the story. You're going to tell him, Mr. General Secretary, I have a brilliant idea. We can essentially disarm the Americas by attacking their land-based missiles. So what are you going to do? Well they have about 1000 ICBM silos that we're going to try to destroy by launching our ICBMs from here to destroy those silos. And then the leader might ask, "Well, how many times have you taken one of your nuclear warheads, detonated it is the atmosphere to see if it actually can destroy a silo?" "Oh, we've never done that.” "How many times have you taken a nuclear warhead, put it on one of your missiles, and flown it 5000miles to see if the nuclear warhead works at the other end?" "Oh, we've never done that." "How many times have you detonated several warheads in the atmosphere at roughly the same time to be sure that they don't interfere with each other?" "Oh, we've never done that." "How many times have you taken an ICBM and flown it over the North Pole, rather than just east-west within the Soviet Union to see if it's just as accurate when you fly it that way?" "Oh, we've never done that." "And you're going to tell me what? You're going to launch 2000 of these warheads simultaneously, they're all going to arrive exactly where they're supposed to be, and you're going to destroy all of the American ICBMs. And I can count on that?" "Doesn't sound very credible, Mr. Advisor. But let's assume for the moment that this wonderful science fiction feat of high technology can be carried off. Can I then be assured that these angry Americans in whose territory 2000 warheads have just gone off, will have nothing with which they can express their anger against the Soviet Union and attack us with nuclear weapons in response?" To which the adviser says, "Well it isn't exactly like that. You see, the Americans only have a little more than 2000 of their 12,000 nuclear weapons in these ICBMs that we just destroyed. They'll still have about 10,000 with which to attack us." "More than 5000 of those at sea, and the rest on bombers and cruise missiles." I don't think I'd want to be that adviser trying to recommend this action to the Soviet leader. I'm pretty sure he'd be thrown out of the office.

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT END OF LAST ANSWER. THEY DISCUSS.

"And even if this feat of science fiction as successful and we're able to destroy all the American ICBMs and the warheads on every one, would the Americans have anything left, any nuclear weapons left with which they could attack the Soviet Union?" To which the adviser would then tell him roughly what the Americans would have. Which would include more than 5000 nuclear weapons at sea and close to the same number on bombers and cruise missiles. All of which could reach the Soviet Union.

COULD THE SOVIETS COORDINATE SUCH AN ATTACK, GET OUT SUBMARINES, ICBMS, AND BOMBERS?

Peering into the future to see if it would ever be possible for the Soviets to launch a successful disarming first strike against the United States and literally be able to destroy not only our ICBMs but our submarine-based missiles and our bombers and cruise missiles as well, is a difficult task to say the least. But there's no indication that they're getting close to such a capability. The submarines at sea are at least as survivable as they've ever been. They operate in more ocean area because the range of the missiles is longer. So they can stay further away from the Soviet Union bombers? There's the new Stealth bombers. The advanced technology bombers which are more difficult for Soviet air defenses to deal with. It is true, however, that in one respect Soviet capabilities will continue to improve and that's the ability to destroy our ICBMs in fixed silos. And so we ought to be working on that problem as a hedge against eventual deterioration in the survivability of the other legs.

WHY NOT DEFEND THE SILOS?

Many people propose that the way to enhance the survivability of ICBMs is to defend them. In other words, to withdraw from the ABM treaty and to deploy active defenses of our silos,, literally missiles with nuclear warheads on them that would intercept and destroy Soviet incoming warheads before they reached our silos. This by the way is a technically feasible notion. We can hit a bullet with a bullet in space. The question is, can you do it against the magnitude of an attack that the Soviets could throw against our ICBMs. And every indication is no, it's simply not cost effective. Now furthermore, there is the political consideration. I've often thought that when people suggested using active defenses, ballistic missile defenses as the way to save the MX, that that was a very much throwing the MX a lead life preserver. That politically the notion of getting out of the ABM treaty to deploy defenses to defend our missiles was even less attractive than deploying the MX itself.

WHILE THE SCOWCROFT COMMISSION WAS EXPLORING OPTIONS, THE ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE, WAS MADE ABOUT SDI?

No, I don't think these two pieces were closely related, namely the Scowcroft Commission's evaluation of MX and the President's announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative. I think they were quite independent. Because the President's vision of the SDI had nothing to do with defending missiles. It was purely a matter of defending the, the population and rendering nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. Whereas the Scowcroft Commission was looking at the much narrower question of MX deployment. They are related, however, philosophically. I think every president at some point comes to realize that all of the people of the United States, our entire society, our homeland, is vulnerable to attack by the Soviet Union. And there is nothing he can do about it. Nothing. And he says, "Change that." And different presidents have tried different ways to change that. Maybe it's detente. And build a web of common interests. Maybe it's arms control, as President Nixon tried. This President went for the idea of well how's about we build a magic shield over the United States. But I don't think that was related to the, to the MX decision.

SOME FEEL WE SHOULD FORGET EXPENSIVE IDEAS LIKE MIDGETMAN AND GO FULL SPEED HEAD WITH EARLY DEPLOYMENT OF DEFENSE.

Well we're talking about...when we we talk about solving the vulnerability problem, people have two very different problems in mind. One group of people, largely the technocrats, when you talk about the vulnerability problem they think you're talking about the vulnerability of the ICBMs. Some Americans and political leaders and others, if you talk about the vulnerability problem, what comes to their mind is that we, our cities, our society, are all vulnerable to attack by the Soviet Union. If we wanted to spend enough money, we could probably solve the first vulnerability problem. That is the vulnerability of ICBMs. If we were willing to do everything that needed to be done, we could come up with some scheme that could make the ICBM survivable. What we do not now know how to do, we simply have no inkling of how to do it, is to solve the second vulnerability problem, the more important one. The vulnerability of our society.

ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED THAT DEPLOYING THE MX HAS NOT LED TO ARMS CONTROL?

Well I am disappointed that we haven't been able to achieve strategic arms control agreement in the wake of even the limited deployment of the MX. But of course the game's not over. First let's roll this back a minute.

DISCUSS

I am disappointed that the MX did not lead rapidly to an arms control agreement that curtailed Soviet forces, but I do believe that it did increase Soviet incentives to limit long-range strategic weapons and has made it more possible to achieve arms control agreements dealing with those weapons than would otherwise have been the case.

WHAT WAS THE ROLE OF LES ASPIN WITH CONGRESS AND THE COMMISSION? WAS SCOWCROFT COMMISSION UNANIMOUS IN WHAT THEY WERE TRYING TO: TO EASE OFF ON THE MX AND MOVE TOWARD SMALL MISSILE IDEA?

I believe that the principle objective of the Scowcroft Commission as it saw its role was to make the best argument possible for as many MXs as could be obtained. Some members of the Commission were concerned about the ICBM vulnerability problem and felt that you probably should not simply stop with MXs in silos but you should have some vision for resolution or solution of the ICBM vulnerability problem. Those people were very strongly in favor of a small missile that might be mobile. So in a way the compromise that was meant but in a sense nobody gave up anything was to move ahead with the MX in the near term, namely immediate deployment of 100 MXs in Minuteman silos was their recommendation. And at the same time endorse an extensive research and development program for a small mobile missile.

DID SOME SCOWCROFT MEMBERS FEEL MIDGETMAN PROBABLY WASN'T A PLAUSIBLE IDEA FINANCIALLY AND FOR OTHER REASONS?

I expect that some members of the Commission did not think that the small missile was a good idea. You see, the small missile primarily what its attractiveness is...in an arms control environment. If you believe that both sides would be willing to move to smaller, mobile missiles, that really does enhance stability. But if only one side is moving to small missiles and the other side is just deploying more and more cost effective SS-18s, that's not very attractive to the side that's building the small missiles. Some members of the Commission were not great believers in arms control. So I don't think they would have been nearly as enamored of the small missile solution to this problem.

ASKS ABOUT RAIL GARRISON PROPOSAL.

The idea of deploying the MX in the rail garrison mode, namely on railroad trains that would be stationed in garrisons ordinarily not traveling around the countryside, strikes me as means of...

[INTERRUPTS]

The idea of deploying the MX in the rail garrison mode strikes me as the Air Force's second best choice in a sense. What they would like, what the Air Force would like, is as many MXs as it can get deployed as cheaply as possible. Their first choice would be to put them in Minuteman silos. If those civilians and members of Congress who are so concerned about vulnerability will not permit them to do that. The Air Force is essentially saying, well how will you let me deploy them? Do you want them on hay wagons? I'll put them on hay-wagons. You want them in trains, I'll put them on trains. If they have to be on trains I'd prefer that they'd be on trains that don't move because that would be cheaper. And it seems that some people think they might be able to get more MXs on trains that don't move than they would be able to get in silos, so they'll support that. Personally I think it's a fairly silly idea because those trains aren't going to be moving around the countryside and therefore would be no more survivable than MXs in silos.

WOULD THE PRESIDENT ORDER THOSE TRAINS OUT ON THE RAILS IN TIME OF CRISIS?

I doubt it strongly. First of all it might be perce...I doubt strongly that the President in time of crisis would order the trains carrying the MXs to move out of the garrisons and move around the countryside. First of all, he'd scare the population of the United States probably at a time when he'd be trying to calm them. Secondly, the Soviets would probably assume that we're getting ready to strike first, because it would certainly improve our ability to strike first. We'd like to have those forces out there so they could be part of our reserve force. We would attack first with the vulnerable forces, and then keep the survivable forces in reserve. There's just no difference in the characteristics of the weapons that enables you to tell whether it's a first strike weapon or a second strike weapon. So if we were getting ready to go first, one of the most important things we do is move those trains out of the garrisons.

SHOULD WE GO AHEAD WITH THE MIDGETMAN PROGRAM?

I believe we should move ahead with research and development on the Midgetman program to have the option of having a small missile that could be deployed, either in a fixed mode, in Midgetman silos or mobilely. I'd like to be able deploy them in silos if I could get both sides to de-MIRV. That would be a very stable world. We could then deploy these ICBMs with a single warhead on them in a silo, knowing it would take the other side more than one warhead to destroy one warhead of ours. If we couldn't achieve that kind of agreement, then you might have to move to mobility to enhance the survivability of the smaller missile. And a small missile is a lot easier to move around than a big missile is. So I would like to see us have an active R and D program, but I do not believe it is necessary in the near future to move forward with production and deployment of the Midgetman system. In my view there is no current strategic problem to which 500 Midgetman missiles is the solution.

HOW DO WE DESCRIVE THE MISSION OF THE MX AS IT NOW STANDS?

If deterrence should fail, the MX missile won’t help us. The value of the MX is to reduce even more the likely hood that deterrence will fail. If deterrence should fail, the MX missile won’t have served it’s purpose. It would be one of the first items on the Soviet target list. So unless we're prepared to launch it on warning, it will be destroyed. The principle value of the MX missile is to enhance deterrence, to make it all the less likely that deterrence will fail. I believe it makes a marginal contribution to that, very small but positive.

SCHLESINGER AND SCOWCROFT COMMISSION ARUGED WE NEED MX TO BACK UP OUR THREAT OF FIRST USE IN EUROPE. HOW WOULD WE WANT THE SOVIETS TO THINK WE WOULD USE IT?

Well, the, the MX is useful for deterrence and it is useful for first strike. For first use. Now the fact of the matter is that US strategy permits to some extent first use of nuclear weapons by the United States. And perhaps even long-range weapons. In other words, the understanding we have with our NATO allies is if there is a conventional war in Europe, and the West is losing it, we are prepared to escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. Initially one would expect that would be nuclear weapons in Europe, battlefield weapons. But if that doesn't turn the tide, we might well be prepared to use long-range weapons. If you were going to use long-range weapons against the Soviet Union in a limited way, you would like to have the option of being able to destroy hardened targets that the Soviets value very highly. You can hardly think of anything they would value more highly than leadership bunkers and command and control centers. And the MX is capable of destroying those targets. So you have to sort of work back through the whole scenario that one of the reasons why you want the MX is to help to deter Soviet conventional aggression in Europe because they would fear that ultimately it might escalate to the use of MX missiles against their command and control bunkers. I think that's a pretty weak argument. It's roughly correct but it's certainly not very important.

SOME ARGUE WE DON'T WANT TO TARGET LEADERSHIP BUNKERS.

There are those, there are those that argue that we should not target Soviet leadership bunkers because one...we want to be sure of, that those people survive for at least two reasons. Now there are two orders I always want the Soviet leadership to be able to communicate. One is "Cease fire." I want them to be able to tell their troops, in other words, stop, don't fire anything more at the United Sates. The other message I want them to be able to communicate is, "We give up." So for those reasons, the idea of destroying Soviet leadership is a bad idea. That's not the same as saying we shouldn't target the Soviet leadership bunkers so that they know that it's up to us whether they survive or not. That is an argument for not destroying the Soviet leadership. I agree with that. I think it would be a mistake to destroy the Soviet leadership. I think it's a good idea for them to know that their survival is up to us.

IS THERE A CONTRADICTION BETWEEN THIS VISION OF A STABLE, DE-MIRVED WORLD AND THE NEED TO BE ABLE TO BACK UP OUR COMMITMENT TO EUROPE FOR FIRST USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

One of... Another paradox you might say of Western strategy is on the one hand we want to be confident that there is no advantage to striking first, to initiating a nuclear war. On the other hand we want it to be to our advantage to escalate a conventional war in Europe to a nuclear war. Well we used to have, we used to be able to satisfy the latter objective, namely it was in our interest to escalate to nuclear war. That was before the Soviets had nuclear weapons. And it was probably even true after the Soviets had nuclear weapons but none that could reach us. Those days are gone. The NATO strategy that relies upon escalation to nuclear weapons, relies upon irrationality of American leaders. Them doing things that's clearly not in their nation's interest. That's... getting harder and harder to be seen as a credible threat. And the way we deal with that is to try to, not so much make our leaders appear irrational, but try and make it appear that things might get out of control. That they don't have complete control over this. We have thousands of weapons in Europe. If there was a war there, would you be confident, would a Soviet leader be confident, that none of them might get used, even if the President didn't want any to be used? We've got thousands around the world in submarines, we've got them on bombers, we've got them on surface ships. We've got them in shorter range fighter bombers, all over the place, and it's sort of like a fuse to the doomsday machine. And one has to feel that maybe he, the President, couldn't prevent nuclear war from happening even if he wanted to if there was a major war going on. So we try to maintain the credibility of first use by making it seem like it might happen accidentally or inadvertently or not under his control. Because we know we cannot make it look as if starting a nuclear war would be beneficial to us.

THEY DISCUSS ANSWER REPEATS QUESTION.

There is a contradiction between trying to establish a world in which nuclear weapons are not usable to either side's advantage, and a world in which the United States relies upon the use of nuclear weapons to deter Soviet conventional aggression in Europe. That contradiction exists whether you're talking about eliminating nuclear weapons through arms control and disarmament, or you're talking about keeping nuclear weapons but enhancing stability by assuring that the nuclear weapons of both sides are survivable and would be available for retaliation. In either of those cases, either there are no nuclear weapons to be used, or there is no advantage to using them. Well our current strategy in Europe calls for the use of nuclear weapons in the event that the Soviets are winning a conventional war. We cannot have it both ways. I and I think most other people are prepared to pay the price of increased conventional forces to deter the Soviet Union in order to diminish the likelihood of a nuclear war that might destroy us all.

WHAT DRIVES RACE IN COUNTERFORCE TECHNOLOGY?

Often the argument is made about the importance of survivable forces for stability. You know, its entirely in our power if we want Soviet forces to be survivable. That's quite easy. All we have to do is not have accurate weapons capable of destroying them. Similar leads in their power. If they thought that it was important for our weapons to be survivable, that's entirely in their power. They could be sure that they're not threatened. The fact is that each side wants its own weapons to be survivable and it really wants the other side's weapons to be vulnerable. And it's not because they're evil necessarily. If the other side strikes you first, you want as many of your weapons as possible to be able to survive. And then what do you want to to do with them when they survive? You want to be able to destroy those weapons of his that still remain. If you're a military man, the first thing you want to do in war is destroy the adversary's capability to inflict damage upon your homeland, and your forces. So you want weapons capable of destroying his forces. Well those are called counterforce weapons and they're perfectly good for use in a first strike as well as in a second strike. So it's driven not only by technology, this thirst for counterforce capability, but also by the felt need to be able to destroy those forces that the other side has left over after he launches his first strike.

ASKS ROLE OF COUNTERFORCE IN BRINKSMANSHIP AND GEOPOLITICAL GAME.

Well the role of this counterforce capability in, in stability and brinksmanship is that if one side did indeed feel that the other side was capable of launching a successful first strike, they would then face two alternatives, either to exceed to the other side's demands, or to launch an unsuccessful first strike themselves. So therefore you'd like to have the other side feeling that they could be the victim of a successful first strike but do not have the ability themselves to inflict a successful first strike. As things stand now or for the foreseeable future, neither side is in that position. As a matter of fact, the reverse is true. Neither side has anything close to the capability to disarm the other side in a first strike.

SO THESE DISCUSSIONS ARE REALLY ABOUT THEORETICAL PERCEPTIONS?

Well all of the discussions about the numbers of weapons and the technical characteristic weapons and why they're so important, deal really with hypothetical futures in which things might get worse. Right now the situation is very stable because both sides have many survivable weapons. But we shouldn't become overly complaisant. That's good. And we ought to keep it that way. Let's keep it so that neither side could ever imagine that it might be able to launch a successful first strike.