LET’S GO BACK TO BEFORE THE PRESIDENT TOOK OFFICE, TRANSITION TEAM TIME. WHAT WAS GREAT EXPECTATIONS, GREAT HOPES, GREAT EXPECTATIONS FOR BIG CHANGES IN WASHINGTON? WHAT WAS ON THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE WHO WERE PARTICIPATING IN THE REAGAN REVOLUTION?

Well, the story actually goes back much further, several years further back when the Republican National Committee as well as the people working in the Reagan primary and pre-primary campaign, in the campaign and I was associated with all of these, tried to look ahead what we would need if Governor Reagan became elected. And we looked at the problems in Central America and strategic forces, lack of any ballistic missile defense, the problems in other parts of the world, the broad issues of foreign and military policy.

THERE WAS A SENSE THAT IN WASHINGTON, I THINK IN THOSE YEARS, THAT THIS WAS A GROUP OF OUTSIDERS, PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE WASHINGTON POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT. CAN YOU CHARACTERIZE THE REAGAN TEAM IN ANY KIND OF WAY?

Well, I can answer this question certainly, particularly in the foreign policy area which I brought much of the team together with Richard Allen. And we reached out for the best minds of philosophically congenial experts in academia, in think tanks, and people who had been recently in government or to the extent they could work with us, just left government. So, it was not a group of some funny outsiders that had entirely new ideas and had no experience in government and no experience in strategy.

WAS THERE A COHERENT IDEOLOGY, A COHERENT POINT OF VIEW, THAT WAS BROAD ENOUGH TO CHARACTERIZE THE BULK OF THOSE JOINING THE ADMINISTRATION OR TAKING PART IN THE TRANSITION?

Let me again confine my remarks to the foreign policy and defense group.

I REALLY INTENDED TO BE CONFINED THERE.

Right. And natural, because there were broad common themes of wanting to have a safer, stronger America, of wanting to keep an open world to which we had access which wasn’t taken over by hostile totalitarian regimes. Of being more self-confident and less deprecating about what the United States could do and what it stood for.

WAS THERE A SENSE AT ALL THAT, I GUESS THE SENSE THAT I HAVE FROM LOOKING BACK AT THAT PERIOD IS THERE WAS A SENSE THAT WE WERE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH HAVING TO HAVE OUR NATIONAL SECURITY DEPEND UPON ALLIANCES AND NEGOTIATIONS WITH OUR ARCH RIVAL, OR OUR ENEMY, THE SOVIET UNION. AND THERE WAS AN ATTEMPT TO MAYBE GO IT ALONE, TO CREATE THE CONDITIONS BY WHICH AMERICA COULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS OWN DESTINY IN NATIONAL SECURITY TERMS. IS THAT A FAIR?

No, not really. It's a distortion which came about because we did some reassessment about our priorities among our allies. But concern for allies were very strong indeed. But in fact, I remember we actually had one special taskforce bringing out the importance of our commitments to our allies and why it was in the US interests to have allies and to keep alliances alive and strong. On negotiations with adversaries, I think everybody agreed on the team that that was a fact of life and you had to cope with that, too. But you had to do it in such a way so that the national interests could be enhanced, or at least protected.

THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION WHEN IT TOOK OFFICE BEGAN A LARGE MILITARY BUILD-UP, IT’S POPULAR, SO I GUESS THE LARGEST MILITARY BUILDUP IN HISTORY OR PEACETIME IN HISTORY?

Peacetime.

THANK YOU. CARTER HAD ACTUALLY BEGUN A MILITARY BUILDUP OF HIS OWN IN A NUMBER OF AREAS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF, I GUESS, WHAT, THE B1 BOMBER AND DIFFICULTY OF FINDING A BASING MODE FOR THE MX. WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION’S MILITARY HOPES AND THE CARTER’S?

Well, the turnaround in the Carter Administration came mainly in the last year, in 1980, and as far as defense buildup was concerned was mainly in the form of a proposed budget that the second Carter Administration might have put forward had Carter been reelected. That has never been put to test and whether it would have been cut back again after the election, we don’t know. I think one could in a friendly way argue, charitably, that it was partly a response to the realization of a Soviet threat that was triggered by the invasion of Afghanistan. Partly, it might have been a response to the election pressures that were sensed that the American people wanted a strong America so the outgoing Carter Administration before the election talked about a larger defense budget. We did very much build on things that were done the last year of the Carter Administration as far as the Persian Gulf is concerned. There is a great deal of continuity and we used the plans that were developed and carried them out.

WHAT ABOUT IN THE AREA OF STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS? WAS THERE A BIG CHANGE THERE?

There was a fairly big change there. As you mentioned, the B1 bomber, of course, then we combine this with the more advanced technology bomber. The greater emphasis on the D5 submarine base missile. And then, of course, starting in ’83, the focus on SDI.

PRIOR TO SDI FOR A MINUTE, WAS THERE, TELL US THE RATIONALE FOR THE SIZE OF THE BUILDUP OF STRATEGIC FORCES.

That the concern that the facts that we had to consider was that the Soviet threat had grown very, very much since the early ‘70s. In fact, we had one of the largest, or the largest, Soviet buildup in strategic forces of any decade that happened despite the SALT negotiations and was not contained by the SALT I agreement. And that needed some action on our part to maintain a viable deterrent. We were particularly weak in terms of the command and control structure. That is, in a way, the heart and the brain of our deterrent force. Now, you can go back to every annual report of Secretary Brown and previous Secretaries of Defense, and they all have some language in there that command and control of our strategic forces is vulnerable and has to be fixed. But they never got around asking Congress for the money until in 1981 then we did, Secretary Weinberger put the request forward and that, incidentally, is an important element of the Reagan program for strategic forces; fixing the vulnerability of the command and control structure. And incidentally, that has never been criticized in Congress.

MY IMPRESSION IS THAT OBVIOUSLY INCREASED MILITARY SPENDING WAS PART OF THE CAMPAIGN AND SEEMED TO GET GREAT SUPPORT BOTH IN CONGRESS INITIALLY AND ALSO PROBABLY TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU CAN MEASURE IT, FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. COUPLED WITH THAT, I THINK IN THE EARLY YEARS, WAS A LACK OF INTEREST ON THE PART OF THE ADMINISTRATION IN ENTERING INTO ARMS NEGOTIATION TALKS WITH THE SOVIET UNION. DO YOU HAVE A COMMENT ON THAT?

Well, looking back at what happened after 1981, we can see that the increase to defense’s effort was really a great success. There were no soviet advances, no new Soviet aggression like the invasion of Afghanistan in late ’79. No new territory acquired by Soviet military, direct Soviet military action. And the United States had more weight in international affairs. In fact, it had so much weight in Moscow then that became possible for President Reagan to negotiate these arms control, arms reduction agreements which around ’81, ’82, people said were outrageous demands, they were nonnegotiable.

SO YOU'RE SAYING YOU THINK THAT BECAME POSSIBLE BECAUSE WE WERE ABLE TO NEGOTIATE FROM A POSITION OF STRENGTH?

And convince the Soviet Union that we had the will and the capability to maintain our own defensive forces.

THERE WAS SOME TALK, NOT VERY OFFICIAL TALK, BUT THERE WAS SOME CHAT, I GUESS IS THE WAY TO PUT IT, DURING THE FIRST COUPLE OF YEARS ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY THAT WE MIGHT ACTUALLY BE INVOLVED IN A NUCLEAR EXCHANGE AT SOME POINT WITH THE SOVIET UNION. AND IF THAT DID COME TO PASS, THAT WE SHOULD BE IN A POSITION TO WIN THAT EXCHANGE, OR AT LEAST TO SURVIVE IT. CAN YOU GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?

I don’t like the word nuclear exchange, it’s like an exchange of wheat and so on. It’s a horrible term and I always cross it out when I see it somewhere. What we have to be concerned about is a possibility of a Soviet nuclear attack, which might be a very limited attack in order to win a conventional battle in the hope that we wouldn’t respond because we have inferior forces, wouldn’t fully respond, or whatever. Or could be a very massive attack and designed to take out our nuclear forces. And it’s the latter mostly that people tend to focus on and that is, of course, very important to keep the chances of that infinitesimally small because it would be the end of our history. And I mean that. If you have such a massive attack, there's no chances of the United States surviving as the kind of country we know and we care to preserve and that was never different. The fact that we worked on improving the command and control structure for our nuclear deterrent forces, something every previous Secretary of Defense said should be done but didn’t get around to fund. Doesn’t mean that the Reagan Administration sort of cheerfully thought about fighting a global massive nuclear war, but that we wanted to be, are determined to be safe, to be less hair-triggered, that we didn’t want to permit what the experts call, an awkward word, decapitation; taking out the command centers, didn’t even have to hit the forces.

ONE OF THE ONLY, I MAY BE WRONG ABOUT THIS, I PROBABLY AM, BUT ONE OF THE ONLY REAL NOTABLE LACK OF SUCCESSES IN THE EARLY YEARS IN TERMS OF MILITARY EXPENDITURES WAS IN THEIR CIVIL DEFENSE PROGRAM, WHICH I THINK DID NOT GO. AM I CORRECT, THAT DID NOT FLY, SO TO SPEAK?

Well, the people who are responsible to advocate civil defense made a good case, but it was realized throughout the administration, a lot of people looked at it, that was not something that should be pushed fully on the Hill. So it was really not tried.

IT’S NEVER BEEN VERY POPULAR WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, CIVIL DEFENSE?

And it has its severe limitations because in a massive nuclear attack, of course you could possibly reduce the destruction and casualties but it’s a very unattractive picture. And in a limited nuclear attack, you probably, the enemy, if at all rational, I'm not talking about a terrorist attack, would not attack your civil population anyhow.

WHEN YOU'RE ON THE HILL, AND WE SPENT THE DAY UP THERE, AND YOU TALKED TO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND STAFF MEMBERS ABOUT THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION, YOU GET THE SENSE THAT THE HILL, IT WAS AN ENORMOUSLY IMPORTANT EVENT, ALMOST LIKE A CRUSADE COMING TO THE HILL AND LIBERALS GOT VERY DEPRESSED AND NOBODY CAME TO THEIR OFFICES AND THEY LOOKED OUT AND SAW PEOPLE WANDERING BY AND GOING TO REPUBLICANS’ OFFICES AND REPUBLICANS GOT VERY EXCITED BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT ONLY IN CONTROL BUT THEY HAD A PROGRAM, A DEFINED PROGRAM, THAT WAS GOING TO CHANGE THINGS. HOW WAS THE ADMINISTRATION, IN THAT KIND OF FEELING SENSE, HOW DID THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT REACT TO THE COMING OF THE REAGAN YEARS? WAS IT AN ENTHUSIASM THAT NOW WE CAN GET BACK ON THE RIGHT COURSE?

Well, I'm not a representative of the military establishment. I came in with the Reagan Administration in 1981 as a presidential appointee. So, I'm talking here from the outside about trying to answer your question. I felt they recognized that there was more appreciation of what they were trying to do. And I think the strongest and the most deep felt reaction, response and appreciation, concerned personnel. That President Reagan personally spoke about military personnel and people in uniform in a way that raised their prestige. And, of course, we improved under Secretary Weinberger and President Reagan the living conditions. So the morale went up. The recruitment improved, the percentage of high school graduates went up markedly, the drug abuse, absent without leave, all these bad indicators went down, the good indicators all went up. And at the end of the Reagan Administration, there's a much better personnel structure than, this is really the core of our forces. And another thing, the American people now regard, if you look at some of the opinion polls of the military, with the highest esteem above, I think, the clergy, above the Supreme Court in terms of their ranking of various professions, you know?

WERE YOU INVOLVED AT ALL IN THE PLANNING FOR THE PRESIDENT’S STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE SPEECH IN MARCH OF ’83?

Yes, I was and he had, of course, a concept there and we were able to make some suggestions. And help shaping it. But it essentially was his speech. His language.

THE IMPRESSION I GOT FROM READING CONTEMPORARY PRESS ACCOUNTS WAS THAT THE PRESIDENT MORE OR LESS DREAMED THE IDEA OF SDI ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT, OR AT LEAST AFTER A COUPLE OF CONVERSATIONS WITH DR. TELLER AND MAYBE DANNY GRAHAM. BUT SINCE THEN, READING AND TALKING TO MORE PEOPLE, IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS WAS A LONG-HELD IDEA. HE DID NOT COME UPON THIS AT THE LAST MINUTE, BUT IN FACT HAD BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS FOR SOME TIME. AND CLEARLY, A LOT OF THE PEOPLE IN THE ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN. COULD YOU TELL ME SOMETHING, CORRECT THE RECORD HERE FOR THE BACKGROUND OF THE ORIGINS OF THAT IDEA?

Well, it’s not an idea that came out of the blue. It’s consistent with the President’s philosophy and as Governor Reagan and the campaign, it’s consistent with his thinking at the time, his concerns about the indefinite confrontation of these horrible offensive forces with no way of handling even an accidental launch, let alone a major attack. And also reflected in a way, I think, is closest to the American people. Because you know opinion polls show that most of the Americans, I think 60 percent or so, a number of polls, actually think we have a missile defense not knowing that we don't have any against even a single missile. And, of course, it was very popular and he sensed that there was a need to which it was proper for him to try to respond. Together with that predisposition, you might say, came the information he got from people like Professor Teller and Danny Graham and others who pointed out that technology had changed and while a verdict was passed in the early ‘60s that our ballistic missile defense was technically not feasible in a reasonable budget, any possible budget, now it might become feasible and we should do the research to see how this could be done.

IN HIS SPEECH, HE USES WORDS THAT ARE, I MEAN HE USES ALMOST WHAT SEEMS LIKE HYPERBOLE TODAY. RENDER NUCLEAR MISSILES—

Nuclear missiles obsolete, impotent and obsolete.

IMPOTENT AND OBSOLETE. HAS THERE BEEN A SCALING DOWN OF THE EXPECTATIONS OF SDI OVER THE... DURING THE COURSE OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS?

I think an enrichment of the time period needed to do the research, how long it would take, the deployment, we have some better idea of the budgets, better understanding what kind of measures might be thrown at a defensive shield and how the shield could be strengthened or prepared in a way so as to make, to nullify these countermeasures. So, more is known about it. And, of course, there's been a lot of criticism. Actually, but something very important happened. In ’83 when the President went public with his idea and announced his decision, a lot of the critics said, “That's total nonsense. We should have no defense, we should have no ballistic missile defense because that provides our stability, that concept of stability through total mutual vulnerability,” which of course since then has been further criticized and lot of people, including myself, have gone into the detailed fallacies of the reason that this mutual assured destruction provides stability for all the contingencies for which we must prepare. And that got through. And so toward the end of the Reagan administration, it was not whether but how much and how fast.

WAS THERE A DIFFERENCE, THOUGH? I THINK THE FEELING THE PRESIDENT GAVE US WAS THAT WE WOULD BE DEFENDED DIRECTLY AGAINST, I MEAN, IT WOULD BE AN UMBRELLA. WE’D BE SPARED THE HOLOCAUST SHOULD A WAR, SHOULD NUCLEAR MISSILES BE EXCHANGED FROM BOTH SIDES. NOW WHAT I HEAR IS MORE IT IS ANOTHER LEVEL OF DETERRENCE TO DETER THE SOVIETS FROM ATTACKING BECAUSE WE’LL STILL HAVE A RETALIATORY FORCE AVAILABLE TO US TO RESPOND. BUT BASICALLY IT’S STILL, WE'RE STILL...

Well, correct. We are now looking at the more immediate possibilities and the realities of a combination of offensive forces and defensive forces which has mutually enforcing characteristics to help deterrence. But also to handle a more limited attack which might result from a limited conflict from a third power, from a terrorist attack, from an accident. And kind of making all missiles impotent and obsolete and maybe abolished is a more distant prospect, clearly.

ARE WE CURRENTLY LOOKING AT ANYTHING MORE ELABORATE THAN THE SYSTEM THAT THE SOVIETS ARE DEVELOPING, ARE CONTINUING TO DEVELOP AROUND MOSCOW?

Well, the Soviets are not just looking at Moscow, they have a very extensive program of not only research, development, they have built this radar net around the whole country. One of those radars has become infamous because it’s a clear violation of the ABM Treaty. They have an infrastructure and they are well prepared to develop a nationwide defensive system.

DR. IKLE, I'M GOING TO SWITCH TO ARMS CONTROL AGAIN AND YOU'VE ANSWERED THIS IN A SENSE THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO AGAIN IF YOU DON'T WANT. BUT I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU AGAIN IN THE CONTEXT OF NOW THE LATER PART OF THE YEAR. YOU COULD LOOK AT THE COURSE OF THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION AND SAY, I THINK, THAT A PRESIDENT COMES TO OFFICE RELUCTANT TO NEGOTIATE, UNWILLING-- HAVING CRITICIZED EVERY PREVIOUS ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENT THAT WE’D SIGNED WITH THE SOVIETS. AND YET NOW SEVEN OR EIGHT YEARS LATER PULLED BACK TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, IS ABOUT TO NEGOTIATE AND SIGN PROBABLY AN ARMS ACCORD WITH THE SOVIET UNION. DOES THIS REPRESENT A SHIFT IN HIS PRIORITIES, THAT BEING PRESIDENT SOMEHOW TEACHES YOU THINGS, IT LEADS YOU TO A DIFFERENT CONCLUSION OR WHAT?

I think it’s more that he discovered that the prescription he himself worked out and his supporters elaborated on, namely that if you have a strong position, you can get some genuine arms reductions which make a difference. Instead of these ceilings to which the Soviets can build up and where they can go beyond because they're badly drawn treaties. His discovery that the distinction is valid. There are bad arms control agreements, and there can be good arms control agreement and that kindled his interest.

HE IS UNDER SOME CRITICISM FROM SOME CONSERVATIVES OVER THE POSSIBILITY OF THESE AGREEMENTS, IS HE NOT?

Well, there is concern and he was sunder criticism from the so-called liberals that he wanted these far reaching agreements because he wanted to kill arms control, and then he gets criticized for getting the kind of arms control that he was blamed for trying to kill.

PUTTING YOURSELF IN THE, PROJECTING 50 YEARS FROM NOW, YOU'RE A HISTORIAN AND YOU'RE WRITING ABOUT THE REAGAN YEARS ARE A PARAGRAPH IN YOUR BOOK AND YOU HAVE TO HAVE TWO OR THREE SENTENCES ON REAGAN’S CONTRIBUTION TO OUR MILITAR, OUR DEFENSE, OUR NATIONAL SECURITY, WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY’LL SAY ABOUT THIS EIGHT YEAR PERIOD?

I think the important point is the turning point in combining offense and defense in a reasonable way. Not just in the strategic area where we had only offense when he came into office and no defense, and now SDI is how everyone thinks about the level of SDI, is accepted as an important contribution. But in a conventional area where we had the opposite, mostly defense and no counter offense. And there he carried forward those programs. Or if you look at the counterinsurgency area, we had only defensive counterinsurgency and then we got the Reagan doctrine, the counter offensive. So the mix in all these levels makes for a stronger and safer defense. I think that might be a critical retrospective view.

WILL SDI SUSTAIN AS A-- EVEN UNDER A, SAY, A DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION, SHOULD THAT HAPPEN? WILL SDI, DO YOU THINK REMAIN A POTENT FORCE IN AMERICAN MILITARY PLANNING?

Well, it’s a small part of the budget. We're talking about one or two or three percent, even at a high level of increase. And as such, it wouldn't be the other 97 or 99 percent in the Pentagon that drive things and pay people and all that. So it isn't that potent to begin with. But the idea that you should somehow stay away from defense, I think, will remain as a clarification.