WHERE ARE WE TODAY IN TERMS OF ICBM MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS?

Today we're awaiting the outcome of the FY'88 authorization and appropriations process in the Congress.

WHAT DECISIONS NEED TO BE MADE?

Well the basic decisions that have to be made relate to the overall agreement that was reached between the Congress and the executive branch over the level of defense spending, and how that will impact on the strategic modernization program.

WHAT ARE AIR FORCE PRIORITIES?

In 1981 the President announced his strategic modernization program which included five components. C-cubed communication modernization, ICBM modernization, bomber, submarine and a fifth component having to do with our defensive capabilities. And the Air Force continues to work to implement the President's modernization program.

ASKS EFFECT OF SCOWCROFT REPORT.

Basically Gen. Scowcroft told us that it was important that we looked at ICBM modernization more broadly than we had in the past. That it was probably impossible to satisfy all of the defense constituencies with one missile. And the commission recommended that we continue to build our big missile, Peacekeeper, and we also began a development program on our small missile, commonly referred to as the Midgetman.

WHAT IS PURPOSE OF MX FORCE?

ICBMs are part of the nation's deterrent triad. Three legs on the stool of deterrence, ICBMs, long-range aircraft, and sea-launched ballistic missiles. And today the land-based leg is the oldest and the most in need of modernization.

ASKS NUMBERS HE SEES FOR MX

Well the Air Force continues to testify to the effect that we need at least 1500 Peacekeeper quality weapons in the nation's inventory without some sort of agreement with the Soviets to reduce ICBM totals completely.

1,500 DEPLOYED?

Yes, 1,500 deployed and today our program includes 1,000 of those warheads on Peacekeeper missiles and 500 on the small ICBMs.

NOW CONGRESS MADE SOME STIPULATIONS ABOUT THE NEXT 50 PEACEKEEPER MISSILES. WHAT WERE THEY?

Basically the Congress told us in the FY'86 authorization bill that we were limited to deploying 50 Peacekeeper missiles in silos. And that if the Administration wanted additional Peacekeeper missiles, we needed to explore a new basing option. A new basing mode. And that basing mode primarily had to be a mobile system as opposed to a fixed silo based system.

ASKS BASING MODE HE'S COME UP WITH.

After an exhaustive 18 month study the Department of Defense recommended to the President in December of 1986 that we develop rail garrison as the basing mode for an additional 50 Peacekeeper missiles. And in conjunction with that, we continue to develop the small ICBM.

WHAT IS THE BASIS OF THE RAIL GARRISON SYSTEM AND HOW IS IT SUPPOSED TO WORK?

The basic idea is that we will have... The basic idea of rail garrison is to put two missiles on a train system and those trains would remain in a garrison on a military base unless the President decided in time of national need that it was necessary to put those trains out on the nation's rail system in order to make the Soviet planner or present the Soviet planner with a much more difficult if not impossible targeting problem and therefore insure greater deterrence.

WOULD THE SYSTEM BE SURVIVABLE IF THERE WAS NO... ?

Well that's a what if question that in my view is not something that is possible, could not possibly occur. In other words there are so many ways that this nation has of knowing what is taking place on a hour by hour basis around the world that we could not be presented with a situation where we didn't have some type of warning. The real question then becomes whether or not those in authority up to the President would choose to do the right thing in order to deal with that increase in international tension.

WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING? WHY WOULD THEY HESITATE TO DO THAT?

Well it's very scenario-dependent. And in ray judgment rail garrison gives the President an alternative that would be relatively easy for him to choose. In other words, all he would be doing would be putting one or more of these trains out on the nation's rail system or a portion thereof in order to tell the Soviets that we were very concerned about their behavior. And the basic cost to the United States would be diesel fuel. We don't increase the threat that we pose to the Soviet Union. It's the same missile system, but now it's mobile instead of fixed and the change is that the Soviet planner can no longer find our missiles. If he can't find them, then he can't hold them at risk.

WHAT CRISIS WOULD CAUSE US TO ACTIVATE THE SYSTEM?

Well once again that's a very hypothetical question but throughout our history I think we have really only had one crisis of that caliber and we're all familiar with the Cuban missile crisis during the Kennedy Administration in 1962. And it seems to me that that's an excellent example of the type of international crisis that would cause the President to consider putting mobile missiles out of garrison.

IS THERE ANY FEAR THAT GOING TO THAT STATE OF READINESS WOULD SIGNAL TO THE SOVIETS OR MAKE THEM MORE FEARFUL OF AN ATTACK ON OUR PARTS?

There's no fear in my mind because we have not increased in any way our threat to the Soviet Union. In other words those missiles in garrison are fully capable of attacking targets in the Soviet Union. And once we put those missiles out on the rail system they are still fully capable of holding at risk those kinds of high value assets in the Soviet Union. The real change is that the Soviets can no longer have a high probability of destroying our missiles. And therefore I believe they would think twice about doing something that required the use of military force.

WHERE WOULD THE TRAINS GO AND HOW WIDELY COULD THEY BE DISPERSED IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME?

Well I think the possibilities are literally infinite. We have a huge rail system in this country, approximately 200,000 miles of track. And of course the important thing is to move those trains during periods of time when the Soviets are unable to observe that movement. And today the national technical means of observing movement primarily are accomplished by satellites flying overhead. And as long as we move those trains, when satellites were not overhead, then the Soviet planner would not know where the trains were. If he does not know where they are, then he can't hold them at risk.

WHAT WOULD THE SOVIETS HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO PREPARE AN ATTACK ON OUR FORCES AND HOW WOULD WE THEN KNOW THAT THEY WERE PREPARING FOR THAT ATTACK?

The Soviets, day to day, have a certain level of preparedness for going to war, just like we do. And basically the Soviets have a large percentage of their land-based missiles on alert. They have a small percentage of their mobile missiles out of garrison. But basically the rest of their strategic force is not ready to go to war. And we believe that if the international situation, the international level of tension increased the Soviets would choose to as we call it "generate" their submarines and put more of them at sea, they would generate their long range bombers or make them ready to go to war. And these are the kinds of activities that national technical means allow us to observe.

COULD THE SYSTEM BE DISRUPTED BY SOMEONE JUST BOMBING THE ACCESS ROADS TO THE RESERVE, TO THE GARRISON?

Well certainly it's conceivable that one of the access roads or several of the access roads could be destroyed. It's conceivable that today the nation sub facility at Bangor, Washington could be attacked. It's conceivable that various Strategic Air Command alert facilities around the country for aircraft could be attacked. But the question we always ask is, Why would the Soviets attack a few of our bases and alert us to the fact that they were considering greater aggression and put our forces on a much higher level of alert. And so our conclusion is that there isn't anything to be gained by the Soviets in attacking a few of our facilities. If they tried to attack them all at one time, we think it's an impossible timing problem for them to solve.

SO YOUR RESPONSE TO THE CRITICS WHO SAY THIS ISN'T...THE SYSTEM REQUIRES STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL WARNING IS THAT IT'S, WHAT WOULD IT BE IN ESSENCE? ASKS ANSWER TO THIS SYSTEM'S REQUIREMENT FOR STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL WARNING

Well my basic response is that for years the strategic equation has been that both sides have been able to hold fixed positions in the other country at risk. In other words we know the latitude and longitude of their silos and their air bases and their sub-pens. And they know the same thing in this country. And so you can program missiles to attack those particular coordinates. But tomorrow we're going to have the capability just like the Soviets do today to move our strategic forces. And so, once you put both countries in that kind of situation, it seems to us that it makes the decision to go to war much more difficult for either side. And therefore increases deterrence and therefore increases the prospects for long-term peace.

DOES RAIL SYSTEM WORK IN PART BECAUSE OF THE COMPLEMENT OF THE MIDGETMAN?

Well I didn't say that but I believe that. I think that both systems provide problems for the Soviet planner. They provide different kinds of problems. And those problems complement each other. And therefore the problem that the Soviet planner faces is much more difficult. It's like the triad itself. The Soviet planner has to attack bombers and submarines and land-based missiles the same time in order to be successful. We are trying to create for him in the land-based area a triad. And he'll have to attack silo-based systems, rail-based systems and the hard mobile launcher. And we think that by complicating his targeting problem ever so, or more greatly... oh I didn't say that very well. Complement...

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We think that by complicating to a greater extent his targeting problem, that we have increased significantly deterrence. And that's what strategic modernization is all about. We're committed to deterring the Soviet Union from ever attacking our nation.

WHY WE NEED 50 MORE WARHEADS

The basic answer to that question is that we need to modernize the ICBM leg of the triad. The Soviet silo-based systems, on the average, are five years old or less. The US ICBMs on the average are 15 to 25 years old. In order to continue to have a viable land-based leg of the triad we need to modernize. The second answer to that question is the targets in the Soviet Union are much harder today than they were when we first deployed the Minuteman III. And those particular systems will not efficiently hold at risk Soviet targets. It takes two Minuteman warheads to do the same level of damage as one Peacekeeper quality warhead.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE SOVIET UNION?

Well they've decided to go through a hardening program...

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The Soviet Union has chosen to harden their silos where they keep their missiles, to harden some of the sub pens by building them into granite mountains, to harden their communication and leadership facilities. And in order for us to attack those particular facilities efficiently, we need the accuracy we only get from a Peacekeeper quality weapon system.

WHY DO WE NEED TO HOLD THOSE TARGETS AT RISK?

Well that's the essence of deterrence, of strategic deterrence. The simple proposition is that there are certain structures... The simple explanation is... The basic reason is that the theory of deterrence argues that there are certain values that each nation holds near and dear. And in order to deter that nation from attacking the other nation you must hold those values at risk. And the values we believe the Soviets hold near and dear include their nuclear weapons systems, their command and control facilities, their leadership bunkers, and their war-supporting industries. And so in order to deter the Soviets from attacking us we have to convince them that if they were to start war we could destroy to a high level of expectancy those kinds of value systems.

WHAT IF THEY COULD LAUNCH FIRST?

Well the first use proposition is certainly something that has been argued back and forth for the last 30 years among defense intellectuals and the academic strategists as well as the military practitioners. And I think it's clear that if you are going to have this war, that one side would go first and obviously the other side second. That's not the same thing as talking about first strike. First strike means that one side will attack and the other side won't do anything until that attack is completed. The US policy is that first use is you know, theoretically probable whereas first strike is theoretically impossible because the other side is going to react during the attack phase. Your question was what do we, what about the first use in terms of holding at risk target structures in the other country. And the answer becomes scenario dependent. If you believe that the Soviets are going to launch all of their ICBMs at one time, then you hold at risk silos that they can use to reload with additional ICBMs but you still attack their communications facilities, you attack their leadership bunkers, and you attack their war supporting industries. So even though you may not be able to attack some of their ICBMs because they're already launched, we believe that you still significantly deter them because you hold at risk the other values that I just mentioned.

DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH BEING ABLE TO RESPOND TO A FIRST LAUNCH ON THEIR SIDE WITHIN 28 MINUTES OR SO OF FLIGHT TIME BEFORE THEIR MISSILES REACH OUR TARGETS?

We certainly have the national technical means to provide the President of the United States with all of the information that he would need to make the decision that he would choose to make during that time period. And of course the national policy is that we will not launch on warning. We would only consider responding to an attack on US territory. And we are confident that we can provide the President will all the information that he needs to respond appropriately to such an attack.

WOULD WE LAUNCH ON ATTACK TO PROTECT OUR MISSILES IN THE SILOS?

I certainly can't answer that question. That's something that only the President of the United States could answer and I'm sure he couldn't unless you provided him with a specific situation.

ARE WE BETTER OFF GOING FIRST IF WE ARE HOLDING THEIR TARGETS AT RISK?

Well once again you get into a consideration on the part of the part of the planner which ever side is doing the planning, that requires you to answer the question whether or not the missiles that you think you are going to attack will be in the silo when your warhead arrives. And as I mentioned that's the essence of the first strike thesis and the US rejects the possibility of a successful first strike. First use is certainly, you know, the way that a nuclear war would occur. Somebody has to go first. Neither side can have any confidence that silo-based systems or sub-launched ballistic missiles or airplanes will be at their geographic location when the warhead lands.

IS OUR POLICY THAT WE WILL GO TO A FIRST USE TO PROTECT EUROPE?

You're kind of getting into areas that, you know, really aren't my, my forte. But the basic US position is that we have not rejected using nuclear weapons first in defense of our European NATO allies.

WHAT'S THE CURRENT PRICE TAG ON THE RAIL GARRISON SYSTEM?

The cost of the rail garrison system is still being developed. But the Air Force briefed the President last December that the system would cost somewhere between $10 to $15 billion for a 20-year life cycle cost.

IS MIDGETMAN A CREATION OF CONGRESS?

The basic rationale for the small ICBM is the need to have a single warhead system in the US inventory. Today we only have one system, the Minuteman II. We have 450 of those deployed in silos and that is our oldest missile system, approaching 25 years of age. Some day it has to be replaced. The Midgetman, the small ICBM, seems to us to be the perfect candidate to replace the Minuteman II. The basing mode at this point in time is the hard mobile launcher and certainly that adds additional cost to the program that wouldn't be there if we put small ICBM in silos.

ASKS PROJECTED COST OF MIDGETMAN

The cost of the small ICBM is a little more definitized at this point in time because the program is further along. And basically today the Air Force is reporting that the development portion would cost less than $10 billion, the procurement of 500 weapons systems would cost less than $20 billion.

WHY DO WE HEAR $50 BILLION?

Well there have been a lot of figures that have been thrown around and it always depends on the, the year of the dollars that you're using. It depends on how long you think the system is going to be out there. And in some respects it depends on your level of knowledge of what actually is going on in the procurement business. Fundamentally the Air Force has reduced the development budget for the small ICBM by one-third. From $15 billion to less than $10 today. And we believe that we did that because we followed, although we proceeded the Packard Commission, we followed the recommendations that were made very strongly by that elite group of thinkers and policymakers. In that we had tremendous competition and prototyping in the early advanced development phase of the small ICBM. And the result was that we were able to save or avoid spending $5 billion.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE BECAUSE OF BUDGETING, WHICH SYSTEM WOULD YOU PREFER?

The Air Force has testified on a number of occasions that our first priority is to deploy 100 Peacekeeper missiles. And our second priority, just focusing on the ICBM leg, is to deploy the small ICBM.

WHY IN THAT ORDER?

The fundamental reason...

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It's better to deploy ...

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The reason that the Air Force would select 5 or 15.. The reason that the Air Force would select 100 Peacekeepers as its first priority is that we are already developing and producing the Peacekeeper missile. And so we have already spent the money necessary to develop the missile itself. It's a bird in the hand, it's ready to be deployed either in Minuteman silos as we are currently doing, or after a relatively short period of development, in the rail garrison basing mode. And we believe very strongly that the need is today to redress the balance in land-based ICBMs between the two countries. The long term requirement is to modernize totally our ICBM force and the single warhead small ICBM is the necessary ingredient in that long—term modernization.

IS IT NECESSARY FOR THE SMALL ICBM TO BE MOBILE? I'VE UNDERSTOOD THAT THE MOBILITY IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE PART AND THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE SUGGESTING THAT WE COULD DISPERSE THEM IN SILOS...?

If the only goal that you had in mind was to deploy the small ICBM for the least amount of money, placing it in silos would certainly achieve that. However, we also believe that there is great strength, there is great deterrence value as I explained earlier in having mobile systems. We go back to the observation that no longer can the Soviet planner hold fixed points on the earth at risk. He's got to first of all find the target and then figure out how to get his weapon system to attack that target. That complicates that problem, increases deterrence, and makes long-term peace a much greater prospect for all of us.

DESCRIBES HOW CRITICS SAY THIS WAS DEVELOPED TO GET SUPPORT FOR MORE CRITICAL SYSTEMS? ASKS HIM TO RESPOND.

Well I think certainly Sen. Wilson and Gen. Scowcroft are much better able to deal with the political considerations in this issue than I am. But it certainly is true that there are two factions in the Congress. A faction that supports rail garrison and the elimination of small missile, and a faction that supports basically the opposite program.

WILL CONGRESS FUND BOTH OF THEM?

I think it's in the long-term interests of this nation to have two mobile modern ICBMs. And I say that especially in terms of the long-term prospects for reductions in strategic forces. The Soviets have two mobile systems and we don't have any and I think it's important that we have a similar force structure to that possessed by the Soviet Union if we're going to have an acceptable strategic force reduction agreement.

IF THERE ARE DEEP CUTS, WOULD HE TAKE THEM WITH MIRVED FORCES OR SINGLE WARHEAD?

Well once again you're getting into an area that, that I really don't spend an awful lot of time working on. So I think I'm not the best one to answer that.

WHAT WAS CHIEF FLAW OF OLD SYSTEM?

Well I think from the Air Force point of view, the MPS system was a fully acceptable basing mode for the Peacekeeper missile. And the decision to reject that basing mode was made by the present Administration for reasons that they can best explain and defend. As opposed to, you know, the Air Force's commenting one way or another. It was an acceptable basing mode as far as the operational needs of the Air Force war planner were concerned.

The basic idea is that the President of the United States would execute this system during time of national need and send it out in the countryside. When it got out in the countryside it would go through the sequence that I'm going to show you. The trailer would honker down in the ground to resist nuclear weapons effect and the tractor would move away. After a period of time, after the nation had undergone a nuclear attack, in the worst situation, the President would make a decision, perhaps weeks later, to use this particular weapon against a target in the Soviet Union. He would execute the missile in the following fashion. That's the idea of the small mobile missile system.

WHERE IS THE CREW?

Well really we haven't totally resolved the issue.

WILL REPEAT

This is the model of our rail garrison weapons system. It's composed of an engine, two security trains, a command and control car, and also two missile cars. And in the normal configuration you wouldn't be able to tell it from a train of Union Pacific or Burlington Northern traveling on the nation's railroad system. But in time of national need if the President were to choose to execute one of these missiles then the missile would come out from this car, be erected in this fashion, and be launched by the crew in the launch control car.

WILL REPEAT

This is a model of our rail garrison weapons system. And the basic train would be composed of an engine, two cars to carry security personnel, a command and control car that would be used to launch the missile, and two missile cars. The train would move about the rail system or be secretly stopped in various locations. And if the President chose to launch one of these missiles, the top would come off, the missile would erect, and the crew would launch the missile.