ASKS HIS REACTION TO THE SCOWCROFT COMMISSION REPORT.

I was optimistic to the extent that they were urging that the Congress go ahead with MX. I frankly was skeptical as to the recommendation that included moving forward in development of a small mobile missile. I was to grow much more skeptical as I learned more about it. And basically because mobility was really not the issue. That is very definitely one element of survivability. It was cost. That was the issue and for that reason I don't think that we will ever see an American small mobile missile. It's simply too expensive and it's just not cost effective as a deterrent.

ASKS ABOUT NEED FOR MOBILITY WITH SMALL MISSILES.

Well I think that what we're talking about is the need for mobility but in a very different form. You can achieve mobility through submarines. You can achieve a land-based deterrent that is mobile by the rail-based ... MX. And those I think have the great advantage of both being militarily superior and certainly if you're going to compare the rail-based MX with the small mobile missile you're comparing something that is about one-fifth the cost. The problem with the mobile missile is that in order to try to justify the enormous increase in cost that you would have to go to deploy it, you're talking about manpower costs that are extraordinary. You really don't have justification except in the totally, I won't even say unlikely, the almost irrational contingency of a bolt out of the blue first strike by the Soviet Union. And that's irrational because in order to achieve bolt out of the blue they would have to leave themselves terribly vulnerable to counterattack and they won't do that.

WHY WON'T THEY?

Because the cost to them is too great. They achieve too little by whatever advantage they would have in terms of, you know, actually first strike is an irrational notion. The idea of mutually assured destruction, the deterrent effect of our both being able to respond in kind, has worked for a number of years. It's not a good enough answer. Not nearly good enough. I mean both militarily and morally I think we can do much better by developing a defensive response to ballistic missiles. But essentially what you had just in terms of this land-based deterrent was the opportunity to do it as least as effectively with the rail mobile, and at one-fifth the cost, unless you were going to say you have to be able to move in 15 minutes because they are going to strike right out of the blue with absolutely no warning. And if you ask Air Force officers, if you ask intelligence sources, "Is that going to happen," they'll say, "No, it's irrational. It would cost the Soviets too much to do it. They would leave themselves too vulnerable. Otherwise they will give us indications that they are doing it in which time you could deploy the rail cars."

SO HE LIKES THE RAIL GARRISON MX?

Well I think so because it achieves the mobility that makes...

(INTERRUPTS TO CLARIFY FORMAT)

If you put the MX on a rail car, then you can achieve the mobility that you would achieve with the small mobile missile. The difference is that it takes somewhat longer to get it out of the barn, to deploy it. And that is argued by the proponents of the small mobile missile, the road mobile, as being absolutely essential and therefore as justifying the enormously increased cost of the small missile. Well if you ask intelligence sources, "Will there ever be the kind of absolute bolt out of the blue without any warning, that would justify the 15-minute interval that you gain by using the small mobile missile?" They'll tell you no, the Soviets will never conduct that kind of bolt out of the blue attack, it leaves them too vulnerable, therefore it's an irrational idea.

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT.

The argument that is used for the small mobile missile is that we must have this capability to disperse this land-based deterrent, they have to be mobile. Well no one is arguing mobility. What we're saying is that you achieve that mobility with the MX if you put them on rail cars. Now it takes longer to deploy the rail mobile MX than the small road mobile Midgetman. But not very much longer. And the difference in time really doesn't justify the enormous increase in cost because the only way that you would be able to really justify it is to prevent our being vulnerable to the kind of bolt out of the blue first strike by the Soviets that will never happen. And why will it never happen? Because in order to conduct that, to achieve that total surprise, they would have to make themselves much too vulnerable and it's too great a cost for them to pay. They won't pay it.

ASKS CHIEF FLAW OF MIDGETMAN

It's cost. The chief flaw of the Midgetman is its cost. It is not cost effective. It's a single warhead missile, it has enormous manpower requirements. I placed in the defense authorization bill of last year the requirement that in developing new weapon systems there be an assessment made of what their manpower requirements would be. For Midgetman they are enormous. That's why it would cost conservatively $40 or more likely $50 billion for only 500 warheads. Now that's a very expensive weapons system. By contrast the garrison, the rail mobile MX is about $8 billion. It's about one-fifth the cost or less. And you are getting a much more cost-effective system. I really think that the future for our deterrent and for the kind of mobility that I quite agree is necessary to be survivable and therefore convincing as a deterrent, the best bet in my judgment will come because we are able to deploy a very accurate D-5 missile on the Trident submarine. Now that I think is the future, but in order to have more than a single leg, obviously we developed what was called the triad, a land-based deterrent, a sea-based deterrent, and an air-based. Our land-based is very much uncertain. I mean the only thing that's really very certain now are the old Minuteman in those silos. But as far as modernization, we really haven't achieved it. And I will predict to you that we will never build the small mobile missile, the so-called Midgetman, it actually should be called Congressman. It's an invention of the Congress and was part of the Scowcroft Commission recommendations, really as a political palliative to Congress, as a sop to Congress in order to get them to support MX. And it's not worth the price.

IF WE FUND ONLY ONE, WHICH WILL IT BE?

I don't think we will ever fund the small mobile missile. It may be that Congressional critics of the MX who happen to be those who are fervent about Midgetman will not permit us to do anything with MX either. In which case the future even more so will be submarine-based deterrence. But already in the 1988 authorization bill there was a great scaling down of the funding of the small mobile missile and finally the appropriators not only removed all the funding, they not only zeroed the funding, they reached back into the prior fiscal year and tried to reclaim in...uncompleted contract funds so they could be reprogrammed for what they termed higher conventional and strategic priorities. And they couldn't be more right. Because the small mobile missile just is not affordable. It's a single warhead, and for those who say, but the Soviets are doing this, I would point out that it makes much sense for the Soviets. Here in the United States we are talking about confining these to a very small geographic area. Their vulnerability is much greater. We are an open society and therefore there is interface with the public. We don't have the situation that the Soviets do. They are able to deploy missiles whether their people like it or not. What's more it's an ... it's a nation that is 11 times zones wide. And their ability to conceal mobile missiles is infinitely greater than our own. So it really is not a comparable situation. What it does tell me is that to the extent that the Soviets have gone mobile and it's primarily through rail mobility, we do have to increasingly have a defensive technology because we are not longer able to spot them, to target them. The mobility of the Soviet missiles does create a very real targeting problem for us, one that may very well not be solvable. That in turn dictates with even more compelling force that we generate the kind of momentum that's necessary politically to bring about a defensive technology of the kind that the Soviets themselves are busily engaged in developing. And have been.

ASKS ABOUT SURVIVABILITY AS FIRST NEED BECAUSE WE ONLY NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES.

I would, I would love to have an argument with those who first rely upon the doctrine of mutually assured destruction which has, as fundamental underpinning that we have a deterrent capability, a counterforce capability, if they then say, "We don't really need an accurate counterforce capability," they're talking nonsense. That's a contradiction in terms. What we do need is some counter-force capability. We do need an offensive weapon to be a deterrent. We also need the kind of defensive capability that can come about only through the defensive technology arrayed against ballistic missiles, against offensive missiles which some call Star Wars, some call SDI. It is a defense against ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles through the '50s and the '60s were thought to be the ultimate weapon. Then we discovered that they could be made much more accurate, that you could actually put more than one warhead on a launcher, by just the technique of MIRVing, and we learned that we hadn't achieved all that was possible in terms of an offensive capability. What we really should be doing is two things. We ought to try to persuade the Soviets to engage in a reduction in that offensive inventory. But at the same time it is necessary and will always be necessary that we have a defensive capability even though there might be a sharp reduction on both sides. That is very much to be sought. There is still a requirement that we have a defensive capability. Why? In order to have a hedge against cheating, to have a hedge against accident, the kind of accidental launch that could result in the sort of nuclear exchange that we all fear. And as a hedge against the proliferation of this kind of ballistic missile technology. Some madman, some Gaddafi, could one day threaten either the United States or the Soviet Union or someone else. We have to have a defensive capability.

WHY NOT PHASE OUT ICBMS?

Well what you really have to have is both some offensive capability in order to deter attack, and then in addition, to deter it even more, to make the idea of first strike an utterly irrational because it will be guaranteed to be unsuccessful effort. You also have to have a defensive capability. You have to have defenses against ballistic missiles, particularly against the so-called strategic weapons, the ICBMs, the intercontinental ballistic missiles that can leave the Soviet Union and once launched be, be beyond recovery, and 26 minutes later devastate Chicago or Washington or San Francisco. Now those are destabilizing weapons. And we ought to do two things. We ought to greatly reduce their number and we ought to develop the kind of defenses against them that make absolutely irrational that notion of first strike. If the Soviet war planner is guaranteed that he can't be successful, that he can't conduct a so-called decapitating first strike, then he won't entertain the notion. And only the defensive capability I think gives us that guarantee. For decades we have relied exclusively on this precarious balance of nuclear terror. Well I don't think we should rely exclusively upon it. It has served a useful purpose. Knowing that we had the hammer they didn't swing theirs. But can't we do better than that militarily and morally? Well I say that there is no question that we can. And we are obliged to do so, to make every effort and to do so very soon. Because there is a very real element of risk in our not moving with sufficient speed, the Soviets are developing their defensive capability. They have been for a very long time. They've only recently admitted it because they had no choice. We have gone public with the knowledge that they are in fact engaged in the very kind of research and probably development that they are seeking to have us abandon.

WHY DID REAGAN ADMINISTRATION BACK SCOWCROFT REPORT?

I think the Reagan Administration supported the Scowcroft recommendations in order to get an MX, get it deployed. And as the bargain for that they were willing to support the development of this Midgetman missile which Congressional critics insisted upon as their pound of flesh for going along with the MX. Now as it happens Congress didn't keep its part of the bargain. They have, to say that we have engaged in foot dragging on MX doesn't begin to state it. And finally, wiser heads have come to the reckoning of what Midgetman would cost. It's just unaffordable. That is the conclusion of the appropriators here in the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, in the Senate Arms Services Committee there was bipartisan opposition. Virtually the only real support for it with the exception of one Republican was all Democratic. But Democrats as well as Republicans said that this doesn't make sense. And it doesn't. There's just too much competition, there are too many infinitely more important things to do, and we don't have the money to do all of those.

INAUDIBLE QUESTION.

Well I would like to think that they were that clever but I'm not convinced they were. I think the Administration was perfectly willing to go along with the actual funding of the Midgetman. I think there were unquestionably people within the Pentagon who knew that it made no sense. And hoped that Congress would come to its senses and would establish priorities that had no place for this tremendously expensive, this unaffordable new weapons system that was so ineffective, so cost ineffective. And perhaps some were convinced, had high confidence that Congress would come to that. For a long time I was a rather lonely though. Joined by a few, we were strident if not many. And finally I think that enough people have come to understand that this is simply not a weapons system that we could afford. There are too many important things that have to be done that are competing for funds that are too scarce to begin with.

SAYS SOME FEEL THEY HAVE CONVINCED REAGAN ADMINISTRATION TOWARD ARMS CONTROL, SMALL ICBM CONCEPT. ARE THEY MISTAKEN?

I think, I think that they are giving themselves undeserved congratulations. I would have to say that those who steadfastly criticized the Reagan Administration's stance in terms of its insistence upon deployment of the ground-launched cruise missiles, the Pershing IIs in Europe, now are taking credit as though it had been their idea for the fact that the Soviets have finally been forthcoming, dropped all their preconditions, having bolted the bargaining tables, they have come back. The thing that I find more than a little ironic is that finally those who were the fervent proponents of the Midgetman are having to come to grips with those in their own party who are saying to them "What are you talking about? This thing is simply unaffordable. It's just not worth it. We can't do that." And so some of the more arcane parts of the debate have really fallen by the wayside. Once the costs were established and the effectiveness of this weapons system or its ineffectiveness made known, then it was pretty clear that although it at one point had a tremendous political constituency, it simply couldn't stand the harsh light of day. The facts are such that it's, it's just not justifiable. You know, its the law of the land that SDI must prove cost effective at the margin. That's not clearly defined any place but people have a general idea of what it means. And I was perfectly willing to apply that to all strategic systems, including MX, including Midgetman, knowing very well that Midgetman couldn't stand that test. And it hasn't.

QUOTES AUCOIN ON WHY WE NEED THE SMALL MISSILE. ASKS HIM TO COMMENT.

Well let me give you a little background. The Democratic Party for reasons which I think are obvious has been very sensitive about being weak on defense. So some of those who have concerned themselves with defense matters on the Democratic side wanted to develop a weapons system they could call their own. Les Aspin used to say that when someone identified, when a reporter identified Midgetman as the Democratic weapons system, it made his heart go pitty-pat. That was a quote in the Wall Street Journal. What I think has occurred is that because of that feeling there developed a theology about survivability and about the necessity that there not be presented a tempting provocative target, that a single warhead missile simply wasn't worth it. Whereas MIRVed missiles, those multiple warhead missiles were a more tempting target. Well that's perfectly true but if you can achieve the same kind of mobility or virtually the same mobility for ten warheads as for one, what you're doing to your cost is driving them way, way down. And with 500 of these single warhead missiles, it was possible for the Soviets to barrage them but actually they probably would never have done that because they wouldn't have needed to. Particularly as they went forward with the development of their own defensive capability. Now however much they may attempt to conceal the fact that they have been engaged in precisely the kind of research they're seeking to have us abandon, so that they can develop and test and deploy the sort of defenses against ballistic missiles that they want us never to deploy, they wouldn't really need to be very much concerned about 500 single warhead missiles. What they didn't get in a first strike wouldn't amount to very much anyway. But I don't think it would ever come to that. This is all pretty academic because basically what we need are two things. We do need a deterrent, we do need to continue to have a counterforce that would threaten a very heavy cost in retaliation against the Soviet first strike. But what we really need is that in conjunction with it, we have the kind of defensive capability that would absolutely guarantee that that first strike would be unsuccessful. It is therefore irrational to even engage in it, or even entertain that notion.

ASKS WHAT AIR FORCE FELT ABOUT CONGRESS-CREATED MISSILE.

Regrettably the Air Force was playing some politics here. It was itself a divided constituency. There were people in the Air Force that knew that the small mobile missile, Midgetman, was nonsense. There were some who I think felt their careers were wedded to it. And there were probably more who felt that as long as it were a pet project of the Congress, they had better go along with it and not declare that the emperor had no clothes. Now finally you will find lots of people in the Air Force who are willing to say, "It didn't make any sense." And in fact when the Air Force came to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee, before the strategic subcommittee on the 88 authorization bill. And they were asked what justification exists to have the small road mobile Midgetman as opposed to the rail mobile MX, they said the only justification is if there were to be a total bolt out of the blue, a complete surprise attack, it would take less time to deploy the smaller missile than the rail mobile. But there's never going to be that kind of bolt out of the blue attack because it is irrational for the Soviets to engage in it. It would leave them much too vulnerable to the kind of counterforce attack that would exact terrible consequences from it. They won't do that.

ASKS HIM TO COMMENT ON LOWER COST ESTIMATES.

I do not think that Midgetman will ever be built. In the first place I am very skeptical of the claimed reductions in cost requirements. The costs have to do with manpower. With all of the security, all of the people involved in guarding and in maintaining and in moving this weapons system. The costs are too great.

ASKS IF LAND BASING IS HARDER TO ACHIEVE HERE THAN FOR SOVIETS IN THEIR SOCIETY.

It is much more difficult for the United States to have the kind of capability for mobility than it is for the Soviets, for reasons that I think are obvious. We are an open society. Newspapers can editorialize against the kind of interface with a missile that the public may have in a given situation. They don't worry about that in the Soviet Union. And obviously we are a much smaller country geographically and the areas where we would avoid that kind of interface with the public that would create great problems is much, much smaller yet. We're talking about a relatively small area, a concentrated area in the Far West or perhaps at existing bases in the upper Midwest. You know that's just not anything like the situation that the Soviets are involved with. They have a nation 11 time zones wide. They have almost unlimited ability to deploy and conceal even their rail mobile, not to mention a road mobile capability.

DOES HE SUPPORT AGREEMENTS TO LIMIT MOBILES ON BOTH SIDES?

I have supported the Administration's urging of a ban on mobility. I think that there is no question that we would be very well advised to enter into such an agreement with the Soviets. They have a much greater ability for the reasons that I've indicated, both the difference in terms of the openness of our society and in terms of the size of the country and their ability to conceal these mobile missiles. It obviously makes sense for us. They just as obviously think that it doesn't make sense for them. That's why they have never responded to the idea with anything in the way of enthusiasm. Now if we were to eliminate mobility then I think that you have an entirely different situation in terms of arms control discussions.

ASKS HIM TO RESTATE HIS REACTION TO THE SCOWCROFT REPORT.

Well my initial reaction to the Scowcroft Commission was mixed. I was pleased that they were urging that we go ahead with the MX program because it seemed essential to me that we modernize our land-based deterrent. That we have a missile that was more accurate, one that was capable of actually convincing the Soviets that they should never conduct a first strike against us for fear that we would retaliate with the MX missile. And this was simply an extension of the thinking that for four decades had relied upon our mutual offensive capability to hold and check the other side. And prevent either from attacking the other. What I didn't really understand then was the necessity for the small missile. I understood very well the desirability of mobility. Because a mobile missile is obviously far more difficult to target. It is one of the ways of achieving survivability. The other ways are through hardening, the other ways are through concealment. If you stop to think about it there are obviously other means of achieving mobility. And one of those is by putting an MX, not one warhead but ten, on a rail car. You can achieve great mobility in that way at one-fifth or less of the cost that is required to deploy the Midgetman. You can achieve a much better capability obviously with submarines. They are almost the ultimately mobile transportation system. I mean the ultimately mobile platform. And with the increased accuracy of the D-5 missile on the Trident submarines, I think that's the real future. Now they combine both, both mobility and concealment. They represent to me perhaps the ultimate in survivability, and therefore the ultimate in terms of an offensive deterrent. But with that we should combine a defensive capability to make absolutely irrational the notion of a Soviet first strike. But when I saw the Scowcroft Commission I couldn't help thinking, what is it going to cost for us to field this kind of a small mobile missile and it became perfectly obvious before very long that what the Commission had done was really to play politics. They had given a sop to the Congressional critics of MX and by saying that there would be parallel development of MX and Midgetman, the Administration hoped to buy off, to bribe the critics of MX. If they had been successful in that tactic it would have been a tragic mistake frankly because I don't think that it would have been worth it. And as it happens, it was an unsuccessful gambit. Instead Congress, I think, if there was bargain, at least if there was understood to be a bargain, Congress breached it. They kept their part of the bargain on MX and now happily there are wiser heads in Congress who have come to the conclusion that we should never build the Midgetman because it's simply too expensive and too ineffective.

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT ABOUT BARGAIN.

Well you have to bear in mind the history that preceded the Scowcroft Commission, the reason that the Commission was chartered, the reason that it was put in business at all is because of the repeated frustration that not only this Administration but its predecessor had had in terms of gaining Congressional support for the deployment of MX. Now those who were concerned with modernizing our land-based deterrent said we've got to have MX, but the opponents for whatever reasons were saying, no, not until there's a decent basing mode. Well that was a means of being on both sides of the fence. They weren't outright against the weapon but they were effectively frustrating its deployment. So finally the Administration said, well, we've got to have a blue ribbon commission that will come up with the means whereby we can advance on this agenda of needed land-based deterrent modernization. And if it means that we have to throw a sop to the Congressional critics, so be it. We'll make that bargain with them. They support MX, we'll support Midgetman. And the third element of course was supposed to be arms control. As it is developed, arms control depends on factors clearly in addition to those that are involved just with respect to this debate about which do we do or do we do either or do we do neither. And it looks to me as though we're going to do neither in terms of the kind of land-based deterrent. I hope I'm wrong on that. Because a land-based deterrent, a rail basing of MX, does remain a cost effective means of having a land-based leg to our deterrent in addition to the sea-based, that is the submarine based, and the air-based. It makes us that much more credible in terms of offering an ability to retaliate if ever we were the victims of first strike and the more convincing we are, the more unlikely it is that we will ever have to suffer anything as irrational and horrible as a first strike.

ASKS HIM TO EXPLAIN WHY IT WAS THE CONGRESSMAN.

Well when the Scowcroft Commission first came out with its recommendations, the Democrats in the Congress who were the great enthusiasts of the small mobile missile dubbed it Midgetman. I call it Congressman because not only did they insist upon its creation but they were present at the creation. They virtually fathered the, this thing which was much too small to be effective, much too small to have more than a single warhead. And in fact that is the way they designed it. They insisted that it weigh no more than 37,000 pounds. Some wanted it no more than 30,000 pounds, so that it would be absolutely guaranteed that never ever could more than one warhead be placed on it. This was part of their succumbing to this theology. The theology is, survivability is good. Which it is. To be survivable you must be mobile. To be mobile you must be small. That's not true. You can be very mobile with ten warheads on the MX, put it on a rail car, you have mobility. You also have great cost effectiveness which you can't achieve with this deliberately inefficient, deliberately manpower intensive small mobile missile called Midgetman, I say Congressman because it was designed by Congress, not by the military. It's going to receive finally the reception that it deserves. A decent burial.

I think that the Congressional critics of MX who so desperately wanted Midgetman were willing to string along the Administration and they therefore not only joined in praise of the Scowcroft Commission recommendations, but then thereafter, year after year, and one authorization bill after another, they would hold MX hostage. They would get what they wanted from the Administration in terms of support for Midgetman, Congressman as I call it since they designed it, and their, they were forever bargaining. And it is simply no exaggeration to say that they succeeded for quite a while in holding MX hostage. And the Administration unhappily succumbed to that pressure and went ahead in one presidential request after another with the Air Force asking for funding for a program that they should have known was unaffordable and ineffective.

DISCUSS AVAILABLE CHOICES.

You see the argument is not, is survivable a good thing? Obviously it is. To the extent that you have survivable, you do achieve a very successful degree of deterrence. The question really is cost. Mobility is a very good thing, no argument about that. We'll stipulate to it. But you can achieve that with a land-based deterrent by putting it on a rail car, you can achieve it even better with a submarine where you achieve not only mobility, much greater mobility, but also greater concealment. Virtually total concealment.

ASKS ABOUT VULNERABILITY OF WYOMING MISSILES.

Oh I think they are vulnerable. There is no question that a fixed based missile is vulnerable. And certainly 50 are a lot more vulnerable than if there were more of them. But if we were relying exclusively upon that as our deterrent, I would not only be nervous, I would be devastated because by this time the Soviets would already have been here, having successfully extorted political concessions that we otherwise would never agree to. So, what we are doing in order to achieve the kind of deterrence that is necessary, we do have an air-breathing capability, the so-called air-based leg of the tread, triad. We have the sea-based leg of the triad with the submarines offering the ultimately mobile and concealed platforms. That's much the most survivable, and as far as I'm concerned, the problem there is one of communication, and we've overcome the problem with missile accuracy or are doing so. But with respect to the land-based deterrent, it's been a great failure, it has been an enormous disappointment, largely because of Congressional meddling. Congress hasn't supported an MX which was cost effective, which can be made mobile. Congress has instead held it hostage to the development of a weapons systems that should never be built because it's unaffordable and ineffective.

ASKS IF REAGAN'S NOT DEPLOYING MISSILES WAS A MISTAKE.

I think that the President's decision not to go forward with the basing of the MX which he cancelled in '81, I believe it was, in Nevada and Utah, tells you a great deal about the kind of opposition that you could expect to a truly mobile system from the public. Now that was a system that would have had relatively no interface with the public, but people didn't want it there. That tells me that in this open society where people are and do protest the actions of government the prospects are very poor for ever having developed the kind of road mobility that the proponents of Midgetman were so enthused about.

CONSIDERING IDEA THAT EACH SIDE WANTS TO BE SAFE FROM A FIRST STRIKE, WHAT DOES THIS DO TO OUR NEED TO USE OUR NUCLEAR FORCES AS A DETERRENT AGAINST CONVENTIONAL WAR IN EUROPE?

Well the subject of the use of a nuclear deterrent against conventional superiority is an entirely different subject. There you are not talking about an exchange of strategic weapons, of intercontinental ballistic missiles, there you are talking about really using a nuclear capability in conventional warfare as a counter to that conventional superiority. A great deal of the opposition, European and American to the INF agreement was based on a fear that the removal of intermediate range missiles would make Europe safe for conventional war and that the Warsaw Pact having an enormous superiority in...fighter aircraft and tanks, in manpower and in artillery, would be at a tremendous advantage there. Which if fact they do enjoy. They enjoy a lopsided advantage in terms of their conventional capability. It is certainly true that that can be equalized by the use of a nuclear deterrent and the removal of that deterrent is what has occasioned concern on the part of people like Gen. Rogers, the former allied, supreme allied commander in Europe, and a great many Europeans. A long and distinguished list signed an ad that they ran in the Washington Post, urging great caution with respect to the INF agreement.

CITES LES AUCOIN'S SUGGESTION WE HAVE A TEST BAN SO WE CANNOT IMPROVE ACCURACY OF WARHEADS. WHAT DOES HE THINK?

That is, with all due respect to a friend and colleague, a benighted idea. That's a bad, bad idea and I don't think many of his Democratic colleagues hold with it either. I think they were quite willing to drop that turkey out of the defense authorization package. You've got to test, you've got to test...by testing we have managed to reduce the destructive capability of the inventory that we had. The mega-tonnage has shrunken dramatically over the period of years because as we tested we gained confidence in accuracy. We improved accuracy, we didn't need the big bomb. We could achieve a smaller, cleaner weapon and achieve the same deterrent effect. Because the desire is to knock out the other side's war fighting capability. It is not to wreak devastation senselessly upon innocent civilian populations. And if we have the capability to destroy or neutralize the other side's war fighting capability, that's all we need.

ASKS ABOUT BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS.

Well obviously the budget deliberations have a bearing on what we do but in a time of very straitened financial circumstance it argues that you try to be as cost effective as possible with whatever dollars are available to you. It does not admit of the kind of luxury that would be foolish if we had all the money in the world. Which is to say, building a Midgetman system could cost $50 billion. But as it relates to the question of where the money should be allocated as between conventional capability and strategic, I think people are under a misapprehension. The strategic systems are in fact not only cost effective but they are deterrents on the cheap. What is the most expensive thing that you can do is manpower. Salaries, benefits. That is what costs. And that's what conventional capability is all about. You don't robotize an infantryman. But you do have to pay the benefits for his family and his dependents. So you have to I think bear in mind that once the idea of mutually assured destruction had become the watchword of even the Kennedy Administration, back in the days of the McNamara Pentagon Whiz Kids. They were very much interested in the strategic deterrent because it also allowed the United States, the NATO Alliance, the West, to be able to entertain the full capability of deterrence at much lesser cost than if we had raised the incredible standing army that it would have been necessary to equalize the superior capability of the Warsaw Pact.

ASKS ABOUT PRESENT BUDGET NEGOTIATION.

The appropriators I am informed have taken all the money away from the funding of the Midgetman and in fact they are even trying to reach back and take the unexpended balance from prior year contracts so that it can be reprogrammed into what they call much greater strategic and conventional priorities.

DOES THE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE WANT TO TAKE MONEY AWAY FROM MIDGETMAN?

The Senate appropriators have zeroed the Midgetman account. They have stopped funding. They have terminated the program and in fact reached back and sought to obtain the unexpended balance on contracts from prior years so it can be reprogrammed into greater strategic and conventional priorities. I think that's what's going to happen. I think that will be the end result. It should be.

SENATE THEN DESIRES THIS BUT THERE WILL BE COMPROMISE WITH HOUSE?

The House will persist I am sure and try to keep alive this impossible dream. They will keep tilting at this windmill. But ultimately I think they are going to have to recognize that it just has no future. Never did.

WILL AIR FORCE BE RELIEVED AT THIS?

I am sure the Air Force would much prefer to put what money it can get its hands on into those weapons systems that offer so much more, such greater promise. They don't have enough money, won't have enough money, to do all of the important things to fund all of the competing claims on their budget. They certainly can't afford Midgetman.

NOTES DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO FUND TWO SYSTEMS RATHER THAN CUT BACK DEFENSE SPENDING.

What seems ironic I suppose is that Republicans first, and not terribly many of us, but now Republicans and enough Democrats have faced the facts and said, This Midgetman system makes no sense. So yes, we are killing a weapons system. Those of us who are supposed to be enthralled with developing new weapons systems have said this one shouldn't face the light of day, shouldn't see the light of day. It's the Democrats who are trying to keep alive this hopelessly cost-ineffective system. And why? I think because they are just incapable of relinquishing the dream of having quote a Democratic weapons system that they thought both offered them the hope of being in the vanguard of nuclear deterrence and therefore achieving a kind of strategic equilibrium, but that was never in the cards. This system isn't effective for that purpose and it is hellishly expensive.

ASKS IF CONGRESS WANTS HUGE SINGLE WARHEAD MISSILES?

I think there is both a problem in terms of the perception and the symbolism and there is a real problem in terms of the substance. You don't have a perceptual problem unless there is a substantive problem. And a problem is that the Soviets have developed heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles, they have MIRVed them, they are accurate, they could wreak terrible devastation on the United States. For us to try to counter that with an ineffective, single warhead missile makes no sense. And the only justification ever for that small, ineffective, single warhead missile was its mobility. But you don't have to be ineffective to achieve mobility. You can have a MIRVed missile on a rail platform. You can also have a MIRVed missile at sea. And the ultimately mobile platform and one that is concealed, a submarine.

ASKS ABOUT RELYING ON ARMS CONTROL TO REDUCE MIRVED MISSILES ON BOTH SIDES.

We of course in the United States, the Reagan Administration, has consistently pushed the Soviet Union to agree to an arms control arrangement whereby we would eliminate a tremendous amount of this offensive inventory that is in these MIRVed, intercontinental ballistic missiles. We'd like to bring down the number of warheads by at least half. Have 6000 warheads per side. And in addition we are convinced that it is necessary, in order to achieve real deterrence, to make utterly irrational the notion of a first strike by either side that there be coupled with that limited deterrent capability offensively, a defensive capability, a defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles, that really makes it irrational to entertain the notion of first strike.

ASKS HOW HE ACKNOWLEDGES THE RANK OF SCOWCROFT COMMISSION MEMBERS. ARE THEY DELUDING US?

You can have some of the most authoritative, most highly reputable, some of the best people, and if they are convinced that their honest recommendation will become politically irrelevant, time and again, I'm afraid, they have proved that they won't make an honest recommendation. They will instead seek to be political in order to gain political acceptance. And that's what the Scowcroft Commission did, that is what the Deutch Panel did of the Defense Science Board. I pleaded with the Deutch Panel, don't be politicians, be scientists. Tell the truth. And unfortunately these men give of their time, they don't want it to be in vane, they try to second-guess the political process. Therefore they make political recommendations rather than the kind that they should make which is, what will actually work, what will be cost effective, what makes sense in terms of real deterrence.

ASKS ABOUT DEUTCH PANEL MISTAKE.

The Deutch Panel made the mistake of in effect giving approval to a weapons system that they should have recognized as being not only cost-ineffective, they weren't willing to, to really honestly state in my judgment that a 30,000 pound, or they finally urged that it go up to 37,000 pound missile, was never going to be a very effective deterrent. That there were alternatives to this ineffective missile that would achieve the kind of mobility that in fact we will stipulate is desirable for survivability. And they simply, I think, decided that it was necessary to give some kind of credence to the recommendations of the Scowcroft Commission in order to achieve any kind of modernization at all of our land-based deterrent. Now I sympathized with them in that but I wish that they had simply been scientists-

DID SENIOR CONSULTANTS TO COMMISSION WERE MAKING A POLITICAL COMPROMISE, THAT THEY ALSO SAW WE NEEDED MX BUT ONLY WAY TO GET IT WAS TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR MIDGETMAN?

I can't speak for every member of the Commission but I have heard enough of them, both publicly and privately state that they felt that we needed to modernize our land-based deterrent, and that in order to do so, in order to make any progress, we had to go forward with MX and we had to go forward as at the very least a political sop to Congressional critics of MX with the development of Midgetman.

DOES HE FEEL SCOWCROFT COMMISSION WAS POLITICAL AND SAW SYSTEMS THAT WAY?

The Scowcroft Commission was, I think, a last resort by a beleaguered Administration seeking some means of salvaging the MX missile. An Administration that knew there was a necessity to modernize our land-based deterrent. And the problem with the Commission's recommendations as far as I'm concerned is that they didn't go far enough because what they should have done I think is to say, Yes, it is desirable to achieve mobility because by doing so you do enhance your survivability but it isn’t necessary to achieve mobility in this ineffective way, by using this undersized single-warhead missile that requires all this manpower and therefore that is unaffordable. Instead it can be done these other ways. Either by rail method. The rail mob…rail mobile basing of the MX or by relying to a greater extent upon the submarine-based capability which is the ultimately mobile and concealable way of deploying a missile.