THE FIRST QUESTION I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU REALLY IS, CAN YOU JUST BRIEFLY DESCRIBE TO US WHAT YOUR ROLE WAS IN THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION.

During the Carter Administration I was, my formal title was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. My responsibilities included work on NATO issues, nuclear issues and arms control issues. And, in particular, my office was responsible for staffing, in the U.S. government and particularly in the defense department studies and analysis for the High Level Group, which was the NATO group looking at the modernization of nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, Pershing II missiles. And the whole decision that led up to... we let... that NATO led up to in 1979.

NOW, WE'LL GO BACK TO WHAT EVERYBODY SAYS WAS THE ORIGIN OF THIS WHOLE DEBATE, AND THAT WAS CHANCELLOR SCHMIDT'S SPEECH IN LONDON IN 1977. COULD YOU JUST SORT OF TELL US WHAT YOUR RECOLLECTION OF THE FEELING IN WASHINGTON WAS ABOUT SCHMIDT'S SPEECH AND HIS POSITION AT THAT PARTICULAR TIME?

Well, Chancellor Schmidt, over the course of the first few months of the Carter administration, had been raising a number of various concerns that he had, with Americans and with the new president. Among those, was the... Chancellor Schmidt, in the course of... oh, let me just start again. With the new administration, Chancellor Schmidt and other Europeans, but particularly Chancellor Schmidt became concerned with a number of different developments. One of those having to do with Soviet deployments of new SS-20 missiles. That, the activities ongoing with respect to Soviet force improvement. And that a whole different set of concerns arising from the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union in SALT, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. In which the U.S. and the Soviet Union was were in the process of putting together and agreement that established overall equality or parity between the two sides. Chancellor Schmidt, looking at those negotiations, watching the deployment of new missiles, new Soviet missiles threatening Europe, wondering why Americans weren't concerned with those missiles, but taking care of their own problems and concerns with Soviet strategic weapons, was asking some hard questions of Americans. Why wasn't arms control covering those missiles threatening Europe. Why was the... why were the negotiations only covering U.S. and Soviet systems? Didn't that show that Americans didn't care about Europeans, and particularly didn't President Carter care about what was on Chancellor Schmidt's mind? All of those worries and concerns and frustrations led him to make the speech in the fall of 1977.

DID ANYBODY THINK IT WAS SLIGHTLY ALARMING THAT HE MIGHT HAVE GONE PUBLIC?

When he first made the speech, we weren't sure what he was most concerned about, because the speech had a variety of different concerns and issues. Not only the SS-20, but what was happening in conventional forces in Europe. So our first reaction was, another set of problems and frustrations, but not that it would be quite so important over the next two to three years in the alliance.

RIGHT, NOW. I MEAN EVENTUALLY THE CRUISE AND THE PERSHING MISSILES WERE DEPLOYED IN 1983. NOW, YOU'VE GOT QUITE A SORT OF SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THAT DEPLOYMENT. FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE, WHERE WOULD YOU ISOLATE THE ORIGIN OF THAT DEPLOYMENT REALLY?

There were many, many different reasons why the alliance did, decided to deploy INF in 1983. Chancellor Schmidt's speech is the starting point and then there's a process in which the various countries in the alliance decide that, yes indeed, all those concerns required missiles, particular number and kind of missiles. And so the next big step is December, 1979, when the alliance decides to deploy those missiles. Unless the arms control negotiations would make it unnecessary. And so it's, Chancellor Schmidt's speech in 1977, it's the decision in 1979, it's the fact the alliance went off and tried to negotiate an arms control agreement which would make it unnecessary. The Soviets refused to be serious about negotiating further reduction of their own systems, and so the alliance essentially had no choice, having made a decision in '79 to deploy in 1983.

OKAY. LET'S GO BACK A BIT AND I WANT TO ASK YOU A SLIGHTLY MORE SPECIFIC ONE NOW. WHY WAS THE HIGH LEVEL GROUP SET UP?

The High Level Group was set up primarily to respond to the frustrations and concerns that Europeans were having over nuclear weapons in Europe. It was part of a, the long term defense plan, which looked at conventional forces, but the nuclear issues were the most important in the sense that that's what European governments were most focused on, and particularly became important in the aftermath of what might be called the neutron bomb fiasco. In which, the Americans sought to deploy another new nuclear weapon, the neutron bomb, Europeans went along with the Americans up until the point where somewhat -- surprisingly, President Carter decided not to go ahead with that decision. So Europeans concerned, wondering about Americans once again, looked to the High Level Group as a place where the alliance together could focus on, look at whether and how the alliance should move towards deployments of new nuclear weapons, and in that context made the decision in 1979 to deploy the new INF missiles.

AT THE BEGINNING, ORIGINALLY WHEN THOSE DISCUSSIONS WERE TAKING PLACE, WHAT WAS THE UNITED STATES' OR THE ADMINISTRATIONS POSITION ABOUT THE DEPLOYMENT OF CRUISE MISSILES OR THE DEPLOYMENT OF ANY MISSILE SYSTEMS?

Americans looking at the new technology of cruise missiles were obviously interested in the possibilities that these new technologies could do a variety, or serve a variety of military tasks. But the first initial response to Chancellor Schmidt's concerns about SALT II and SS-20s was that everything was okay. The American nuclear guarantee was credible American strategic and theater-based nuclear forces were linked and tied closely to the defense of Europe. There were really no problems. We could think of modernization over time, but there was not real pri... no real danger of priority that the alliance was facing.

WHEN WE MET BEFORE, YOU SAID THAT, IN FACT THAT POSITION STARTED TO CHANGE, I THINK PROBABLY ABOUT MARCH, 1978. AND THERE WAS A CONSENSUS IN THE HIGH LEVEL GROUP THAT NEW DEPLOYMENT WAS NECESSARY. WHY DID THAT HAPPEN?

Americans went into discussions in the High Level Group, suggesting that modernization might be needed over time, but there was no urgency. Listening to the discussion around the table, it became clear that Europeans were much more concerned about SS-20s, the future of the American nuclear guarantee, and generally the credibility of NATO's strategy of flexible response. And so listening to Europeans and their concerns, a consensus began to develop around the table, to which the Americans came along. Obviously, if there are concerns about the American guarantee, the Americans have to be sensitive about that. And that's what the high-level group was talking about. And so Americans who believed things tended to be okay, as they heard other suggested things weren't okay, it was time to begin to join that consensus.

WHO DO YOU THINK WAS THE DRIVING FORCE, THOUGH, WITHIN THAT GROUP, ARGUING MOST STRONGLY THAT IN FACT THE NUCLEAR GUARANTEE WASN'T CREDIBLE AND SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE?

When the alliance talks about the credibility of the nuclear guarantee, we don't talk about it as directly as we might ought to, because it's calling into a question what Americans are about. And so the discussion is a, tends to be about other issues and about other dimensions of the problem. So it's a discussion about the need for insuring that deterrence is credible that the Soviets don't misunderstand what the alliance is about, and in articulating those concerns, the British government were very articulate, and also the Germans reflecting what Chancellor Schmidt was saying, but that's not to say that as these arguments were spelt out around the table, that others didn't join in those arguments because they did.

WHEN YOU SAY THAT IT'S NEVER VERY OPEN, THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY DON'T — WHY, WHAT'S THE SORT OF MOOD THEN? IT SEEMS TO ME VERY DIFFICULT TO HAVE A DISCUSSION, WHICH IN THE END IS ABOUT THE NUCLEAR GUARANTEE OF THE UNITED STATES, THE QUESTION OF EXTENDED DETERRENCE, BUT NOBODY REALLY WANTS TO SORT OF SAY THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE REALLY TALKING ABOUT.

The problem with talking about the American guarantee is that, from an American point of view, the guarantee is credible. Americans believe in it. Our nuclear weapons are deployed and linked to the strategy, NATO's defense, European defense. Americans would be the last to suggest that isn't credible, and in any discussion, will say that it's credible. And it's difficult for Europeans who depend on Americans to suggest that it's not credible. And so the debate tends to focus on how the Soviets perceive what the Americans will and won't do, and how credible that guarantee is. So the discussion of the American nuclear umbrella is always couched in how the Soviets perceive it, and that's very difficult to know, and so it's perceptions of your adversary, and so discussions tend then to focus on other aspects of the problem, knowing that the American guarantee is what it is that everyone's discussing.

DR. DAVIS, YOU'VE GIVEN US A VERY CLEAR ACCOUNT OF ALL THIS. I THINK WHAT SHOULD BE MAINLY TAKING ABOUT IS THE DOUBT WHICH SCHMIDT RAISED ABOUT THE AMERICAN NUCLEAR GUARANTEE. BUT IS IT NOT FAIR TO SAY THAT THERE WAS ANOTHER STRAND IN ALL THIS, WHICH WAS THE STRAND OF MILITARY DOCTRINE, FEELING THAT THERE WERE GAPS IN FLEXIBLE RESPONSE OR HAVING GAPS IN FLEXIBLE RESPONSE FOR SOME TIME, AND TO SOME EXTENT INDEPENDENTLY OF THE SS-20S, THERE WERE GAPS IN THE FLEXIBLE RESPONSE, AND THAT'S WHY YOU NEEDED A HIGHER WHEN THE SS-20S CAME ON THE SCENE, YOU DID NEED A HIGHER RUNG IN THE LADDER OF ESCALATION. I MEAN ONE SOVIET ... HOW DOES THAT STRAND FIT IN TO WHAT YOU'VE BEEN TELLING US ABOUT?

Once the High Level Group began to look at the questions and concerns raised by Chancellor Schmidt all the issues ... associated with the future of NATO strategy come to bear. And in that more technical and military, well — When the High Level Group began to look into the questions and concerns raised by Chancellor Schmidt, this group, set up by the nuclear planning group, military officers and defense officials, began to look more broadly at the overall question of the credibility of NATO strategy. And were not concerned just with developments in the Soviet threat, and the SS-20 missile. But the overall question of what the future of that strategy should be. And where the capabilities, the existing capabilities were, what the capabilities were, and what kinds of capabilities would be necessary for the future. And so in that discussion, concerns were raised with the fact that, US nuclear forces deployed in Europe were not able to strike targets in the Soviet Union. that the Soviets had the SS-20, deployed in the Soviet Union. NATO didn't want to leave that missile really as a well. One of the concerns that Schmidt had with the SS-20 missile was it was deployed in the Soviet Union, and there was no risk to the Soviets that Americans with forces in Europe could put at risk those targets. This is a fairly complicated and somewhat esoteric discussion of targeting and military strategy. But from a military point of view, that planner's point of view concerns about the strategy went beyond the SS-20 to the more serious questions of coupling, putting at risk targets in the Soviet Union, were the Soviets a sanctuary, and what kind of deterrence was possible if the Soviets had these missiles without a corresponding American capability to put at risk those missiles, from and with missiles in Western Europe, as opposed to U.S. strategic systems deployed in the United States or at sea.

ALL RIGHT, OKAY.

And we can do that again, if you want to.

I MIGHT COME BACK TO THAT LATER, YES. ANYWAY... FROM MARCH '78, YOU'VE GOT TO THE SITUATION WHERE, AS YOU SAY, EVERYBODY ROUND THE TABLE IS NOW AGREED THAT SOMETHING HAS GOT TO BE DONE. WHAT IT IS, NOBODY YET KNOWS. AFTER THAT, THAT WAS THE PROCESS WHEN THE ACTUAL WEAPONS SYSTEMS, THINGS LIKE CRUISE AND PERSHING CAME TO BE DECIDED ON. CAN YOU JUST DESCRIBE HOW THAT WAS ARRIVED AT IN THAT PERIOD, IN THOSE MEETINGS?

Once the High Level Group came to a consensus that there was a need for, what they called an evolutionary upward adjustment in longer range theater nuclear forces a bureaucratic way of saying that NATO should deploy some longer range systems. The group went back to look at what kinds of systems with what kinds of capabilities. And over the next year or so, looked at cruise missiles, both land based and sea based, ballistic missiles deployed in Germany, the Pershing II missiles, and the possibility that some aircraft with longer range missiles might also be the appropriate answer to this question. It became clear very soon that cruise missiles, the new technology of cruise missiles, much cheaper, cost effective, militarily very effective, would be very attractive. They could also be deployed in a variety of different countries in the alliance, sharing the burden of that deployment. But, from a military point of view, ballistic missiles were also attractive and so, modernizing the Pershings, became part of the recommendation. Why not sea-based missiles, why only land-based missiles? Most around that table thought that the deployment should be visible on land to reinforce the credibility of the American nuclear guarantee. To couple the United States to the defense of Western Europe and do that visibly by land basing those new missiles. And so it's cruise missiles in five countries, ballistic missiles, or the Pershings, in Germany, that was the package. not so many as to match what the Soviets were doing in the SS-20, but enough to couple and to reinforce NATO strategy.

WHY WAS IT NECESSARY FOR THE PERSHINGS TO ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO REACH THE SOVIET UNION?

Going back to why the alliance was interested in these new deployments, to put at risk targets in the Soviet Union, so that the SS-20 is not a sanct-, doesn't have a sanctuary in the Soviet homeland. So the new deployment was looking for systems which could strike the Soviet Union. not necessarily all the way to Moscow, but some of the capabilities to Moscow in order to put at risk those things the Soviets value, so that deterrence would work, and they wouldn't be interested in trying to influence or intimidate Western Europeans.

SOME PEOPLE HAVE TOLD US THAT, IN FACT, THE DISCUSSIONS IN THE HIGH LEVEL GROUP WENT FAR BEYOND WHAT PEOPLE MIGHT THINK DAVID ALLEN REALLY EXPECTED THEM TO GO. WHY DID THAT HAPPEN?

The first and second meeting of the High Level Group, by most accounts, went much farther along toward the ultimate decision of modernizing U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, than most had expected. We had heard the concerns of Europeans. We knew there were worries about the SS-20, Americans believed that there may be a need for modernization but the credibility of the guarantee was... was okay. There were no real dangers, at least for the moment. Around the High Level Group table, that consensus began to emerge that something needed to be done. And, again, it was very hard for Americans to say no because Europeans were raising legitimate concerns about U.S. capabilities in Europe and so, with officials back in Washington concerned with a variety of other issues, this issue didn't seem to be as important as it turned out to be in those discussions in the High Level Group. And so when the Americans came back to report on what had happened, some said that that consensus had developed too quickly. Perhaps it wasn't in the America... Americans' interest to move in this direction and so very quickly a major study was commissioned within the United States to make sure that what was happening in the High Level Group was, indeed, what the United States wanted to have happen and that the United States was in a position to lead the Alliance on nuclear weapons issues and not to be caught following along behind a developing consensus.

WELL, I'M GOING TO PRESS YOU ON THAT A BIT BECAUSE WHAT YOU'VE ACTUALLY DONE IS YOU'VE USED RATHER BUREAUCRATIC LANGUAGE TO DESCRIBE THIS PROCESS. WASN'T IT REALLY THE CASE THAT AFTER THESE DISCUSSIONS HAD GONE ON IN THE HIGH LEVEL GROUP, MORE OR LESS, THE UNITED STATES WAS BANG TO RIGHTS, SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED. IT WAS GOING TO GET VERY DIFFICULT TO GO BACK FROM THAT. I MEAN, WASN'T...

The discussions in the High Level Group -- the consensus that developed more quickly than most Americans had expected made it very difficult for Americans not to come along. Added to that, of course, and almost at the same time, was the neutron bomb decision on the part of the... the President, and all the concern that arose in the Alliance about President Carter and his ability to lead the Alliance. The combination of those two things meant that the Americans were going to have to respond and going to have to now lead in that response tha... that Europeans were looking for.

NOW, WE THEN GET TO THE SITUATION IN DECEMBER, 1979, WHEN IN FACT, THE NATO MINISTERS MEET AND THERE'S THIS... ALL THE NATO MINISTERS MEET TWICE OVER TWO DAYS AND THERE'S THIS DUAL-TRACK DECISION, AS IT BECOMES KNOWN, IS FORMULATED. FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE—YOU'D BEEN WORKING IN THE HIGH-LEVEL GROUP AND ACTUALLY, YOU WERE DISCUSSING THE QUESTION OF MISSILES LADDERS OF ESCALATION AND, IN A SENSE, VERY TECHNICAL JUSTIFICATION FOR THESE DEPLOYMENTS. FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE, DID YOU GET ALARMED ABOUT THE DUAL-TRACK DECISION? DID YOU EVER FEEL THAT PUTTING AN ARMS CONTROL ELEMENT IN WAS GIVING A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE?

From the beginning discussions in the high-level group, it was clear that arms control would be a part of what the Alliance would do at the time it made its decisions on modernization, and there is a relationship between modernization and arms control, and one that formed the basis of the decision in 1979. The high-level group had the task of deciding what would be necessary for NATO to do in terms of its nuclear weapons in the absence of any changes in the Soviet threat. Arms Control, the special group with responsibility to define what kinds of objectives the Alliance would seek in arms control, worked in parallel looking at if the Soviets were to reduce or eliminate the threat, what then would be the requirements on NATO's side, in terms of its own nuclear weapons. So, modernization and arms control are really two diff-- two parts of the Alliance's security policy, and that's what the dual-track sought to do. A modernization plan that would go ahead if the Soviets were not prepared to negotiate and reduce their forces, but an arms control negotiating package in principles that would guide the Alliance towards an arms control agreement. And the two, together would make up the decision. Now, some have argued that the decision put the modernization package at hostage to the arms control negotiations. That's really not fair, because the decision itself said, the Alliance will deploy, in 1983, unless arms control makes it unnecessary. So the Alliance decided to deploy, but also went along with the possibility that an agreement could make that unnecessary, or at least, reduce what was necessary on the part of the Alliance. And so, dual-track means we worked out what we needed on the modernization side; we had a set of arms control principles, the two were worked together. Those who worked on the modernization side participated and those working on the arms control side. NATO foreign ministers met with NATO defense ministers; both decided on the package, and the Alliance decided to go forward. And so that's what the dual-track really meant: two parts of NATO's overall security policy.

WERE YOU HAPPY WITH IT?

I thought the dual-track decision was the way the Alliance should proceed in putting together modernization and arms control. Critics of the package suggest that the Alliance should have modernized and not held the decision hostage to arms control. Those who were in favor of arms control wanted the Alliance to postpone the modernization decision. But the only leverage the Alliance had in negotiating with the Soviets was the fact they decided to deploy, and in fact, it was that deployment that made, finally brought the Soviets to the point of having to seriously begin to think about arms control. And so, if one had not been tied to the other, one wouldn't be looking towards an arms control agreement today and one certainly wouldn't have had the deployments that occurred in 1983.

WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE WAY YOU FELT IN THAT JOB. I MEAN, YOU WERE AN EXPERT, INSOFAR AS ANYBODY CAN BE REALLY EXPERT IN— IT'S A THEORETICAL SCIENCE, FORTUNATELY, RATHER THAN A PRACTICAL ONE. AND YET, AT THE SAME TIME, THE PRESSURES OF THAT JOB WERE SUCH THAT YOU COULD NEVER APPROACH WHAT YOU WERE DOING IN THAT JOB WITH THE ABILITY TO USE YOUR EXPERTISE AND TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISIONS. CAN YOU JUST TELL US WHAT THAT'S LIKE AT A PERSONAL LEVEL?

Experts always have the luxury of sitting back and thinking about the ideas of deterrence and what makes for credible deterrence and what are the conditions for The problem for experts when they arrive in the government is that nothing is quite so easy as it is when one can sit back think about theories of deterrence, what are the necessary requirements in terms of missiles and deployments, and what kinds of arms control principles are consistent, and all of that is very important and should be part of the process. And to an extent, the work of the high level group and the special group really did try to start at the beginning, design principles, and move towards a decision. but all kinds of things get in the way, as one moves through that process. It's the politics of the various countries, it's the personalities of the leaders who interact, it's the fact that we begin with systems and capabilities that we currently have, and the Soviets are off doing what they're doing for their own sets of reasons. And then there's a bureaucracy in Washington that has to bring all this together and move towards a consensus, which is no small task under the best of circumstances. In this case, the U.S. byuree--in this case the U.S. bureaucracy was really, in this case, most in the American bureaucracy agreed with what we were about, so that made it much easier than sometimes on policies, but there was a whole Alliance to bring along, too. And so, the expert has to be part of the rough-and-tumble of making policy and there's often not time to do a lot of thinking about theories, but putting theories into practice in hard-nosed politics and policies of the Alliance.

DID YOU EVER FEEL LIKE SORT OF PACKING IT IN, SAYING "I'VE HAD IT UP TO HERE."

As difficult as it becomes in working through all the bureaucratic pressures and politics in the Alliance moving towards a decision, it's still is a lot more fun being there, making and being part of those policies, than it was standing back and being the experts. So the expert always needs to come in and understand the reality and once in, the expert likes to be part of the policymaking process.

THE FACT IS, YOU ARE THE FIRST WOMAN WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED IN MAKING THIS WHOLE SERIES OF PROGRAMS, THIRTEEN HOURS OF TELEVISION, AND I THINK SOMEONE WATCHING THIS PROGRAM WOULD BE STRUCK BY THE FACT THAT THERE YOU WERE, A WOMAN, DECIDING, ESSENTIALLY, WHAT WEAPONS SHOULD BE PUT INTO EUROPE. DID YOU FIND ANYTHING DIFFICULT ABOUT THAT?

One of the peculiarities of the American political system is that, for every administration, a number of political appointees come in with that administration, and their task is to help the President turn his ideas and policies into the policies of the government in the various parts of the American bureaucracy, and so, as one of those political appointees, I arrived in the Carter administration with an expertise on arms control and nuclear weapons and strategy, and that became my task. And it wasn't very long before that task turned into staffing the High Level Group a group of defense officials and military officers who had a lot of experience on these matters, and who, quite rightly, wondered why a person as young as I am and with the background that I have, is now the person staffing these issues. And so, both as a young person and as a political appointee—and as a woman... obviously people found it a different a different way of having to interact with me and with the kinds of ideas and the kinds of policies that we were trying to do. it didn't make the task all that much more difficult; it just made the task one that one had to worry about and think through and--

A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE CHARACTERIZED THE DEBATES THAT WERE TAKING PLACE DURING THAT PERIOD, AND IN FACT, A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT, SEIZED ON ONE OF THOSE ELEMENTS, AND THAT WAS THAT THERE WERE TWO STRANDS: ONE WAS THE WAR-FIGHTING STRAND, THE PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO BE ABLE TO FIGHT A WAR IN EUROPE, AND THE ONES WHO SAW NUCLEAR WEAPONS PURELY AS AN OBJECT AS DETERRENT, THEY PUT IT IN A DETERRENT THEORY, NOT A WAR-FIGHTING THEORY. COULD YOU JUST SUM UP WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IN THOSE TWO SCHOOLS IS, AND MAKE SOME ASSESSMENT OF WHAT ROLES THEY PLAYED IN THAT PERIOD?

The problem for the High Level Group in looking at what kinds of nuclear weapons were, would be appropriate for the Alliance in the future, is that there's the need, the fundamental need to deter any use of nuclear weapons and to put at ri-- The problem for the High Level Group, now tasks, to decide what kinds of nuclear weapons the Alliance, the United States, should have in order to carry out a strategy confronts the difficulty of having to define weapons systems with military capabilities of certain types, in order to carry out the strategy of deterrence, that is, to keep nuclear weapons from being used in the first place. But to do that, one has to put at risk the things the Soviets value, to ensure that they will never think that it's very wise in order to use their nuclear weapons. So, deterrence depends on nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons with specific kinds of capabilities and able to destroy certain kinds of targets. That leads people to have different views about what's necessary, but also to characterize their different views as serving one, deterrence, and others serving war-fighting. The two are really not all that different. What one is trying to do is deter; nobody disagrees about that, but one needs war-fighting capabilities in order to accomplish deterrence. Now that's a very complicated and difficult strategic thought and one that characterizes the experts' debate. But publics who then need to understand, or we ask and hope will understand what it is that we're about tend to look at nuclear weapons, see that they have these capabilities, war-fighting capabilities, don't understand how they serve deterrence, and the debate often becomes very confused. but primarily, the task of the nuclear planner is to design weapons systems and deployments that have capabilities to fight wars, but the sole purpose of those capabilities is to ensure that those wars never happen.

LET'S PUT THE QUESTION IN ANOTHER WAY. PEOPLE IN THE PEACE MOVEMENT IN EUROPE SAID, LOOK, THE PERSHING II IS DESIGNED TO ATTACK THE SOVIET UNION AND LEAVE AMERICA AS A SANCTUARY, AND THAT'S WHY THEY WERE THERE, AND THAT WAS TRUE. HOW WOULD YOU COMMENT ABOUT THAT? I'M ASKING YOU NOW NOT TO SAY WHAT THE THOUGHTS WERE AMONGST MEMBERS OF THE HIGH LEVEL GROUP, BUT AS AN ARGUMENT ABOUT WHAT EVENTUALLY HAPPENED. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?

PEOPLE, A LOT OF PEOPLE, SAW WHAT THE PERSHING II WAS CAPABLE OF DOING AND ARGUED THAT THAT REVEALED A STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES TO CONTAIN A POTENTIAL NUCLEAR WAR IN EUROPE AND LEAVE THE UNITED STATES MAINLAND AS A SANCTUARY, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR RESPONSE TO THAT POSITION?

In trying to decide how best to deter the Soviets, which is what NATO is all about, there were two competing ideas. One, that the United States should deploy missiles on land in Europe that can strike the Soviet Union and that will ensure that the Soviets will never be tempted to use their nuclear weapons. But, for those living in Europe, with the missiles deployed in their own countries, they asked the question, doesn't it look as if Americans are trying to place the missiles in Europe in order to avoid attacks on the United States, and therefore to de-couple or to put Europeans at risk and not Americans, and particularly if those missiles can strike the Soviet Union rather than shorter-range into Eastern Europe. One theory says, it's better to have American missiles on land because it's more credible, others say it's more credible to have American missiles in the United States or at sea, because that puts the Americans at risk. The point is, the Soviets have to be deterred, and the Soviets now looking at American nuclear weapons find both. They find some in Europe and some in United States, and one hopes that that's enough to keep them from being deterred and that one doesn't have to choose between those two.

COULD YOU JUST SUM UP FOR US WHAT, ROUGHLY, THE BALANCE WAS IN EUROPE AROUND 1979?

The Soviets were deploying their new SS-20 missile, had two hundred to three hundred warheads deployed in the late 1970s, were retiring their older SS-4 and -5 missiles, but slowly and not necessarily one-for-one with the deployment of new missiles. The Soviets also had threatening Europe large numbers of aircraft weapons, nuclear weapons, ground-based short-range missiles and artillery. So they were modernizing their systems in each of these various categories. The Alliance had very few weapons that could strike the Soviet Union, and these were on F-111 aircraft, which were aging, getting older. NATO also had other aircraft of shorter range with nuclear weapons, shorter-range missile systems, the Lance missile system, and artillery. these were in the process of being modernized, but no radical changes were expected in that balance over the next five to ten years, except now that the Soviets were deploying this new system, the SS-20.

LET'S TALK A BIT ABOUT THE SS-20. IN WASHINGTON, THE SS-20s, I THINK, WERE FIRST HEARD OF, WHEN THEY WERE TESTED, I THINK IN '74, SCHLESSINGER TOLD THE ALLIES ABOUT THEM IN '75. WHEN THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION CAME IN, THEY HAD BEEN KNOWN ABOUT FOR A WHILE. HOW SERIOUSLY DID YOU TAKE THE SS-20s? DID YOU THINK THAT SCHMIDT WAS MAKING TOO MUCH OF A FUSS ABOUT THEM?

The initial reaction in the Carter administration to the SS-20 was, yes, it was a new missile, yes, it was a more modern missile, it was more accurate, it had three warheads rather than one warhead as the older SS-4 and -5 missiles, a modernization that was not unexpected and one that clearly the Alliance was going to have to take into account. But not a dramatic change in what the Soviet threat was to Western Europe.

DID THAT VIEW CHANGE?

Well, over time, the rate of deployment, the numbers that were being deployed appeared to be exceeding that of a simple replacement of the older system. So the Soviets now were going to have a more accurate and more threatening missile and larger numbers of warheads, and so as the program emerged, it was clearly more threatening then than the initial ideas. It became particularly threatening to Chancellor Schmidt, who saw that the SS-20 was being deployed with no comparable U.S. system being deployed. Moreover, the U.S. didn't seem to care about the SS-20 and the SALT negotiations, and so the military capability combined with the lack of US attention to the SS-20 was of major concern to Chancellor Schmidt.

DID YOU COME TO FEEL THAT THE SS-20s AND THE WAY THAT THEY WERE DEPLOYED WERE HERALDING SOME KIND OF BIG RE-THINK IN SOVIET THEORY, SOVIET NUCLEAR THEORY? NOT NUCLEAR THEORY, BUT SOVIET WAR-FIGHTING THEORY?

It's also--it is always very difficult to probe behind Soviet deployments of any individual system and a variety of different motivations were probably a variety of different motivations lay behind the SS-20. It was, first of all, a modernization. The Soviets, for a long time, sought to put Europeans at risk by missiles from the Soviet Union. It wasn't terribly surprising that, as the SS-4s and -5s got older, that they would deploy a new system. The particular characteristics of that system are very modern, a system with multiple warheads. Again, not too surprising, although that did change the nature of the threat facing Western Europe from the Soviet Union. The SS-20 was also amore mobile, that meant it was more survivable, would be more difficult for the Americans to take out that system if a war were to occur, and so all of these developments gave the Soviets more capability. I don't think it would be fair to say that it changed Soviet thinking about their use of nuclear weapons or their doctrine, but it certainly made that doctrine, that nuclear doctrine, a more flexible and a more capable one.

COULD I JUST SUPPLEMENT THAT? DO YOU THINK IT WAS A MISTAKE TO GET TOO WORRIED ABOUT THE SS-20s? DO YOU THINK THAT CONCERN WAS MISPLACED? DID IT REALLY LEAD TO A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN THEIR TARGETING CAPACITY?

Soviet deployment of the SS-20 changed their capability against Western Europe enough so that the Alliance had to worry, and Europeans had to worry. That's not to say that there isn't a large Soviet capability to put at risk Western Europe. But that particular modernization and development was sufficient to cause the Alliance to become concerned. whether or not the degree of concern was militarily justifiable is, it's more difficult to say, because it was always a concern that raised political as well as military worries among Germans and the rest of Europe, and so it's impossible to dif... differentiate those two and say one was, or shouldn't have been quite so important as the other. In 1977, the new technology was cruise missiles, and so as NATO began to think about a possible response to the SS-20 and to enhancing the credibility of its of its strategy, cruise missiles were the technology that people were looking at, and they were very attractive for all the reasons we've talked about before. Why then, did Pershing II missiles become part of the package? interestingly enough, many in the early days thought that Pershings would be the easiest politically easiest missile for Europeans to deploy, because it would be just a follow-on to an already existing missile in Europe, the Pershing I. And so, the Germans would find that very easy, there would be no new deployment, but essentially a replacement of one missile for another. And in Washington, those who were most concerned about cruise missiles and wanting to limit cruise missiles in arms control, that is, not deploy cruise missiles but to ban cruise missiles saw the Pershing as the appropriate response to this concern in Europe, and so Pershings come into the package for those two reasons. Interestingly enough, over time, the Pershing looks to the Soviets as the most threatening and to many, as the real reason why the Soviets have been so serious in negotiating down their own SS-24s. But in the early days, Pershing IIs came along behind cruise missiles as the, as the system that would be deployed as part of the NATO package.