WHEN DID COMMON CAUSE FIRST GET INVOLVED IN MX MISSILE ISSUE?

We first got involved in 1982. And it was following a long debate by our governing board in a decision that our organization should be involved in, in the nuclear arms control issue.

WHY WAS IT NECESSARY?...THE MX DEBATE.

The reason we decided to work on the MX, there were a couple of reasons we decided to work on the MX. We were looking for a place where we could get involved as an organization. And for us that means to get citizens involved in lobbying. The MX was an ongoing battle. And it was a weapons system fight that made no sense at all. This, the MX was a turkey. It just did not make any sense to build this weapons system and yet there it was going along. So we saw this as a target of opportunity to stop a weapons system that did not make any sense, and at the same time to in effect involve, teach citizens that they could be part of fighting over the most profound issue facing the world, that is the issue of arms control.

WHAT DID THE MX SYMBOLIZE TO YOU?

The MX. The reason that we chose to get involved in this fight, was because of the fact that you had a missile that made no sense, a process that was moving forward, and a process in which citizens and the Congress really played a minimal role. So we were challenging both a weapons system and the notion that the nuclear priesthood really should make all the decisions here. That it was an exclusive territory in which citizens, citizens groups, members of Congress, really did not have a role.

BUT WHY THE MX ITSELF?

Well one of the major reasons we chose the MX was that it just wasn't viable. It was, there was just no case for it. It did not hold up. It was vulnerable. It didn't meet any really basic tests. It was, it was defeatable. It just didn't make sense to go forward. And the only reason it was moving forward was because of the established notion that anything the Administration wants, it gets. Anything the Pentagon wants, it gets. And one of the things we were out to challenge was the idea that if an Administration wants a weapons system it gets it whether it makes any sense at all.

HAD OTHER SYSTEMS BEEN CHALLENGED LIKE THIS?

I think there had been fights over nuclear weapons system in the past but the reality was that there had never been a case where an Administration had wanted a nuclear weapons system and had had it denied. And therefore we saw that if we could stop this system we would change the whole dynamic of decision making in this area. That is to say, for the first time the Pentagon and an Administration would have to understand that there was a larger dimension to these fights. That citizens had to be heard, that there were other players that had to be taken into account. That simply was not done and had not been done in our view, prior to this battle.

MX WAS A SYMBOL OF LARGER STRUGGLE?

Well the MX was a symbol of a, of a far larger struggle. It was a fight over a missile system but it was much more than that. It was a way of basically showing that the way in which we were deciding arms control policy in this country needed to be changed. It was a way of changing that policy. And it was also a way of helping to establish an organized lobbying constituency for arms control issue. A constituency that had not existed before.

WHAT WAS THE BASING MODE UNDER DISCUSSION WHEN YOU ENTERED THE FIGHT?

Well the basing mode then was dense pack. And that was a basing mode that, that had, was totally discredited with the result that the, the Congress rejected it. And, and from that we went to the Scowcroft Commission report, which was a very, dealt with a number of issues, but in my view the Scowcroft Commission was created by the Administration to rationalize and justify building the MX. And it was, it was yet another turn in the road in the effort to build a first strike MX weapons system.

WHY DOES HE CALL IT FIRST STRIKE?

Well because at the request...This is, I think this was commonly recognized as a first strike system. The Administration originally was requesting 200 MXs and even at 100 MXs...I think the Air Force may claim now that it's not a first strike weapons system, but I think most people accept the fact that at 100 or 200 MX weapons, we are dealing with a first strike weapons system.

WHY WOULD AIR FORCE WANT A FIRST STRIKE SYSTEM?

Beats me. I don't know why they wanted a first strike weapons system. I don't even know why they wanted the MX. I mean we spent all these years arguing about the deterrence. That was the whole reason for the MX in the first place, because of the window of vulnerability. Then along comes the Scowcroft Commission report and they tell us there is no window of vulnerability. So why were we doing this in the first place? This goes back to what I was talking about. This is the process of decision making in the nuclear arms arena. And people were used to basically deciding this is what we want, and then we just go do it. And it doesn't matter whether we can justify it or not. It doesn't matter whether we can really make the case. If we think it should be done, we'll do it. And that's part of what has been changed forever, by the battle over the MX. Because slowly at first, but eventually, everyone learned that it is not the way of the world any more. That citizens can fight it, that members of Congress can fight it, and that you basically are going to have to really justify your rationale and your case. You are not going to get it any more simply because you say, "Well, I want it, and therefore I'll have it." That was one of the basic issues at stake in the MX fight and I think it's an issue that I think we won.

WEINBERGER SAYS CLOSING WINDOW OF VULNERABILITY MEANT BALANCE STRENGTH SOVIETS HAD BEEN MODERNIZING FOR YEARS AND GOT AHEAD OF US.

Well the question of the window of vulnerability and the, and the extent of weapons and weapons power depends on where you start from. If you view this as a constant race, in which we have to do better than they, and they have to do better than us, and you keep going and going and going. Then you lose sight of the basic question of how much is enough. It is more than ironic that today we're sitting here with President Reagan pushing for a 50 percent reduction. How the Administration, there are people in the Administration who are, still want to go from 50 to 100 MXs at the very time that this Administration is pursuing a 50 percent cut. That's a notion of saying, we'd better build these things quickly so we can destroy them. If we don't get them built now, we won't even have time to destroy them. So you can make these arguments if you do it on a relativity theory. It's kind of like, you know, playing jacks or playing with an erector set to see who can build the highest building or toy. But if you try to deal with this with a little more reality, then there are relativity factors about how much is enough and what is the cost and what are we really doing with ourselves. And I think that had been lost sight of. I think that is back on the table now. The MX fight is, is a, is a, is a big part of it. The budgetary situation in this country is a big part of it. I think we are headed in a totally different direction today than we were at the time of the MX fight. Now that leads you to a question. Why? Some people would argue well, it was precisely because of this buildup and what the Administration did that we're now strong enough to do this. There is another argument that says the Administration was on a course in the mid-'80s, a nuclear arms policy course in which the MX was the centerpiece. We blocked that course by blocking the MX. And we forced a change in thinking. Now you can have, you can have both of those factors involved, but the bottom line is, by blocking the MX, we force the Administration to change its strategic thinking. And I think that that is not only a major contribution to arms control, but its precedent setting. And furthermore we did it, and I say "we" by all of the groups, all of the citizens, all of the leaders in Congress. We did it by Congress becoming a part of the decision making process. That is brand new also. So some very dramatic, revolutionary changes, really did occur in this MX fight, in the whole process of decision making over nuclear arms policy.

ASKS WHAT WAS WRONG WITH REAGAN'S POLICY IN THE EARLY YEARS.

Well. In President Reagan in the early, President Reagan created, certainly created the atmosphere for the whole nuclear freeze explosion. What needed to be changed is, changed was the message. President Reagan's message in the early years was, in effect was, let's build and build and build more and more and more weapons. And, the history of President Reagan was a history against arms control. So his message was a nuclear arms race into the future, ad infinitum. And that simply never made sense. It didn't make sense economically, it didn't make sense strategically, it didn't make sense domestically, it didn't make sense from a national security policy standpoint.

WAS HE WORRIED MISSILE WAS AIMED AT LEADERSHIP BUNKERS, SILOS, TARGETS?

Well all the MX missile was doing in this process was upping the stakes, upping the tensions, increasing the need for the Soviet Union to respond. It was kind of a classic part of the traditional game of "We'll top them, they'll top us, we'll top them." And therefore what it, what it would have done, particularly as a vulnerable, first strike weapons system, was simply increase the nuclear threat, increase tensions, increase the need for the Soviet Union to respond, increase the need for us to respond to the Soviet Union. It was part of the, the arms control spiral.

SHOULD WE LET THE RUSSIANS BUILD BETTER WEAPONS WHILE WE SIT STILL?

Well all of our approach on nuclear arms policies I think depends on whether or not you are seeking and looking for arms control treaties, agreements, or whether you are simply taking the approach of wanting to build as much as you can. In the early and middle years of this Administration, the approach was to build whatever we can build. And to go for broke. In that kind of atmosphere I think it becomes very important for pressures to be brought to bear to say, "Wait a minute, this is the wrong direction." And that's what. Now if you're strongly pursuing arras control policies, then you have potentially a different set of judgments to make about what steps you take. If you're starting from the standpoint of trying to get out from this spiral, from this maze, but by and large a large part of this is a nuclear game. It's a game. How much do we need? Now the relativity is important. We don't want to be in a vulnerable situation. But there is so much out there. And this costs so much money and the economics of it are insane. That the priority, the thrust, has to be to figure out a way to get off of this hook. To get off of this narcotic of more and more arms. If that is your main goal, then one can look at these questions of what do we do very differently than if it's not. And up until very recently that was not the articulated goal of this Administration.

BUT ASPIN AND DICKS TAKE CREDIT FOR CHANGING ADMINISTRATION'S ATTITUDE BY THE DEAL THEY MADE WITH THE SCOWCROFT COMMISSION.

Well I've had this discussion, at least with Norm Dicks. Basically in my view, the movie Rashomon is very important to all of us. That's a movie where lots of people looked at it and saw different things happening, depending on whose eyes you looked through. The bottom line here in my view is not that the Scowcroft Commission reformed Ronald Reagan and turned him into an arms control fanatic. I don't believe that was the case. I do believe that today we are seeing serious efforts at arms control. I also believe that the battle over the MX and then the battle over SDI, in terms of pressures to force us away from a go-for-broke attitude, helped contribute to the arms control approach that exists today. So, if Les Aspin and Norm Dicks want to take credit for their role in this thing, I think the fact that we beat them, that we overcame the Scowcroft Commission report, that they did not get what they agreed to in the Scowcroft Commission report is a much stronger reason for why we are today. Their proposal, the result that they would have come forward with, did not prevail in this process.

ASKS ABOUT SCOWCROFT RECOMMENDATIONS.

Well the Scowcroft Commission did not want 50 MXs. This goes to the question, the Scowcroft Commission recommended 100 MXs, they were continuing the notion of a first strike weapon. That was blocked. That was blocked in Congress, ultimately with the support, with people like Chairman Aspin. But the product of the Scowcroft Commission was not implemented. And that's the final, that's the bottom line. The result is that report was not implemented and it is from that point that we wind up going to where we are today. So if you want to bring the Scowcroft Commission into this, I think you have to look at the fact that it did not achieve its goal.

HOW DID CONGRESS FEEL ABOUT SCOWCROFT COMMISSION REPORT?

Well a number of members of Congress were very upset by the role that some of their colleagues had played in the Scowcroft Commission report. Because there was a basic feeling that, that these members had been used and in fact were there by undermining the position of many members of Congress who opposed the MX. The Scowcroft Commission in effect had a deal in it. The Administration would get 100 MXs and members of Congress who were part of that deal, would get the Midget-man. That's what their long-term goal was. Well the feeling was in fact that this was just a charade that the Administration really was setting this up because all they wanted was the 100 MXs. And the Midgetman would never be built. And there was a very strong opposition to the MX in Congress and that opposition was being undermined for a deal that people felt was a lousy deal and would never come to fruition. And that is why there was a tremendous animosity in the House of Representatives in particular, and in fact the battle went on and the Administration and the Scowcroft Commission did not get what they wanted. They did not get 100 MXs and when they finally wound up with 50 MXs, they did not have a first strike weapon and they were not satisfied and they're not satisfied today. Meanwhile the Administration went through the motions of saying they were for Midgetman, but they've never been for it. The Pentagon continues to resist it. It was an awful deal. It was a one-sided deal. Fortunately it never got played out because the Congress ultimately blocked the MX and blocked the Scowcroft Commission deal.

WHAT KIND OF DEAL IS THIS, TO FUND ONE SYSTEM AND GET IN RETURN, ANOTHER?

Well it just never seemed like much of a deal to a number of people, including our organization. But the irony was that most people felt even if conceptually the deal made sense, it was a phony. That the Administration was in effect holding out something to people that they never were prepared to give, and that therefore it was a false deal, it was a phony deal. But the question also, of dealing, you know, you get your weapons system, I get my weapons system, doesn't exactly seem like a way of solving the arms race. It seems like you're getting more and more weapons system. And, you know, so this was a compromise. And the compromise was instead of having zero new weapons system, we get two.

MIDGETMAN SUPPORTERS SAY IT STABILIZES, IT DE-MIRVS, IT'S NON-THREATENING, NOT A FIRST STRIKE...WHY ISN'T IT A GOOD IDEA?

Well there are, there are a number of strong arguments that can and have been made in favor of Midgetman. And they all stem from and start with the whole notion that it will increase stability. You go to the first question which is, do you have to build a new land-based missile, for starters, do we really need it? But the larger question now is, those discussions then were taking place on a different plane. It was in a different world. Today we're looking at questions of potential 50 percent reductions. In those days the discussion, you know, the fight over, the resistance was to a nuclear freeze. My God, a nuclear freeze. It will destroy the world. Now we have both sides talking about 50 percent reductions. So you have to look at Midgetman in a somewhat different context today. The stability factor in Midgetman does give you an argument for why it's better than say the MX. On the other hand, are we going to be building Midgetman into the future with the costs involved? If in fact there's a good chance or a chance that we could cut by 50 percent reduction? So we're dealing, we're playing on a totally different field today than we were in the early and mid-'80s.

ASKS ABOUT FIGHT TO CUT BACK TO 50.

Well the Scowcroft Commission recommended 100 MXs. The groups working on the outside wanted zero MXs. We did not believe there was a case, we still don't believe there's a case for moving forward with the MX missile system. And that led to an incredibly intensive fight and part of what came out of that fight was an organized, grass roots constituency that did not exist before. We met weekly. Dozens of organizations, met weekly. We involved these organizations, tens of thousands of citizens around the country. And we did it over and over and over again. We must have had seven or eight votes in one two-year period. We kept coming back, time and time again. I've never quite seen a fight like that where you lose but you make up a little ground, and you keep coming back and back and back. And the tensions were enormous. There were incredible tensions inside the Congress, particularly within the Democratic Party. And as we kept going forward the support within the Democratic Party kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And the fight over zero was lost by a very close vote. The next fight was lost by a very close vote. And that was it. We were able to establish legislatively a permanent statutory cap at 50 MX missiles. And there is no way to describe this other than as a brutal fight. This was a very, very tough battle. Tempers flared. -There are hard feelings still left from that battle. But the bottom line result was, not the weapons system the Administration wanted, not the weapons system that the Scowcroft Commission fought for.

ASKS FOR ANECDOTES ABOUT STRUGGLE.

Well. The, a few yelling and shouting and screaming discussions outside the chamber of the Congress. I don't…

DICKS AND ASPIN?

Well, the one, the one...One battle we had on the MX was one of the most incredible fights I've ever seen. There were three votes in one day in the House of Representatives. And they were decided by three votes, and then two votes and then one vote. And people were scrambling around, trying to find people who were absent to bring them back. There was a dramatic moment when it was a tied vote and time was out and one member came running into the chamber and no one knew which way the member was going to vote. And he finally voted against the MX weapons system. The scoreboard kind of looked like a basketball game with the votes changing back and forth. This was a, the tension was enormous. And the sense of accomplishment when it was finally over was rare in the, in the legislative arena. As I say, for many of us, we were not simply fighting over a weapons system. What we were fighting over was changing the way our society decides nuclear arms policy. And when you translate that into Congress and you get down to votes that are being decided by one or two votes, and when you've lost five and six and seven times in a row. And then you come up and you win by one vote. It's the kind of event, the kind of moment that legitimizes everything that you and many thousands of people are working on and have been working on for years. It was kind of like finally getting to Broadway, opening night. The reviews came in and it was a smash hit. No one believed we could do it. No one thought that outside groups, members of Congress, could stop the President of the United States, the Pentagon, the military establishment, the defense contractors. And we had done it and I think by doing it we have changed this process for the future.

WHY DOES HE SAY HE STOPPED MX?

Well two things. First of all, the fight's not over. We knew it wasn't over then. We have been, we have been paying attention to this and fighting it ever since '85. What we say is, we stop the weapons system the Administration wanted, which was a first strike weapons system. And we did do that. And in doing that it was the first time an Administration ever was denied the weapons system they wanted. If you want to understand what we did, take a look at the fact that the Administration is coming back year after year, trying to figure out how to get to the next stage. So they don't have what they wanted. But, yes, the fight goes on right now. The fight continues and we are in this fight and we expect next year that the Administration will come back and try and move the MX to that 100 MX stage. And we will be back again, trying to protect what we've won. We did win that fight. Now we have to protect it. And I remember very well Chairman Aspin saying that the fight is over, there will never be more than 50 MXs. And we hope, and we look forward to him leading the way next year to make sure that does not happen.

DOES HE OPPOSE MIDGETMAN?

We haven't gotten into that.

Our organization has not been involved one way or the other in the Midgetman fight. Our focus was the MX fight. We're still involved in that. And then we moved on to the whole fight over SDI and Star Wars which has taken a lot of our time, but we never lost fight, sight of the MX. One of the basic rules you, in Washington, anyway, anytime you ever win a fight, the next day the other side starts working to try to take that victory away from you. We have tried never to lose sight of that in the MX fight, but we have not been involved in the Midgetman.

SO YOU WILL FIGHT THE OTHER.

We are fighting today any efforts to take the MX from 50 to 100. We will fight any efforts to take it from 50 to 51.

WHY DOES NORM DICKS SAY IT WAS HIS VICTORY?

The Scowcroft compromise that was engineered was not successful. It did not happen. Their compromise was 100 MXs and then Midgetman. We did not get 100 MXs. We blocked it at 50. We did not get the first strike weapon. We do not have the Midgetman today and it's a long way from being a reality if it ever becomes a reality. So I would say that that compromise was blocked. And I would argue, by blocking the Administration, by stopping them from proceeding along the strategic path they were going, we and those who worked to stop it have worked to create the situation that exists today.

ASKS ABOUT THE COMPROMISE—THE ARMS CONTROL ARGUMENT.

Well. I don't think, the Scowcroft Commission compromise is responsible for where we argue. Some people may argue like Rep. Dicks that it was this compromise that pushed the Administration into this position. I would argue just the opposite. I would argue that it was the blocking of this compromise that helped set the stage for us moving towards arms control. After all, the Scowcroft Commission compromise came at a time when no one was talking about 50 percent reductions. And the Scowcroft compromise was two weapons systems, 100 MXs and the Midgetman. Now that compromise doesn't, didn't occur, and I don't think it takes you to arms control. We blocked it. We're at arms control and I think I would argue just the opposite of what Rep. Dicks does.

ASKS TO STATE IT MORE CONCISELY.

I think there is a far stronger argument that it was taking away the MX, blocking the 100 MXs, that forced us to arms control. Than the argument that entering into agreement to build 100 MXs and Midgetman is what got this Administration into arms control. We blocked that agreement and we're at arms control today and I think it was the blocking of the agreement, not the agreement that helped get us closer to arms control.

ASKS ABOUT ASPIN'S TACTICS IN CONGRESS TO MANIPULATE VOTE.

Well we knew when the freeze came up first in this process that it was going to have impact on the MX. We knew it. One of the reasons we organizationally were interested in the MX fight was because it was a fight over money. And that you ultimately have to win fights over money in this process, actual dollars, in order to have impact. We knew that was a problem.

ASKS ROLES OF AUCOIN AND MAVROULES.

Well there were some real heroes in Congress in the MX fight and the effort to block it. Two of them were Rep. Les AuCoin from Oregon and Rep. Nick Mavroules from Massachusetts, one serving on the Armed Services Committee, and one on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, and they just did an incredible job. Rep. AuCoin really played a central role in articulating the case against the MX and challenging the Scowcroft Commission report. He did a wonderful job of publicly arguing that this was simply a rotten deal, a bad deal to be making. And similarly Rep. Mavroules led the fight in the Armed Services Committee. He was effective, forceful. He's known as a moderate, and very thoughtful on these issues. And he was a tiger. They were both tigers. And you can't win this kind of fight, you can't win any fight in the United States Congress unless you have people willing to go out on the line. And two of those people in this case were Les AuCoin and Nick Mavroules. They just did a fantastic job.

WHAT DID BARNEY FRANK DO?

Well again. Barney Frank is, is just...

INTERRUPTS.

Well Barney Frank was a terrific leader in this fight. Barney Frank is one of the most articulate, skillful floor debaters. And he's tough. And he got into the middle of this battle, even though he wasn't on one of the committees, did not have jurisdiction over the issue, and he was just... a forceful advocate and insistent on making this case. And he was a fabulous leader on the MX fight. He was out there all the time. He was pressuring, pushing the leadership, pushing the supporters. He's. Whenever you have a fight in the United States House of Representatives you love to have Barney Frank on your side. One of the, one of the really skillful things he does is to show through humor how ridiculous some of the positions are that show up in the Congress. He uses humor much more skillfully than the United States would have used the MX weapons system. And in this case his humor and his skill and his articulateness was really a big factor in helping to block this.

ASKS ATTITUDE TOWARD DENSE PACK.

Well, you know, at the time of the dense pack fight, the ridiculousness of dense pack is demonstrated by the fact that it was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Representatives and defeated in the Senate at a time when there was strong majority support in both of those bodies for the MX. I mean dense pack was, was a joke, an absolute joke. It was a laughingstock. And even though the support continued for the MX, when they switched off dense pack, dense pack played a very important role in discrediting the MX. Because it showed the height of ridiculousness and stupidity that people were willing to go to to try and argue for the MX. It showed...it was the ultimate step in saying, "We want it, therefore we get it. And you all are fools. So if we have to give you something, here, here's dense pack. Here's a basing mode, now go vote for it." And basically the Congress said, and the country said, "Oh no, we're not fools. This is stupid. Go away." And they just sent it away.

PEOPLE ACCUSE THOSE WHO FOUGHT AGAINST BASING MODE BY REALLY BEING AGAINST MISSILE. WAS THAT THE TACTIC—FIGHTING BASING MODE TO STOP MISSILE?

Well for many of us we were opposed to the MX missile and we said so. We didn't think the MX missile made sense. The argument for it was the window of vulnerability. We spent years hearing about it and then the Scowcroft Commission told us no, no, no, no window of vulnerability. But. The majority vote in the Congress comes from a combination of forces, from those people who did not believe in the MX missile. And people who might have bought the MX missile if it had an acceptable basing mode but rejected it on the basing mode being unacceptable. So you had a coalescing of forces. It wasn't...it wasn't a tactic, it was a reality, that if the basing mode didn't work and didn't make sense, the missile should not be broke, should not be built.

ASKS CONNECTIONS WITH FREEZE MOVEMENT.

I would, I...it predated in. It was kind of the beginning of the process. But I the, what spurred the Freeze Movement were two things. The President of the United States appearing to be reckless, appearing to be someone who, who was not sufficiently worried about the danger of nuclear arms, and in that sense the MX fed into that. A sense that, that we had a President of the United States who just was hell bent on challenging the Soviet Union and we could wind up in a macho game. That sense plus a simple idea that swept the country. I view President Reagan as the father of the, of the Freeze Movement. I think the Freeze Movement sensitized the country to the fact that as a people, as citizens, we have to pay more attention to nuclear arms policy. And in turn set the stage for being able to build the organized constituency that tied citizens all over the country into a very effective, skilled lobbying effort in Washington. That combination brought down the MX that the Administration wanted and it came out of this big bang explosion that occurred with the Nuclear Freeze.