ASKS ABOUT BEGINNING OF HIS INVOLVEMENT THE MX BASING PROBLEM. WHAT DID REAGAN AND WEINBERGER ASK YOU TO DO IN 1981?

Well Secretary Weinberger asked me to review the MX basing systems and recommend what kind of system would be best for basing the MX. I felt that that was too limited a charge and hence suggested that really it would make sense only in the context of looking at the overall strategic weaponry and trying to get everything balanced. Together with making recommendations on the whole strategic complex. And Secretary Weinberger agreed to that and gave us then a very open charter to examine the whole situation.

WHY DID YOU LOOK AT WHOLE STRATEGIC FORCE STRUCTURE RATHER THAN JUST THE BASING PROBLEM?

Well because...We wanted to look at the entire problem because no one part of it really is sufficient in itself. There is a famous triad of the land-based forces with the, the missile forces, and the Air Force, and then the submarines. That's the triad. Each perform a different function, they have a different kind of a protection mechanism. And it is the combination of those which is most important. If you look at one single one, ignoring the others, then you really don't come out with an overall good system. Especially because the land-based missiles are not really as efficient in themselves, they are too vulnerable.

DID YOU FEEL PREVIOUS STUDIES LOOKED TOO EXCLUSIVELY AT MX AND NOT AT THE OVERALL PICTURE?

Well I think there had been so many different studies, some groups had looked very broadly, other groups had looked very narrowly. But certainly, the immediate discussions and studies just before that, during the previous Administrations, had been primarily concentrated on the MX, and I think were a little bit too narrowly based. But in any case I myself felt that it really didn't make sense to do it on that narrow basis. And Secretary Weinberger agreed with me that we really should look at the whole picture.

WHAT DID YOU LOOK AT... AND FIND?

Well. We had very broad scale hearings. We had a group of about ten scientists, engineers and military people, retired military people. And we reviewed the whole program. We had hearings from a lot of different people. Some Congressional figures, The Air Force, Navy, the Army and we worked this over very hard and thoroughly, trying to see what kind of system might be viable. Because in fact, it was a very hard problem. Land-based missiles are difficult to protect and it was almost at a crisis state. In the past the Minuteman had been secure, it could not be very easily attacked, in deep holes in the ground. It was accurate, it could sit there until the President carefully made a decision whether or not one should send them off. But because of increasing precision of such weaponry it had become vulnerable. And that same precision made almost any land-based system vulnerable. And so it was a very difficult problem, to see if in fact there were any safe mechanisms, any safe kind of basing modes.

...WERE THERE AT THE TIME?

Well the committee's conclusion was that there were no modes which we saw that could be assured to be safe. But there were some possibilities that we felt ought to be investigated because simply not enough was known about them. There were several kinds of possibilities that ought to be looked into, but none at that time was safe, and certainly not the multiple protective shelter. I really relied on having so many... so many aim points for the enemy that it would be ineffective for him to try to get them all. However, the increasing precision and the large number of missiles on the multiple warhead missile, large number of warheads on multiple warhead missile systems, really in fact at that time would have allowed the enemy to destroy each on of those, at a cost which was less than the cost for us to build them. And that meant that that system was really not effective. It had been planned at an earlier time. The technical situation was a little different. And also the emphasis was different. I think one has to recognize that this whole problem is one which is ever changing. It depends on the state of technology, it depends on the particular kinds of weapons which opposing forces have, how quickly they can adjust to new kinds of weapons, and so on. So it's a dynamic problem. And it had changed over the previous decade.

ASKS KEY CHANGE FROM AIR FORCE EVALUATION OF MPS AS OK, AND WHEN HIS COMMITTEE LOOKED AT IT.

Well I think it was basically an intelligent idea and it was carefully studied. The biggest change was the increasing precision of missiles and in addition the multiple warheads. But they had been around for a while. But a high percentage of the multiple warheads meant that it was relatively cheap to attack and destroy anything on the ground, where you could do it with one or two warheads only, whereas previously it seemed that you had to make a whole bombardment in order to get something, because of the poorer precision. I would say that's, that was the biggest technical change.

ASKS CHIEF FLAW IN MPS SYSTEM.

The primary problem with the MPS system was that it was relying on a large number of aim points, scattered around over Utah and Nevada, and these would be hard to attack because the enemy would have to hit every one of them. However, as the enemy, the Soviets, developed additional precision, they could shoot only maybe one warhead at each site. Or at the most two. And still destroy it. And so it became rather efficient for them to destroy the, destroy these shelters. We could build more but they could destroy them and they could destroy them more cheaply than we could build them. So it was a bad bargain and the big change being this high precision. That the precision had been developed by the Soviets, these simply were not the right kind of system for us to build any more.

ASKS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COSTS OF BUILDING INCOMING WARHEADS TO BUILDING SHELTERS.

Yes. It's. The relative costs of these systems is a very important matter because they are very expensive, they are very expensive for both nations. And if it cost us much more to build something than it does for an enemy to destroy it, if they can destroy it cheaply and it's very expensive for us to build it, even though we can build more and more and more, and possibly have a few left over, it's cheaper for them to build more and more attack systems. And so it was a bad bargain economically. And because the whole thing is so expensive, it's an important, that's an important issue for any nation.

ASKS HIM TO EXPLAIN.

The Soviets could build accurate warheads to attack these missiles, more cheaply than we could build more shelters with the warheads, suitable for the warheads. So each new shelter would be attacked by only one or two warheads and those one or two warheads are cheaper than the shelters themselves. And so that's what made it such a bad bargain for us.

AIR FORCE SUGGESTED MAKING MPS SYSTEM ADAPTABLE WITH SOME BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE, AN ABM SYSTEM. WHAT DID HE THINK ABOUT THAT?

We examined also the possibility of protecting these shelters with ABM. And that was possible to some extent. The army was working on that hard. And that was one of the background thoughts in the general planning of the system. In fact, one could protect the shelter for at least the first incoming one or two missiles. But once it was revealed where the ABM itself was located, then the ABM could be attacked severely, knocked out, and then the rest of the shelters could be, could be destroyed too. So that while ABM was partially effective it too was not advantageous from an economic point of view. That is, again we would have to spend so much money building more and more ABM, it would be cheaper for the Soviets to attack them than for us to build them. And hence it didn't make sense at that time for us to build them. However, our committee did point out the importance of ABM, the potential importance, saying that we did not have a system that was adequate at that time. But clearly research ought to be done in that direction to investigate whether there could be adequate, adequate systems.

ASKS WHAT BASING MODES HIS COMMITTEE RECOMMENDED STUDYING.

Well. We. We recommended further study of a number of systems which had not been adequately studied at that time. One of them was the so-called close-spaced system where the missiles were based so close together that if they were all attacked at once, one incoming warhead would destroy another incoming warhead.And so it was sort of self-annihilation of the attacker so to speak because of this close spacing. It was a perfectly real effect of that type. It wasn't clear whether overall that would be a useful system but we felt that should be studied. Another system was an air-borne system whereby the MX would be flown in aircraft, aircraft which could last a very, very long time. They would simply take off, they would go out to sea, and fire around and stay there long enough that they were basically based there. And they could be, the missiles could be fired from there. It was a mobile platform in the air, relatively hard to detect and relatively safe. That has some political objections in that nobody likes to have missiles flying around overhead even if they are overhead at sea. But technically it looked like a system which should be investigated. What was needed was to find a good design for aircraft which would be efficient and also of course to examine the political situation. Still another system was to, was to very deeply base missiles, far down into rock which could be bombarded by an enemy as long as he wished and the would still be viable and they would dig, they would dig their way out over some period of a couple of days perhaps, but still they could get out and hence would be a reserve. Then there was another system which of course has been followed up and that was the Midgetman. We recommended a careful study of a single, a small, single warhead missile.

WAS THE PROBLEM IN FINDING A BASING MODE THE FACT OF ITS WEIGHT?

Well. The MX missile was of course a fairly heavy system. It was not, not any, not one of the biggest missiles, but it was moderately heavy. On the order of 100 tons. And that meant one had to have a fairly large aircraft to carry it. It meant also it was a fairly valuable missile, it was to have about ten warheads on it. So the missile was a rather valuable one and hence to put one of those missiles in any one place where it might be attacked cheaply, would be, would not be a good bargain. On the other hand, if you make the missile smaller and cheaper and scatter them over a large number of places, then that changes the economic equation. So it was its size, but not only its size, it was its cost. Much of your, much of your goods you're storing in one place so it could all be destroyed by one incoming missile, you see. This is why the small missile was, was more attractive, and why mobility was attractive so it could be moving around, couldn't be, it couldn't be located in the track so easily.

DID YOU AGREE WITH MAY AND TOOMEY'S PANELS THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER TO DESIGN A SYSTEM FOR A 3 TO 5 WARHEAD MISSILE?

Mobile missiles have been discussed in all sizes, of course. The smaller the missile is the more easily it is mobile and the easier it is to secrete and so on. I think there is no clear cut stopping point. I myself favor, favor maybe one one warhead if that could be mutually agreed to on both sides. On the other hand, it is cheaper to put three, it's cheaper per warhead to put three warheads on. And you can do that. And I think if there were no mutual agreement, you certainly might reasonably argue for about three warheads. There is no sacred number but more than one would be economically beneficial.

THE AIR MOBILE SYSTEM WAS THEN THE ONE THE COMMITTEE FOUND MOST PROMISING?

Yes, we felt that that could possibly be the quickest secure solution. The airborne form of protection of the missile we felt was the most, likely to be the most immediately available secure protection. We discussed airplanes which could stay a very long time in the air, required a somewhat new technology but one which was developing rapidly, and we felt could be foreseen fairly clearly what could be done. Now. And those planes would then buzz around over the oceans largely and be hard to find and hard to locate instantaneously in order to shoot them down. The problem with it was really a political one. And I think that killed it fairly early in Congress because Congress simply didn't want to have missiles taking off from an airfield and even if it spent most of its time out in the ocean. Now we were assigned the job of looking at it technically. That was specifically the understanding, that we should not worry about the political aspects, that those of course had to be considered. But that our committee was to look at the technical aspects, what really technically made sense. The political and emotional factors and so on would, were to be considered by political forces and that was natural enough. On the other hand I think that also meant that it was easy for Congress to discount some of the things we were recommending because they were not tasteful from a political point of view.

WHY DID AIR FORCE OPPOSE AIR MOBILE?

Well it's easier... the Air Force. The Air Force was not enthusiastic about an air mobile system. In the first place this represented a change in their plans. And they were all geared up to make silos and this is what they were thinking of and planning. But in addition a silo is an easier thing to operate. It's in one place. The people can be located there. And changing of crews and all of this is easier. It's easier on the personnel, easier to control. If you have an airplane flying for a week, let's say, at a time, with rotating personnel, that's a new kind of a problem. That's a little bit like a submarine problem. And that's not an easy operational problem. So, that was some of the reason the Air Force opposed it. Of course the Air Force was pushing very hard for the system that it had recommended, namely the multiple protective shelters. So, in a sense, anything didn't look very good if it competed with the multiple protective shelter system.

WHY WAS THE AIR FORCE SO COMMITTED AT THIS POINT TO MPS SCHEME?

Well it... the multiple protective shelter scheme was one which had been planned for a long time. They had worked hard on it. They had contractors all lined up and they felt it was a useful and viable system. It was certainly a very powerful system in the sense it could deliver a lot of missiles in a hurry and it was accurate as, the missile itself was a fine missile, and the multiple protective system was one which had been worked on, I say, for a long time. People were committed to it. Now in addition to that, it was unfortunate to the case, there was no system that was really good that had been worked out. So their choice was between doing something they had all planned for and were all ready to go on. And waiting and struggling around to see, well is there a system which can be used? And that obviously is not nearly as attractive to them. So that, those are part of... those are some of the reasons. I think in many cases they genuinely felt that that was a viable system, but that was not what our analysis showed and I think eventually most people agree that we were, we were correct on that.

WHY DID MAJORITY OF YOUR COMMITTEE RECOMMEND GOING AHEAD WITH 100 MISSILES IN 100 SHELTERS THAT COULD BE EXPANDED TO AN MPS SYSTEM?

We were, the country was really kind of stuck with this problem, that there was no good system, at the same time, land-based missiles were quite important in terms of being able to get high precision, being able to act quickly. They are closely under control because they are really on your own home territory. People can be there all the time, monitoring them all the time. They have many good features. Now in addition to that, the Soviet Union has a very large number of them, which we are eager to have decreased. And most of our committee felt well, we couldn't afford to just say well, we'll just stop. Because it's a difficult problem so we, we won't make any. And if one thing, there might have, there may be a way of protecting them properly and a number of ways which needed to be studied. We couldn't stop the development of the missile and then start again later. That would be very inefficient. In addition we frankly wanted to put some pressure on the Soviet Union to come to terms. If they had the only big missiles and most of the big missiles, it would not be very sensible then for, to bargain them away easily. But when we were in the process of making missiles and could make them, then there would be much more stimulus then to come to some terms of equality. And I felt and I believe essentially all of the committee felt that we should have these missiles ready, we should start making them, make them slowly. We didn't have to have a lot of them fast, but they ought to be in the background and available, both to put pressure on the Soviet Union and in addition, if there turned out to be a good system for them ... there is still another answer to that. The question is, why, why was the missile attractive to begin with? And that is in terms of the so-called triad. Good missiles on land and good airplanes on land protect each other. Neither system is sufficient in itself. But if you have both bomber aircraft which can carry missiles, and land-based missiles in silos, they protect each other. For somewhat intricate technical reasons neither one is viable by itself but together they are more viable. And so this is another reason we felt it was important to have up to date, modern, good missiles on line that we could make. Not necessarily to deploy a lot of them, but to have them available.

WAS MPS A WAY TO GET THEM ON LINE QUICKLY? WAS THAT WHY THEY WENT FOR MPS?

At that time the MX missile had been in design for some time, and we had no other missile coming along of that kind of character. And we all felt that it would be a mistake to just suddenly cut it off and drop it. Because we would lose a lot of time. So that was the available thing and while it was not ideal, we felt it ought to be kept, not to make a lot of them but simply have the ability to make them in case the Russians made a move that seemed, that seemed threatening, and where we had to make some kind of balance. So there is really a reserve. There was really a kind of keeping these in reserve. To make a few, have them, the possibility of making more, but not to make very many. And this is why our committee voted to have 100 while the country could think about it. I myself felt that we shouldn't deploy any at all at that time, simply to have them available so that they could be manufactured. But the majority of the committee felt, well, we should go ahead and deploy 100 even if we didn't have an ideal system, to deploy that much while we think about it further. It turned out of course that in the long run we made, the Congress approved and the President, and the Air Force even, recommended the immediate deployment of, of only 40. With then further thought of what to do others.

DID HE TELL WEINBERGER TO BUILD THE MISSILES BUT NOT DEPLOY UNTIL A SUITABLE BASING MODE HAD BEEN FOUND?

In our report we carefully pointed out, the majority opinion which was to build 100 and deploy 100 in fairly straightforward silos. As well protected as practical from the point of view of blast and so on. But we also pointed out there was a minority of the committee which felt none should be deployed at that time. I was on that minority, and while we didn't publish the names, I told the Secretary of Defense that was my own view and he knew who else was, thought the same thing. But it was a, a modest minority of maybe 40, 30 or 35 percent of the committee felt that way.

ASKS HOW HE STATED HIS CASE.

Well my... my primary assessment at that time was that we should have that missile available to exert pressure on the Soviet Union and also in case we found a good way of deploying it. Rather than to...to throw it away and have a long hiatus when we couldn't do anything very much of that, of that type. That we ought to have that in reserve. And just hold at that point and delay and wait and see if we could, see what happened. That was my feeling, that it was not necessary to deploy any. We had enough missiles deployed at that time in my view. And 100 more missiles wouldn't change things radically. So I didn't feel that we should go ahead and deploy. On the other hand, other members of our committee felt strongly that we should. We should at least deploy some. And that was how the overall majority came out with 100, rather than a 200, 200 had originally been planned by the Carter Administration.

WHY AN AIR MOBILE?

Well, we weren't giving, if we had put these missiles in airplanes, we wouldn't be giving up all the land-based systems. We still had a large number of land-based systems. Now the problem was these land-based systems, people recognized had become, had become somewhat hazardous in that they could be attacked. They were vulnerable whereas for a long time they were not vulnerable. But increasing accuracy made them vulnerable. Now should we build some more like that or should we do something different. And my feeling was the different kinds of things in a sense adds to the triad. You might say this is still another, another leg of the stool that... will... keep us standing. And I was not in favor of giving up those missiles we had in the ground but I didn't feel there was too much point in building more just like them. And hence an airborne version of this I thought might be useful. Now, one has to understand, that we only recommended that that be studied. We said that looked like a promising mode, but it needed study. We did not recommend that we go ahead with that. We simply said that was one of the more promising modes and should be studied. Along with a number of other modes including the small missile which is the one which is most favored now. The small missile and also with some mobility and hardness.

WHAT ABOUT DRELL AND GARWIN'S IDEA OF A SMALL SUBMARINE?

We looked very hard at the small submarine business too. Because we were looking broadly at all strategic weapons, we of course looked at submarines and other things. And our recommendation was primarily to get an accurate missile for the submarines, so the submarines could attack small hard targets, particularly military targets, for which we previously relied on the land-based missiles. The D-5 missile, say, put on the submarines, a new missile could be built more accurately and we recommended primarily that, so far as the submarine force is concerned. Now there were people pushing very hard for a small submarine, a small submersible submarine. And that has some virtues. On the other hand it would have been quite expensive, I think, the estimates of expenses by the proponents and by the Pentagon, were very, very different. To the proponents, they claimed it was very cheap. The best estimates we got made it very expensive and to change over our whole submarine force to small submarines with only one or a few missiles per submarine would have been expensive. And also very difficult an operation. I think people don't generally realize how difficult it is to properly man submarines that are going to be out to sea for a long time. A group of men alone, away from home for a long time. And maintaining the kind of morale and proper operation is not at all easy. Having a bigger ship makes it much easier. And so there were many operational reasons why the Navy was very much opposed to that. And we felt generally they were probably right. I would say the biggest discrepancy of all, thought, was in the estimated cost. The, the newspaper stories from the proponents about how much it was going to cost was, were very, very far from the estimates that we, the best estimates that we could get.

WAS THEIR AIR FORCE/NAVY CONFLICT ON YOUR COMMITTEE?

Well we very carefully... Our committee very carefully was balanced. I chose the people myself, to see that it was a balanced group, with the concurrence of the Secretary of Defense. And he was very open to, to getting the right kind of people. And essentially it took the people that I suggested. And we had retired military figures from all three services, which I felt was quite important. Now every service, of course, and every person, has their own particular bent. And of course there were differences of view between the Army and the Navy and the Air Force. But I would say for those people on our committee, it was not, you know, it was not a bitter struggle. It was a discussion and it was very helpful to have the different points of view there. We heard stronger words from the active military as to what they believed, the military who had retired and were on our committee and were taking, I think, a really, a quite a broad generous view of the whole picture.

WHAT DID HE HEAR FROM ACTIVE MILITARY?

Oh well, they would, they would use pretty strong words about how this, their system was obviously the right one you know. There just wasn't any question about it. It was that kind of thing. And they would back it up with all their data, some of which was pretty shaky maybe. And give arguments which were, were just the kind of arguments a lawyer might use in a courtroom, in pleading his case. Whereas the people on our committee were more in a position of jury and judge, that tried to probe and understand and, and discuss among themselves what, you know, how does one really balance these various arguments.

WHAT WAS NAVY MOST THREATENED BY?

The service which of course was most threatened at that time was the Air Force because it was their system primarily that was being discussed. The MX. That was the system they had planned. It would have been their operation and so on The Army was involved too because the Army had been planning an ABM system for that. Now the treaty would not allow their ABM system. Nevertheless they felt it was very valuable and maybe the treaty ought to be changed eventually and to allow on both sides some protection of missiles specifically. As a stabilizing force. And there is some value in that argument. So they were, they were interested in the system. The Navy of course was particularly interested in cruise missiles on shipboard and missiles in submarines. They felt that those were the most important things. And so those were some of the, some of the service-oriented issues. The Air Force naturally wanted to go ahead with the thing which they had planned. And the Navy of course wanted to expand, to expand the Navy's role in certain ways that they felt, felt were reasonable. Actually there were some ways in which neither service wanted to expand their role. They just felt that it wasn't, it wasn't a particularly fruitful or good way. And they were, they were clear-cut about that. But there certainly were ways where they felt that they could contribute more and each service of course was glad to see their responsibilities increased generally.

ASKS PRIMARY RECOMMEND TO VULNERABILITY PROBLEM.

The overall strategic problem is one which generates lots of heat in public. Much of the attention is put on size of weapons and numbers of weapons and so on. Unfortunately relatively little attention is put onto the control of these weapons. And our committee pointed out very clearly and said, as a number one item, that the most important vulnerability problem and the most important thing for us to work on, was what's known as command and communication and control. In other words, to see that our missiles are adequately controlled, adequately safeguarded, and that the control and communications could not be destroyed by, by a... under reasonable attack conditions. And that that was the thing that we should work on. Unfortunately it is not very glamorous. And few Presidents have pushed it very hard. And the military doesn't push it very hard. They work on it but nevertheless it doesn't hit the news... headlines and so on, people don't talk about it. It is a very, very important aspect. If you don't have these weapons under adequate, adequate control, then they're no good to you. And they are even dangerous. If they're not well controlled. So we said that was the most important thing to work on. And the President announces his program, accepted that. He said that was the most important thing. And he himself, and... made some personal appearances to emphasize that. Now, a second recommendation said that we saw no ... no invulnerable basing mode for the land-based missiles at this time. And we saw no reason to believe that they would be invulnerable in the future. Various people had various possible solutions and we made that very broad and general statement. We also recommended the development of the D-5 missiles for submarines. So that if the land-based systems failed, we would still have some high precision systems to attack hard military targets, particularly other missiles and military, deep military control centers and so on. Then we recommended a study of various kinds of basing modes including as I said the small missile and the airborne, airborne missile. We also made recommendations about certain communication systems. Particularly communication with submarines. As part of this command, control communication problems. So the submarines would be in touch and we could be in...and the Commander in Chief could be in touch with the submarines. And know what was going on. And when, when to do what. So there were a number of what might be called, you know, a not very glamorous, not very exciting little recommendations. There were several of those. But ones nevertheless which basically are quite important.

HOW WOULD IMPROVING COMMAND AND CONTROL GOING TO HELP WITH VULNERABILITY OF OUR LAND-BASED MISSILES?

Well the command and control communications problem is really a very complex and multifaceted one. Well just imagine that we had had an attack somewhere on some big center like let's say New York. And it had cut out all the phone lines and all the communication. And so where our missiles are, they don't know exactly what's going on. The Commander in Chief doesn't know what's going on. And he gets some, some information but not very full information, what's he going to do? He has to have as accurate information as possible, he has to have time enough to suggest it. The people in the field who are manning these weapons, have to be sure they don't get false messages. That they get the right messages. We also must be sure that some saboteur can't simply cut the cables and destroy the, destroy the information. So there's both the question of getting wrong information and firing off when one shouldn't. And the question of getting enough information so that the Commander in Chief and everybody knows as much as possible about what is going on so that he can make sensible decisions. Particularly in the case of an emergency. Even a false emergency. Some, just some rumor or something. One has to be sure to get, get information. And then finally the Commander in Chief has to be able to get a...a command out to the forces that are going to release these things if we have to release them. And they have to know, yes, that's the com... Commander in chief and no they should really wait until they get that message and so on. So all of that has to be very tightly safeguarded and secure and very well thought out. And it's a very important problem in terms of safety. You can imagine the, you know, a rumor getting started somewhere. And so somebody is not sure. Well, has he gotten the message? Has a cable been cut? Should he go ahead and fire because nobody can get to him? And it's...we could really make some bad mistakes. In addition to being vulnerable.

WITH LITTLE TIME?

And frequently there is little time. Now that of course is the disadvantage of the land-based missiles, that they can be attacked quickly, and so the time is very short. It's an advantage for the submarine because there one can wait a long time and think about it. It's an advantage too for the deep, underground missiles. You can wait weeks to think about well now, do we want to carry this on or not, you see. But submarines are particularly useful from that point of view. Or mobile systems which give more time. Air craft also. Air craft can get into the air and then you can wait before you decide whether or not to actually drop a missile. And hopefully that will be thought through carefully and we won't be just firing out of the quick reflex.

WHAT DOES HE THINK ABOUT THE TOLLING BELL?

The command and communication control is, while unglamorous, is nevertheless an important part of our safety. For one thing the Commander in Chief has to have accurate information as to what is going on. He can't make decisions on some rumor or scare or something like that. Even a piece of information of one particular city being destroyed or something. He needs to get the overall picture. Furthermore, we must see that the communication that he has with all of his commanders, so that he can talk to them, is secure. That they get the right information from him and that they know that they will get the information, so they don't fire until they get a real command. And the security of that communication network is very important in not making a mistake. And holding everything. Now if it can be cut by a saboteur or destroyed by a bomb at some particular center, our whole communication system breaks down, that's...the country is obviously helpless.

VULNERABILITY OF COMMUNICATION LINKS WAS A MORE SERIOUS PROBLEM THAN THAT OF MISSILES THEMSELVES?

There are many ways in which the communications can be vulnerable, and in general we felt that the getting of good information, good information passage back and forth between the command centers, and good information sent up to the people manning the weapons, was a more important point than simply building more missiles. And attention to that was more important than building more missiles, or than any one type of new missile. And that's why we put that at the head of the list and the President actually himself put it at the head of the list.

THE PENTAGON IS A SOFT TARGET?

The Pentagon, of course, if the Pentagon is destroyed the alternatives planned, of course, there must be alternatives. Now, are there alternatives good? Are they secure? How many alternatives do we need? What...how many different command centers? How should they communicate? There is a complex technical problem and its vulnerability is a very important factor.

COULDN'T THAT AIRBORNE COMMAND BE DESTROYED FAIRLY EASILY?

One of the alternatives is an airborne command plane. Now the airborne command planes are not easy to destroy. One might argue that any one of them can be targeted and destroyed. But they're not so easy to track. But furthermore we can of course have more than one. How many different command centers we have an of what type is the kind of thing one needs to look at. Obviously if everything is concentrated in one place, it very likely can be destroyed.

HOW SHOULD WE FEEL? SOVIET'S LAND-BASED MISSILES ARE 75 PERCENT OF THEIR FORCE, MAKING THEM MORE VULNERABLE. SHOULD WE BE WORRIED THAT THEY WILL REACT TO THAT?

The Soviets have problems very similar to ours. But even perhaps somewhat more exaggerated because they rely so heavily on land-based missiles. Now to us that looks like they may be poised for an attack when they are not expecting attack for us because they don't have to worry about that and we think well of course, we would never attack their missiles first. So they don't have to worry and they can rely on land-based missiles. Nevertheless from the Soviet viewpoint that is a problem. And this is one reason why I am rather in favor of their producing mobile missiles. I think if they have a fewer number of more mobile missiles, which are more secure, then they can be in a more relaxed mode, and not as trigger edge and generally I think that's a good move for them. And I, I recommended it to them. Before. Now as I say, from an American point of view, well it's ridiculous to think that we would be attacking them first. So they are in no danger. But that's not, of course, their position, stated officially at least, they have relied much more heavily on land-based missiles but they are now trying to modify that and develop mobile missiles. They have some submarines, they have a harder time with submarines because they don't have the coastline.

INCREASING ACCURACY OF EACH SIDE'S MISSILES PUTS THEIR OWN BASING MODES AT RISK. IS THERE AN ESSENTIAL CONFLICT HERE?

See you ask your, if one tries... If one tries to examine the overall problem and say, well, should we... should we stop developing better missiles, more accurate missiles, because then we don't threaten each other so much? I think one can answer yes. And we should never have nuclear weapons too. But we have them. And one country can't stop another one, particularly from developing accuracy. Accuracy is something that will be done on the bench, so to speak, in a laboratory, developments needs to be tested outside, but most of it is small scale, and very difficult to monitor. And just how accuracy develops. So that's not something that can be stopped. We may be able to stop the increase in the number of missiles, but we can't stop the improvements in technology, and so each side is, is going to try to keep up with that now. There may be some ways we can limit that, but it's very difficult.

SO WE WILL FACE THIS PROBLEM INCREASINGLY IN THE FUTURE?

In the long run we are all vulnerable to each other. In the long run we are vulnerable to each. In the long run we are. And any scientific discovery which gives us more power to heal mankind, it also gives us more power to harm mankind. The development of technology is a two-edged sword, and I think the only solution is for people to come to grips with the problem politically and ethically, morally, come to grips with that problem. That's the only possible solution. There really are no technically solutions in the long run. We must keep up with technology. We have to be good at it in order to protect ourselves. But that's not going to give us the solution. It's how you treat people that's the real solution. And that's bound to be true. One can't look to technology. You can't just stop technology. There's nothing you do simply on the technological side which will solve the problem.

WOULDN'T THE CHEAPEST SOLUTION BE TO GO TO A LAUNCH UNDER ATTACK POLICY?

It's interesting that we had a number of people come into our meeting to give their, their version of what should be done. Who said, well, you launch under attack. So, if you see missiles come at you, you just fire all of your missiles, and hence they get off the ground and they can't be hit and everything's fine. So why do we worry about the safety of our missiles in silos? Well the answer to that is because we don't want to be trigger happy. We don't want to be in a position of having to make up our minds in ten minutes to fire all of our missiles. I think that would be absolute madness to have ourselves in that position, when we felt we had to make up our minds in ten minutes now whether to fire off all our missiles. Nevertheless a number of people, many of my good friends, recommended that as well. And we'd save a lot of money. Because we don't have to worry any more. When you're dealing with that kind of problem, though, money is not the issue. And we feel we must be able to wait it out and make decisions calmly and with a little more time.

ASKS ABOUT THE KEY RECOMMENDATION THE ADMINISTRATION SUPPRESSED AND IGNORED.

You asked me what recommendation we made that the Administration was not happy with. I don't think of any.

ASKS ABOUT AUGUST 1981 MEETING IN LOS ANGELES. LEW ALLEN PRESENTED AIR FORCE POINT OF VIEW.

Yes. We met in August '81, I guess it was to... I don't know, was it August?

DISCUSS.

I met with the President and many of his Cabinet members at the end of our study in 1981. This was in Los Angeles and I was invited to come and present the report of our committee. General Lew Allen, head of the Air Force, was invited to come at the same time and present his views and rebut anything that he wished to rebut in what we said. And this gave an occasion also to Cabinet members to say what they believed about it. The ones I remember particularly are General Haig and of course Secretary Weinberger was there. And there was a fair amount of discussion. I presented our views, the President listened carefully and asked a few questions. There was a good deal of discussion back and forth between... Gen. Haig, representing the State Dept., of course, and Weinberger, the Defense Department, and Lew Allen and myself. And I felt it was a very, a very sensible, useful exchange. Differences of opinion of course, but it was a gentlemanly exchange and pretty clear cut statements being made. And I felt it was probably, it probably was useful to the President. I never knew at that time what the decision was going to be. We came with our recommendations and presented them to the Cabinet and had a good discussion and then I went home. And I, I didn't know for a while, until Secretary Weinberger eventually called me up and told me what the President had decided. Because it was not a decision on the spot, let me say.

ASKS HIM WHAT WEINBERGER AND HE ARGUED FOR, AND WHAT LEW ALLEN AND GEN. HAIG ARGUED FOR.

The basic argument at that point really was whether or not to go ahead with the multiple protective shelter system. The other recommendations we made, I believe nobody particularly opposed, even though we felt some of them more important than this issue, but nobody, nobody felt like opposing those. On the other hand, the Air Force, one, was very eager to go ahead with the 200 MPS system. General Haig supported that strongly. Secretary Weinberger absolutely supported our committee's recommendation. Just very directly, he was 100 percent for the recommendation of the committee. He accepted the committee's work and he supported that. And so the primary argument was really was over the MPS system, whether to preserve that or not.

VERSUS WHAT?

The primary argument was over the MPS system, whether to go ahead with the MPS system with its 200 shelters scattered around the West, sorry, 200 missiles... With a couple of thousand shelters scattered around the West. Or to cancel that whole big project and reduce to our recommendation which was to, to build and deploy in simple silos 100 missiles. So that would have been a very big reduction of that, of that really very large program. And of course was a very important decision. General Haig I think believed largely well we had to have this in order to, both for protection and also as a, as a leverage in foreign policy, and the Secretary, and the Secretary of the...or rather the, General Lew Allen, head of the Air Force, wanted very much to go ahead with it. He felt it was effective. Now Lew Allen is a scientist and a very fine, intelligent person. And he recognized our arguments but he nevertheless, in his overall judgment, he felt he differed with them.

DID YOU RECOMMEND TO THE PRESIDENT WE SHOULD WAIT UNTIL WE STUDY OTHER BASING MODES?

I presented our report entire, entirely to the President, pointing out the majority recommendation which was to build 100. And the minority recommendation which was to build 100 but not deploy them. Not deploy any at that time. I presented both of those viewpoints. I frankly don't remember whether I said, well my own belief is this but I suspect I did. I feel that I must have. I can't remember in detail. I feel I must have said, "Well my own view was with the minority." Nevertheless the majority of the committee recommended something different and I had to present that fairly and squarely to the President. And he simply, basically took the majority recommendation.

ASKS HIM AGAIN ABOUT HIS (WEINBERGER'S) OPINION, WHICH WAS DIFFERENT FROM LEW ALLEN'S.

At this meeting where I met with the President and a number of members of the Cabinet, the principal argument really was between going ahead with the full-scale MPS system of 200 missiles and about ten times that many shelters scattered around the Western United States. Or, having a very much curtailed system of simply building some missiles and deploying maybe a few somewhat symbolically, and waiting. Now I presented the findings of our committee. The findings of our committee, the majority said we should deploy 100 missiles in shelters, which included possibly silos at this point. And be prepared to expand that later. The minority recommended not deploying any at this point, building them but no deploying any. And that was own feeling, my own very strong feeling, that we shouldn't, we need not deploy any at that time. We could just wait. And of course I, I presented both of those views, as a majority of the committee, but a minority said this. Now the President ended up by taking a majority view, which was perfectly reasonable on this part.

WAS THIS AN ANGRY MEETING?

It was a very interesting meeting to me, to see the Cabinet arguing about these things, among themselves. To have a chance to present all this to the President and he certainly listened closely. General Haig in particular felt very strongly that we needed these in terms of our position before the Soviet Union, that we needed the full 200 and we needed to deploy them. General Allen also felt strongly that that was the right thing to do. On the other hand, the Secretary of Defense, who you might think would be on the other side of the fence, he fully supported the recommendation of the committee, which was to not deploy that big system. The other person I remember speaking at some length was Casey. Well Casey discussed it back and forth and in general I felt agreed with our committee's finding. I didn't know what the result was going to be at that time. The decision of course was made after some thought and later.

AIR FORCE GENERALS FELT WEINBERGER AND PRESIDENT WERE NOT INTERESTED IN MPS TYPE SYSTEMS BECAUSE IT WAS A CARTER SYSTEM AND GARN AND LAXALT WERE AGAINST IT. DID HE FEEL THIS PRESSURE, ANY SENSE IT WAS POLITICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO MOVE IN THAT DIRECTION?

It's interesting how open at least Secretary Weinberger was to the whole picture. I wouldn't have undertaken the job unless it were really open to try to decide what was the best system. But I felt that's really what he wanted, he wanted real advice on what should be done. And on various occasions he took me aside and "I really want to know what you think" and so on. So we had no political strictures. In fact, we heard from some politicians, who came and met with us. Politicians from the states which would be affected. By and large they said, "Well we really don't want the system in our state. On the other hand, if it's important for the United States, for the defense of the United States, of course we'll understand and we'll do the best we can.” I felt the whole thing was done in a completely statesmanlike way. And we had no, no political pressure to do one thing or the other. We recognized the political pressures and what they were, but we also assigned the job of making the decision on a technical basis. That was Weinberger's request to us, advise him technically and he and the President and others would worry about the political aspects.

READS QUOTE FROM REPORT. ASKS ABOUT DETERRENCE AGAINST SOVIET AGGRESSION AGAINST MAJOR US INTERESTS ABROAD. DID HE THINK MX WOULD PREVENT SOVIETS FROM MOVING INTO OTHER PLACES, AFGHANISTAN..?

It's very difficult to know exactly what of our moves affect the Soviets how. Sometimes we can judge that, sometimes we can't. It becomes a difficult psychological analysis to say what it is that we do has what kind of effect on the Soviet Union. Obviously, they respond to a complex of situations. I think that most of us felt though that it was important to be sure that we continued to match the Soviet Union, and that we had some big missiles as well. They knew that we could build more in order to prevent them from building a large number of additional ones. Now what effect that has on the rest of the world is again a judgmental matter. I think the rest of the world tends to be pushed around by the Soviet Union if they know that they have no protection. And so it's important for the United States to stand up and afford some kind of protection, and for it to look to the rest of the world like the Soviets, that we are not vulnerable. And so in that sense, increasing armament gives some security for all the world. Now how much one needs and how much affect a particular missile system has, is difficult to judge. I think we all felt that it was, however, important for us to have some missiles in that category. And be able to build them for the future.

CONGRESS WAS NOT PLEASED TO HEAR IDEA OF 100 MISSILES IN 100 SHELTERS AND HE WAS CALLED BACK IN 1982 FOR A SECOND REPORT. ASKS HIM TO DESCRIBE HOW HE WAS ASKED TO DO THAT.

One of our... Several recommendations for study was a study of what's known as a close, closed-based system, the so-called dense packs. Where a number of silos would be close together, so close together that incoming attacking missiles would just partly destroy each other and that would safeguard the system to some extent. The Air Force became interested in that system as an alternative. And so I was asked again to chair a committee, this time to very specifically study that system alone. I felt we had been over the overall strategic system and so it made some sense to, just to look at that one system to see how viable it was. And we made a report then on that system, how well it would work, and what its problems would be. We made a report of that type to the Secretary also.

THIS TIME HE AND AIR FORCE WERE WORKING TOGETHER, NOT AT ODDS. RIGHT?

In this particular case, in this study, there was a, there were a number of variations of opinion. As to whether the whole system was viable and useful. I personally felt that there were too many loopholes in it, that it would work for a while, but not for a long time, because the Soviets had various possible technical moves which could overcome it. Some people felt well, it would take them so long to do that, that it was ok. That was a... that's roughly speaking was the, was the primary argument. Clearly it would stop the Soviet Union from attack at present. But how long would it take for them to be able to successfully attack it? That was the primary argument. I felt it would not take such a long time. And because the whole system was expensive, it would take a long time to deploy, probably was not worthwhile. The Air Force was backing the system. The people on our committee were somewhat divided on that. So what we did was to just to lay out what we thought, making statements which everybody could agree to which in some cases were vague, saying well, this is the uncertainty. And that's the kind of report we then gave to the Secretary. Where something is were clear-cut and other things were not clear-cut. There were all things to which the whole committee agreed for the statements had to be rather loose, where there was disagreement around the general.

ASKS STORY ABOUT WEINBERGER ASKING HIS REAL PRIVATE PERSONAL EVALUATION OF THE SYSTEM WAS.

After this report was presented to the Secretary, he invited me in to come listen to hear the Air Force's response to that report, as to how they viewed it and what they thought should be done. And it was an interesting discussion from the point of view of the Air Force and then he said, well, "I would like really to know what your own private opinion is. If you could sort of meet with me privately, tell me just what you really think about the situation." I said, "Well, you know, I, I really should write that down, because that's an important thing you're asking me and I should write it down. Let me write you a letter and I'll tell you just what I think." And that letter pointed out, made more clear I think than our report could, where the uncertainties were, and what I thought were really the sticking points. And what the more important points. It was more a discussion of the report and where one had to think carefully about what the difficulties were. It however, I guess, sounded somewhat negative about the system, and I was a bit negative about the system. He sent that to the head of the Joint Chiefs as a, as a...as I said in my letter, the head of the Joint Chiefs, so he could look at it and he could discuss it with the head of the Joint Chiefs. Who then asked, well, could he share it with the other chiefs. And so Weinberger said well, yes, ok. So he shared it with the other chiefs. And then within a couple of days it was out in the newspapers and Congressmen had it and so on. And so... I think, that kind of killed that system. Because my letter was pointing out the flaws and the difficulties and I think that kind of killed that system. It's a poor way to govern, by leakage of classified information. But it had a very powerful kind of effect, I believe on Congress in particular.

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT STORY.

After our report was in I delivered it to Secretary Weinberger and the Secretary then asked me to come and meet with him and the Air Force to hear the Air Force reaction to our report. And... it was in part a rebuttal of some of the points they didn't like, and part an affirmation of the points they did like. And it was a good report. But the Secretary then asked me after the meeting to please meet with him privately and tell him just what I personally thought about the whole situation. And about our report. He wanted to be sure he got my own personal views. I told the Secretary then that, you know, that was something I really should sit down and think about carefully and write you a letter about, rather than just talking. So I wrote this letter. That letter then pointed out what the loopholes were, and how one, I felt one should look at the report, and what kind of questions one should ask. And what the difficulties were. As well as some of the strengths. The system clearly had some strengths, but then it had some weaknesses too. And I tried to spell those out in rather more bold relief than the report, the report could. He apparently liked the letter and he showed it to the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who then asked, could he share it with the other Chiefs. And Weinberger assented to that. Yes, he could share it with the other Chiefs. It was a classified letter, of course. But in spite of that, within a couple of days, it was out in public and quotes from it in the newspaper and Congressmen had it and so on. And nobody knows how it got there, but there it was, and that had a very big impact on Congress, of course.

CONGRESS GOT THE OFFICIAL REPORT, AND THEN IT GOT THE INSIDE STORY. WHY WAS THERE SO MUCH PRESSURE ON THE COMMISSION TO PRESENT A FAVORABLE REPORT TO CONGRESS ON THIS PUBLICLY?

Our committee was not assigned to present a favorable report. Our committee, however, was made up of a very carefully balanced group of people, some of them specifically recommended by the Air Force, for example. And I felt that was a fair thing. We wanted to get all points of view. So we had a committee of varying points of view and they simply couldn't agree on everything. The report came out as a mildly favorable report but without strong endorsement and with statements which were let me say ambiguous in some cases. Those were the kinds of statements we could agree on. And where there was uncertainty and where there was disagreement, we simply had to leave that out. We didn't particularly try to present a favorable report. We tried to present a report which all the committee would agree to. And everybody agreed it had some strong points. There were some things in favor of it, and there were some things that were more questionable.

WAS THAT A BAD POLICY—TO TRY TO PUSH DENSE PACK THRU CONGRESS WHEN THERE WERE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS?

Almost anything that we do technically has some uncertainties.

INTERRUPTS.

Almost anything that we do has some technical uncertainties. If it is at all new, it's going to have some uncertainties and one has to try to evaluate those. How uncertain they are, how serious might it be, and so on. And there are bound to be differences in evaluation of how difficult those things are. But if you're going to plan a new system, one has to make those evaluations and it leaves uncertainties, and a room full of difference of judgment. And it was those kinds of differences which, which plagued us. One could not wait until the whole system was built and check it to see well, did it really do this and that. That would be too expensive. You have to evaluate it beforehand. And that's true of any big system. Almost anything that we do that's new or newly planned. There are going to be uncertainties. The classic example is going to the moon. That was frightfully uncertain. There were many things we just didn't know at all. But we managed to work them out and some people felt it could be worked out, other people felt it couldn't. In this case we had pretty good information on what the system would do and what it wouldn't do. But still not complete information. And I think one has to recognize that, and technical decisions are not always clearcut.

WEINBERGER PREFERS SDI TO MIDGETMAN AS SOLUTION TO VULNERABILITY. WHAT IS HIS EVALUATION?

Well there is a question whether we should go ahead with the Midgetman or should push harder on SDI as being the answer to vulnerability and so on. Now, clearly, ballistic missile defense can reduce vulnerability of silos. And it probably is economical at this point to do it that way. It would, however, open up problems with the ABM treaty. And the ABM treaty is very valuable in itself and so I think that's not a direction to go without a great deal of careful thought and a very high payoff in other directions. So far as the Midgetman is concerned, I think it will give us some extra security if we can have a mobile armed Midgetman. It also is very expensive, though. And it may be we don't have to go ahead with that. I think the present reduction of weapons and so on may be, may allow us to avoid that. Nevertheless it is a viable system, it will give us extra stability, and it's useful from that point of view. Perhaps it's too expensive. An all-out SDI program, to protect everything including people... I don't think will work in the long run. I don't believe one can protect a large city, many large cities and huge populations. We can protect individual spots, individual silos and so on, probably fairly efficiently. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be working on research on the SDI. But I am not very hopeful that it's going to provide the overall global solution that President Reagan and others would like.

SHOULD WE, AS WEINBERGER SUGGESTS, BE PUTTING MONEY INTO BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE OF OUR MISSILES, RATHER THAN BUILDING MIDGETMAN?

At this particular point, I am not enthusiastic about going ahead and building the Midgetman. Primarily because of its cost. It will be stabilizing, it's a useful system. If we could exchange some of our present missiles for that, with no cost, I would be delighted. But on the other hand, I don't think it's terribly important for us to go ahead now in the light of possible reduction of missiles. We could certainly go ahead with careful study of ABM systems and I, and we are doing that. I think we should continue. That doesn't necessarily mean we should deploy them. We certainly ought to know what can be done and we can figure out then at what time and when and if it really is sensible to deploy them. I hope we don't have to deploy them. Because I think the ABM treaty generally is a useful thing and it would be nice to preserve that. Nevertheless a study and research on it I feel sure is something we ought to push.

ASKS HIS FEELINGS ABOUT SCOWCROFT COMMISSION REPORT.

The Scowcroft Commission report came along after the two, two studies that I had headed myself. It recommended the Midgetman and then I was on a study to study the Midget-man, but this time not chairman, but just one of the members. I think the Scowcroft Commission generally did a good job. They did a very different kind of job from what we were doing, in that they were trying to pull the political forces together, and to get overall agreement of a number of different points of view. Overall agreement on a national program. In that respect I think they were successful. In bringing people together, to try to outline a national program. And they felt, I believe, that their commission was to take into account the political, political situation as well as the technical. Whereas ours had been simply the technical. And that was a weakness in a sense, that the political things were added on later, political considerations, whereas Scowcroft tackled the whole batch at once, both political and technical.

DOES HE FAVOR 50 RAIL GARRISON MX?

I would hope at the moment we could hesitate in deploying more land-based missiles. I think we should have that possibility available, but I would hope we can hesitate and hopefully get things worked out with the Soviet Union to have an overall reduction and avoid the necessity of building such systems. We do have a good many already and I don't believe we really need badly to add more at this point.

WHAT REDUCTION DOES HE WANT TO SEE?

I think overall we could well reduce the total number of systems by a factor of two, right away. And it seems like a big factor to get rid of half of, or half or our total system. In fact it will not change the world situation very much. We can still destroy each other. But I don't think we should decrease more until we've had time to think about it, analyze that, see just what it does. Then maybe we can reduce another 25 percent or another factor of two. So I think we should try to approach it is a stepwise, a substantial reduction at any one time, but stepwise. Decreasing down to what would be a more tolerable number.

HOW WOULD HE LIKE TO SEE LAND-BASED REDUCED? JUST MIRVS, ETC.

If we were to choose the most dangerous missiles in the sense, the ones which are most likely to lead to instabilities and mistakes and the possibility of a, of a surprise attack, those would be the large land-based missiles with multiple warheads. So I would like particularly to eliminate the large land— based missiles with multiple warheads. Now the problem is that that's what the Soviets have been counting on, that's their primary arsenal. And so it's difficult for us to ask them to get rid of their primary arsenal while we keep a lot of other things. Nevertheless, I believe there are compromises possible. They are building mobile missiles now and I believe that one can in the long run get rid of most of those very big multiple warhead missiles and I would hope we can.

DOES HE FEAR THAT IF WE MAKE DEEP CUTS IN THE MISSILES, WE'LL HAVE TOO FEW BASKETS FOR OUR EGGS?

There is some limit to the number of, number of warheads that we are going to have to have in the long run. I suppose that limit really is going to be the order of a few hundreds, which would be enough to take care of what could be hidden, or which small nations could build. But that remains for careful analysis. I think it's rather ... a rather tricky matter to decide just how many do we need of that kind of safeguard. Now in addition we want some variation in the type of missiles, just as we have the triad now, it's going to be important to have some variation. And we don't need as safe, as safe a system, we don't need a system which is safeguarded quite so carefully if nobody else has missiles which can destroy those, of course. So my view is that maybe we could reduce to five or six hundred. And then that could still be safe assuming no one else has, has appreciably more.

ASKS HIS COMMENTS ON HOW HARD IT WAS TO FIND A PLACE TO PUT THE MX, AND ABOUT THE STRUGGLE.

The long struggle to find a base for the MX missile really grows out of history, because silos and land-based missiles have been sort of THEE important successful big weapon of the past. And they were invulnerable, and safe, and secure. And they could just sit there and relatively low manpower required to keep them going. It was from the point of view of efficiency, a fine system. It was a dangerous system of course as any nuclear weapon is. When it comes to nuclear weapons, it was a good one. Now, we are very much locked into that. The whole, all countries were. And... however, as the technology changed, that became less viable. Nevertheless, we had already geared up to making more of them. And making additional big missiles. And the Soviets had lots of those missiles which were, could strike with the great alacrity and... so... it was a difficult question to know, well, could we stop? Or should we keep trying? And I think it was important for us to try very hard, and over some period of time, to make sure there was no something we were missing. It was difficult for the country, of course, because it represented so much indecision and no clear-cut solutions. But sometimes I think one has to face that as psychologically and technically, I believe, we have to go through that.

WE HAVE FAILED TO FIND A SAFE PLACE FOR THE MX.

If one looks at it overall, I would say, well, we haven't found, yet found a real solution, a good solution. Of course we haven't found a good solution for nuclear war, either. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying. And I think the question as to what extent can those kinds of considerations add to our stability, and what we found after a lot of study is that, generally, that doesn't add to our stability. But now we are satisfied with that, by and large. More satisfied than we would have been if we hadn't worked it over thoroughly. And we have also moved off, and as a result of these studies, moved off in some other directions. With emphasis on, as I say, command and communication control, and submarines and various other kinds of, various other kinds of safeguards. A new bomber which can get off the ground much quicker. That's an additional safeguard. So the overall study has, I think, yielded a better result than if we hadn't struggled with the problem.

WHY DID WE NEED THE MX?

Many people of course feel well, if you have one kind of weapon it will do the job, why worry about another one. And however, that really poses exactly this question of the triad. It's basically, the problem is so important that you need more than one safeguard. We can never predict the future perfectly. Submarines may be, will be attacked at some point. Maybe there will be ways of attacking submarines. And we know there are some ways of attacking land-based missiles. We know there are some ways of attacking submarines. Submarines are relatively safe, but maybe they won't be safe in the long run. Who knows? And we don't have turnaround time to do something else. In addition to that, submarines are not so easily controllable. The communications of submarines is chancy. We can communicate to them slowly but they can't get full information. They can't respond quickly. So we need a variety of systems. It really is a question of spreading your chances. You spread your chances because you can't really count on anything, any one thing, when it becomes so important. You really must use additional safeguards.

IS THERE ANY KEY MISTAKE IN THE HISTORY OF THIS MISSILE?

I think looking back on the situation one might argue that we should never have developed the MX missile. That of course was started quite along time ago when the technical situation was different. Some people would argue we should only have missiles with single warheads, now small missiles with single warheads are better. We shouldn't have the MX missile. I think that's a reasonable argument. The counter argument is that well, the Soviets have these very big missiles, much bigger than the MX, multiple warheads. And if we're going to persuade them to get rid of them because they are hazardous, we need some too, so they'll realize we're giving up something. So there is some counter argument there. Overall, I believe though if we had known what we know now and started again and let's say in the Carter and the pre-Carter Administration, we might well have just built small missiles and worked harder on trying to persuade the Soviets to do the same thing.