...ON THE PRESIDENT'S THINKING WAS ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS, WHEN HE WAS TRYING TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO IN 1953.

Well, of course, he brought with him from his service in SHAPE as Supreme Allied Commander for NATO in Europe some ideas pretty well formed ideas, about the role of nuclear weapons. I'd worked with him over there at during his time at SHAPE. Some of this went back to the time of the formation of the command, when we were trying to reconcile as the, as the term was, the requirements of effective defense with the political economic capabilities of the member countries. There was a big study, three wise men Harriman, Monnet and Gaitskell initially, then Plowden for the United Kingdom, made a study which culminated in the so-called Lisbon goals. Now, those Lisbon goals were well beyond what any of the countries were prepared to provide.

WHAT WERE THE LISBON GOALS?

The idea there was that the NATO countries would provide 30 divisions on active duty, and up to 90 divisions, total active and reserve. And that was far beyond what was in prospect. At that point, account was taken of the possible role of nuclear weapons. And in fact, in late 1952, early 1953, we made a major study of what the role of nuclear weapons could be and indeed would be likely to be in case conflicts should occur. After a small study group, of which I was a member, made that study, we then presented the findings to the higher NATO authorities and indeed came back and presented the findings to President Eisenhower, who was by that time the President. This being I think in sometime in 1954.

AND WHAT WAS THE RESULT OF THAT STUDY? THAT THEY REALLY WERE USABLE MILITARY TOOLS?

Yes, that they had to be taken into account, and, if used, really could have quite a stunning and halting effect on any major attack launched against the NATO forces. And, of course, having the capability to do that added to the deterrent, gave confidence that this war was not likely to occur. And, indeed, that was the role of the nuclear weapons, a primary role over the years, and has remained so.

IF YOU CAN DESCRIBE HOW THINGS LOOKED TO YOU AND TO GENERAL EISENHOWER WHEN YOU WERE IN PARIS AT SHAPE, HOW DID THE SITUATION LOOK TO YOU THERE?

Initially, when General Eisenhower took over the command, we had almost nothing in the way of organized forces. One anecdote that was told was to ask, what do the Russians need to move to the Channel, and the answer is, all they need is shoes. Because there were very few weapons that would be opposing them. Now, we went to work in the planning immediately to see what forces would be required in order to mount a respectable defense and an effective deterrent. Out of that came a determination that we needed something like 30 divisions on active duty and as many as 90 total active and reserve. Now, that was much more than the countries had any plans to provide. And in order to deal with that gap, so to speak, that disparity we planned to rely on the nuclear weapons that were then coming into existence, recognizing that if those weapons were ever used against a massed attacking force, it would have— they would have devastating effect. And their existence meant that there was a powerful deterrent to the Russians, thinking about moving by force against any of the countries of Western Europe. So that entered into Eisenhower's thinking. We did some planning a small planning group of staff officers of whom I was one set about to determine what the role of the nuclear weapons would be, would be likely to be, in case conflict were to occur. And it was clear that they would have a very powerful effect against any attacking force. We then moved that into our planning, which of course was basically deterrent planning. Eisenhower himself carried that back to the States in his own thinking when he became President, and it entered into the so-called new look the idea that nuclear weapons had to be taken into account in any major conflict. Our little planning group in fact came back to the United States sometime in 1954, during his second year of his presidency, to present the results of our, of our studies. In the meantime, of course, he had done a lot of studying and had many very careful analyses made of nuclear weapons, not only in the regional application, possible regional use, but also in the in terms of their use in the strategic forces.

TALKING OF STRATEGIC FORCES, WHAT DID THE PHRASE "MASSIVE RETALIATION" MEAN FOR THE PRESIDENT AT ANY RATE?

Well, he like Dulles the President, like Dulles, always made a differentiation between massive retaliation and a capacity for massive retaliation. The idea being that the existence of that capacity would impose restraint on, certainly on the Soviet Union or anyone else planning to make a major attack against American interests, Now, I think Secretary Dulles went a little further thinking that the existence of those weapons and the threat of their use could dissuade other powers than the Soviet Union and Communist China. I think Eisenhower himself felt that their main significance was to impose restraint on those two great powers.

SO WHAT WAS THE PRESIDENT'S REACTION TO THE CRITICISM, ESPECIALLY FROM THE ARMY, THAT BY RELYING TOO HEAVILY ON MASSIVE RETALIATION AND ESPECIALLY ON SAC, AND BY ALLOWING THE ARMY PARTICULARLY TO LOSE IN TERMS OP MANPOWER, THAT HE WAS NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO RESPOND TO MORE LIMITED AGGRESSION AND IT WAS AN UNREALISTIC THREAT.

It was a very fixed part of Eisenhower's view to avoid commitment of our forces in every way possible in such limited or small-scale operations. The lesson of Korea had been a very bitter one to our country. He was able to accomplish the disengagement from Korea, and he had no desire to be drawn into interventions of that kind. And this remained a continuing difference between him and the army throughout his whole term of service.

SO HIS ANSWER REALLY WAS, IT ISN'T A PROBLEM BECAUSE IT ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN?

He didn't intend to allow it to happen. And I have to say, he was rather skillful at finding ways to avoid that kind of commitment. He recognized that this might occur. And I know that he discussed it with Secretary Dulles at a later point of his administration. And he recognized that the possibility existed that through minor operations of that kind, our position around the world could erode. But he felt it was really up to the countries of the area in the first instance to provide for their security, and his notion was to limit any support that we gave-

JUST REPEAT THAT AGAIN.

And Eisenhower's idea was to limit any support that we might decide to give to material support, to training support and that kind of thing, without becoming involved. And particularly without becoming involved with troops on the ground.

ONE EXAMPLE WHERE IT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED THAT THE UNITED STATES MIGHT HAVE FOUND ITSELF INVOLVED IN A LIMITED WAR WAS, OF COURSE, THE QUEMOY AND MATSU CRISIS OF 1955, WHICH YOU YOURSELF WERE INVOLVED IN. CAN YOU GIVE US AN IDEA OF ESPECIALLY HOW CLOSE YOU THINK THE UNITED STATES CAME TO USING NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THAT OCCASION AND WHAT THE PRESIDENT'S ATTITUDE WAS THERE?

The background of that was that the mainland Chinese had mounted threats against two other sets of islands along the Chinese coast. And we had persuaded I think would be the right term Chiang Kai-shek to evacuate those islands. He then moved to Quemoy and Matsu, and he felt that those were under threat. At that point President Eisenhower sent me out to Hawaii to Pearl Harbor to talk to Admiral Stump, who was our commander in chief in the Pacific, to get his assessment of whether the mainland Chinese could successfully attack Quemoy and Matsu. Admiral Stump's assessment was that if the nationalist Chinese on Formosa and on Quemoy and Matsu, had as much as three weeks to prepare a defense, then it was unlikely that the Chinese from the mainland would be able to overrun the island islands. Now, in the meantime, we would be in a difficult and vulnerable and uncertain situation. As it turned out, they did not press the attack. And the nationalist Chinese built up a considerable force, which would have made the islands quite an expensive thing to take. Had the mainland Chinese attacked in that early period, then we might have been confronted with a situation where the nationalist Chinese could have been defeated or destroyed barring our intervention. That would have presented us with a very difficult policy decision, and it was to assess that likelihood that Eisenhower President Eisenhower had me go out and talk to our commander out there.

IT WAS JUST DURING THAT PERIOD THAT THE PRESIDENT MADE HIS FAMOUS STATEMENT AT A PRESS CONFERENCE THAT WHEN USED FOR MILITARY PURPOSES, THERE'S NO REASON WHY YOU SHOULDN'T USE ATOMIC WEAPONS JUST LIKE BULLETS. THAT HAD A GREAT EFFECT ON EUROPEAN ALLIES AMONG OTHERS. DO YOU THINK HE REALLY MEANT THAT?

At that time Eisenhower's thinking very much was that any kind of military conflict that he would allow our country to be drawn into would if necessary, be pursued by the weapons at hand. And at that time, I believe it was part of his thinking that if necessary we would employ them. Understanding Eisenhower, you have to know that he would be thinking of something else at the same time. And that is, the fact of his saying that would exercise a considerable deterrent on the mainland Chinese. Because, of course, we had the background of his similar action making clear a threat of possible nuclear use in Korea in order to bring that war to an end.

DO YOU THINK IT WAS THE CASE THAT IF THE CHINESE HAD ATTACKED DURING THAT THREE-WEEK PERIOD, AND IF THE PRESIDENT HAD DECIDED THAT THOSE ISLANDS SHOULD BE DEFENDED — AND OF COURSE NEITHER OF THOSE MIGHT NECESSARILY HAVE HAPPENED — WAS THE UNITED STATES CAPABLE OF DEFENDING THOSE OFF-SHORE ISLANDS WITHOUT USING NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN FACT?

Well, there was, there was argument at the time as to whether we had the capability of defending them by conventional means alone. We had considerable statements to the effect that we had reduced our conventional capability because of this policy, part of the new look of relying on the nuclear weapons. And I recall Admiral Radford, who was then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telling the President, now Mr. President, if that is not our policy we had better know that, because that would imply having a greater conventional capability than we are now planning on and providing for. I think as the years went along we began to rebuild some of our conventional capability, because it came to be recognized that we would have to exercise considerable restraint in terms of the actual use of nuclear weapons for anything but an all-out or a life or death situation.

SO THERE WAS IN FACT AN EVOLUTION IN THE PRESIDENT'S THINKING ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND PARTICULARLY THE SOVIET H-BOMB WAS INVOLVED IN THAT. COULD YOU DESCRIBE HOW THAT HAPPENED?

I would say that Eisenhower's thinking evolved very considerably over this period, and a major event in that evolution was the attainment of the thermonuclear weapon, the H-bomb, by the Soviet Union. On our side, he had been— he had studied the significance of the thermonuclear weapon. That came after his time over at SHAPE. But we were, even during that time, subsequent to his departure at SHAPE, we, studied the significance of the, of the thermonuclear weapon. He was doing the same back here in this country. And in particular, he had a study made that showed that the thermonuclear weapon, in combination with the long-range rocket and the improved accuracy of the long-range rocket, that made a new weapon, a weapon which really created a new strategic situation, the possibility of very sudden and just completely devastating attacks against going right into the homelands of the two largest powers. So he became increasingly concerned about that and looked for ways of trying to turn back, to reduce, to eliminate, to control this buildup in these terribly threatening and terribly powerful weapons. And it was out of that his interest grew in atoms for peace and in disarmament arms control negotiation to try to eliminate the likelihood of a surprise attack, the so-called knock-out blow.

SO IF YOU COULD DESCRIBE HOW THE ADVENT OF THE SOVIET H-BOMB AFFECTED THE PRESIDENT'S THINKING?

Well, that takes us back it was in 1952 that our own device was exploded. And then this was weaponized, as the saying goes, in about the next year. But it was really when the Soviet Union exploded their H-bomb that Eisenhower began to concentrate on what this meant in terms of the prospects of war. The H-bomb combined with the long-range rocket, and more accurate means of targeting, meant that a devastating and sudden and tremendously destructive blow could be delivered by each country against the other. He began to think about that, and more and more his thoughts turned to some kind of arms control or arms reduction. The one element of his thinking was the atoms for peace, trying to convert the use of the, of the atomic power to peaceful means uses alone. The other was to introduce disarmament efforts, arms control efforts, negotiations to eliminate the likelihood of a knock-out blow, as the, as the term was, against the forces or the industrial industries and populations of the two countries.

ONE OF THE FAIRLY EARLY ATTEMPTS AT ARMS CONTROL WAS THE PRESIDENT'S OPEN SKIES OFFER AT THE GENEVA SUMMIT IN 1955. DID HE REALLY EXPECT THAT WOULD BE ACCEPTED? AND CAN YOU GO ON TO TELL US ABOUT ITS RECEPTION BY THE SOVIETS AND THE PRESIDENT'S REACTION TO THAT?

The President thought that there was at least a chance that the Soviets would enter into negotiation. And if we could not attain the complete results that he proposed, that is, the open skies and the exchange of military blueprints to ease the tension and reduce the causes of concern on both sides, that if he couldn't attain all of it, he could at least attain some of that. So he was hopeful that there would be a positive response. In addition, he wanted them to see that he was reaching for peaceful measures, Now, he presented that to them. It was rather a dramatic thing. And the initial reaction was expressed by Bulganin, who extemporized and said, well, they would have to talk about it and think about it. We broke up shortly after that from the formal session, and went into tea, where there was always some informal discussion after the after the main meetings. And during this tea, Khrushchev who was the co-leader of the Soviet delegation, came up to Eisenhower and he said, no. And Eisenhower said later that at that moment he knew where the power really was in Soviet delegation, that Khrushchev was the man in charge.

HOW DID HE THINK ABOUT KHRUSHCHEV, AND DID HIS THINKING ABOUT KHRUSHCHEV DEVELOP OVER THE REMAINING YEARS THAT HE—

He, he saw Khrushchev as a very strong, decisive, volatile, astute well grounded greatly experienced leader. Quite a, quite an able and effective leader. I think that Khrushchev's unpredictability and volatility troubled Eisenhower, as it troubled as they troubled many other people. But he also felt that it was important to have exchanges of views and build an understanding on Khrushchev's part that we the United States really saw no merit in resort to the military mode of interaction with them.

HOW SERIOUSLY DID EISENHOWER REGARD THIS THREAT OF SURPRISE ATTACK, ESPECIALLY AGAINST SAC, AGAINST OUR MEANS OF RETALIATING. AND IF YOU COULD ANSWER THAT QUESTION BOTH BEFORE, WHILE THE THREAT WAS STILL ONE OF BOMBERS, AND THEN LATER ON MISSILES.

I don't think that Eisenhower was too deeply concerned with the threat of a knockout blow during the time of that of the bombers, so to speak. We had a air defense at that time. No attacking force could be sure how many would get through, what the results would be and so on. So the notion that there could be any kind of a of a devastating first strike that would completely destroy our ability to retaliate that didn't seem practical. He wanted us to have capable air defense, that was part of his program at that time. Now, that changed, and changed quite decisively when the long-range rockets began to appear. There then became the possibility that these could be launched, with a high prospect of success. High enough that he had to be concerned that the possibility might be tempting to the Soviet Union, if they go themselves into some kind of thinking that this was something that they wanted to do or had to do, and so on. That then became a matter of concern, and of such concern that he sent negotiators to Geneva to open up discussions with the with the Russians. Two very highly qualified scientists went there and conducted discussions for quite a long period of time.

HE ALSO OF COURSE TOOK MEASURES — WELL, WE'LL COME TO THAT IN A MINUTE PERHAPS. DID HE GIVE ANY THOUGHT AT ANY TIME TO PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES BY PREEMPTIVE STRIKE IF IT WAS CLEAR THAT THE SOVIETS WERE GOING TO ATTACK, RATHER THAN WAITING FOR THEM TO ATTACK AND RETALIATING?

Well, we had in some of the statements by some— in some quarters proposing such things as preventive war. He thought that was just errant nonsense, and I think those are probably the exact words that he, that he used. The idea of escalatory preemption if you were in a war situation, his idea always was that it becomes very difficult to predict in advance how military operations will develop once the there has been resort to war. But the idea of deliberate, calculated preemption from our side as to initiate conflict, I never saw any evidence that he seriously entertained that. But I make a difference there between that and escalatory preemption if you're engaged in a struggle, then no one can predict which weapons will be used at what time on either side.

SOMEBODY, WELL, ROBERT SPRAGUE TO BE PRECISE, SAYS THAT GENERAL LEMAY TOLD HIM IN 1957 THAT HE, GENERAL LEMAY, IF HE LEARNED FROM HIS OWN INTELLIGENCE THAT THE SOVIET UNION WAS MASSING FOR AN ATTACK, WOULD, AS HE PUT IT, GET THE BASTARDS BEFORE THEY COULD GET OFF THE GROUND. AND WHEN ROBERT SPRAGUE SAID TO GENERAL LEMAY THAT IS NOT NATIONAL POLICY, ACCORDING TO MR. SPRAGUE, GENERAL LEMAY SAID, WELL, IT MAY NOT BE NATIONAL POLICY, BUT IT'S MY POLICY. DO YOU HAVE ANY REACTION TO THAT STORY?

I think there was an awful lot of nonsense being purveyed at that time. The law says that the President has the authority to determine the firing of nuclear weapons, and only the President. And President Eisenhower certainly knew that. He held that authority to himself. The, the serious point about ideas of that kind as it as it developed during our inquiry into this, was that SAC might not be prepared for the kind of thing that might happen. Instead, they were preparing for the kind of thing that was very unlikely to happen. And so this also entered into Eisenhower's concern about the knock-out— possibility of a knock-out blow. He wanted to take steps to eliminate or reduce that possibility, because he simply did— was not about to be placed in a position of permitting that kind of anticipatory response.

IT IS PRESUMABLY TRUE THAT AT THAT ERA THERE WERE NO ACTUAL PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS LIKE THE (?) THAT CAME IN LATER THAT COULD ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY HAVE PREVENTED— I MEAN, I SUPPOSE IF YOU WANT TO CONCEIVE OF IT, THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE FOR GENERAL LEMAY TO HAVE UNLEASHED THESE BOMBS WITHOUT THE PRESIDENT BEING ABLE TO STOP HIM?

In any period subsequent to Cromwell in the English-speaking countries, I find it very hard to imagine--

OH YES, POLITICALLY IT'S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE, BUT WHAT I'M SAYING IS THAT THERE ARE NOW, AS I UNDERSTAND IT, PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS WHICH MEAN THAT WITHOUT THE CODES YOU CAN'T DO IT. WHEREAS AT THAT TIME THAT HADN'T BEEN BROUGHT IN HAD IT?

No. But there was a very clear understanding at the time that any authorization to use these weapons had to come from the President. And regardless of any internal planning or concepts that might have been developed Eisenhower was the man that would control that. I think everybody understood and accepted that.

WHAT WAS THE PRESIDENT'S REACTION TO THE GAITHER REPORT, AND ALSO CAN YOU GO ON AND TELL US ABOUT HIS REACTION TO THE PRIVATE MEETING THAT HAPPENED IN THE OVAL OFFICE AFTERWARDS, WHEN MR. SPRAGUE GAVE HIS WARNING ABOUT MOBILITY?

The Gaither study and then the Gaither report began with the concern as to whether we were— we had sufficient and adequate civil defense program. That if there should be an attack on the United States, had we done what we should do to protect our people and to enable them to survive and recover from such an attack. As the study proceeded, they got more and more into this question of the knockout blow, and our abilities to retain our forces as a retaliatory force in case of such an attack. Now in preparing their study, they had access to all intelligence information, some of it of the most sensitive kind in terms of the sources and the methods that were used to produce it. And that was reflected, it was inter-larded through their report. They came in and gave their report to Eisenhower, and my own reading of his reaction was that they're simply telling me a lot of things that I knew perfectly well already and jumping from that to proposals for crash actions that don't seem to me to follow. And so he was not too strongly persuaded. Then we got into the problem that because he did not plan to take any crash actions, the people, many of the people who participated in the report were dissatisfied. It began to leak, and calls began to arise for the report to be released. Well, it turned out that you couldn't release it without sanitizing it, as the saying goes, to remove this very sensitive material. If you remove the sensitive material the thing didn't make any sense; it would just riddle the report. Then there was the thought, well, we will have a sanitized version rewritten. Well, of course, that would have no credibility at all. So, we were really in a difficult situation. And the result of that was that Eisenhower came under a good deal of pressure and he found it very difficult to respond to that pressure.

WHAT WAS HIS SPECIFIC REACTION TO THE PRIVATE OR SEMI-PRIVATE MEETING AFTER THE BIG NSC MEETING ON NOVEMBER THE 7TH, WHEN MR. SPRAGUE WARNED THE PRESIDENT THAT IN THE CASE OF ATTACK WITH ONLY TACTICAL WARNING, NOT A SINGLE BOMBER OF SAC COULD BE GUARANTEED TO GET OFF THE GROUND WITH A FULL BOMB LOAD AND BE ABLE TO RETALIATE? HOW DID THE— BECAUSE MR, SPRAGUE RECALLS THE PRESIDENT JUST SITTING THERE AND SAYING NOTHING FOR TWO MINUTES AND HE WAS VERY EMBARRASSED.

The President I think, felt then, as he had felt about the Gaither Report as a whole, that this was well known to him, and he was interested primarily in what could be done about it. One of the things done about it was to institute a program of airborne alert for a very limited number of aircraft. That's very wearing on the aircraft in terms of maintenance and spare parts and keeping up the readiness of the, of the force. But in order to get around that — that's what he was interested in. The the people that participated in this saw a much more dramatic effect than Eisenhower did. And of course, I th— I think that was part of his normal reaction. He, he did not like did not respond when people tried to dramatize or alarm him. Instead, he looked for the practical steps that could be taken that might alleviate this. And where he parted company with them, was when they pr— somehow coupled the idea of a crash program of producing intercontinental missiles to the findings of the Gaither Report. He, he did not see the reason for a crash program. And on that position he came under pressure and under attack from people who wanted such a program, for the remainder of his whole administration.

WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT (EISENHOWER) SAY TO YOU IMMEDIATELY AFTER THAT MEETING WITH SPRAGUE?

My recollection is that as just after the meeting he was talking about it and he said, "Hell, these people come in here and they tell me things I've known all along." And then either then or at a later time, he coupled that with "I'm not going to dance at the end of these, the string of these people that come in and try to give me all these scare stories that I've known about all along," and ... his whole method was to reserve to himself for very sober reflection and consideration, the actions to be taken and... he was just adamantly opposed to militarizing, increasing the militarization, if I can use the term, of the confrontation of the of the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. That ran exactly counter to one of his major efforts throughout his whole administration.

ONE OF THE OTHER PRESSURES ON HIM TO INCREASE THAT MILITARIZATION WERE THE INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES COMING THROUGH RIGHT THROUGH THIS PERIOD. CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT HIS REACTION WHEN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY STARTED PROPHESYING THE BOMBER GAP?

Well, the bomber gap was a public term; I don't think the intelligence community itself used the term, but the they were showing the possibility of a large buildup in Soviet long-range bombers. And... I discussed this with him, and over a period of about a year, maybe two years, he... asked, and I looked back to see what had they predicted the year before. And in looking into that, I found that what happened was that the estimate had remained very much the same but had just slid for about a year, and the reason for that, as it turned out, was that they were estimating that the Soviets might employ some of their industrial capability to increase this their productive facilities for... bombers. They did not in fact do that, and because they didn't do it, the rate of production remained really quite low, and there was no bomber gap. By the time we came to the missile situation, and the proposals for a crash program, because of some anticipated missile gap, we began to look at the same thing: Let's look to see what actual facilities they seem to be using to produce these or to deploy these missiles, and our intelligence did not show them engaged in any massive or very rapid buildup. And it was for those reasons that he concluded that there had never been a bomber gap that had always been a fiction, and as he put it, "The missile gap shows every sign of being the same."

SOME OF HIS CRITICS, FOR EXAMPLE, JOSEPH ALSOP, ACCUSE HIM OF RELYING ON INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES OF SOVIET INTENTIONS, RATHER THAN ON THE WORST-CASE ESTIMATES.

The if you took the...If you took the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union, you could speculate on what they could produce if they used it for bombers, if they used it for rockets, if alternatively they used it to increase their ground forces or if they used it to increase their submarines and so on. And depend on, depending on what assumptions you used in that particular area of worst-case, you could get kind of a horrifying result. There's nothing like... a little bit of hard evidence, and that's why... we prized very highly the evidence that we were able to get through photography of what they were in fact doing, because that would show which of the, of these possibilities they might be following. I would have to say that there's an implicit estimate of intent on the part of those who say, Well, this is what we've got to plan against, because that assumes that it is the intent of the Soviets to direct their limited very great, but nevertheless still limited industrial and technological capability, into a particular area. We preferred to try to get hard evidence as to just what they were doing, rather than speculate that they were going to throw all of their or so much of their industrial capability, in, into the production of these weapons.

AND YOU HAD SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE IN THE LATE '50s TO MAKE THAT JUDGMENT.

We had a considerable amount of evidence — you never have as much as you would like, and there's always a margin of uncertainty. But if you check back on this after a few months to see were they in fact doing what we estimated they were doing on the basis of hard intelligence, we found that our estimating process was really pretty good. B- basing it on information of that kind.

WHAT WAS THE PRESIDENT'S REACTION TO PEOPLE LIKE ALSOP, PARTICULARLY THEIR ACCESS TO INTELLIGENCE?

Well, I recall one time he cooled me down a little bit -- I was, I got a little exercised at some of the charges being made against him, which I knew were quite untrue on the basis of information, intelligence that I had in fact briefed him on, and he just said, "Don't get excited about that." He said he knew that the American people just had an awful lot of trust in him to look out for what was best for them in terms of their safety. Now, he did resent, very strongly, anybody who had access to official information, and then used it in order to try to heat up and to alarm our people over the need for further military forces. That he resented very strongly. He felt that he had a great responsibility there; he was trying to deal with it responsibly.

(BACKGROUND TECHNICAL DISCUSSION) HE RESENTED VERY MUCH...

Well, yeah... See, he resented very much anyone who had access to official information, and then used that in order to generate public alarm or concern attack on the programs that had been worked out by those bearing responsibility in the government. And the, that was true some of the people in the Congress were pushing for these crash programs, some of the people out in industry were pushing for the crash programs, and some of the people in the military — of course, that's the origin of the famous military-industrial complex: it made a dual point, "We have to have these weapons; we have to have a very powerful force," but because we do, and because these are powerful elements in our society, then it's up to the people to keep a careful watch to see that they don't have undue or unwarranted influence.

DO YOU THINK THERE WERE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF UNWARRANTED INFLUENCE THAT HE WAS THINKING OF WHEN HE MADE HIS SPEECH?

Oh, yes! He felt that the kind of pressures that were being exerted were unwarranted; they were not warranted by the facts, and they were not warranted by the position that the people held — he held the responsibility, as the, as President recommending these programs, and he felt that for others to try to influence these decisions was unwarranted and improper.

ON A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SUBJECT, WAS THIS CONTINUOUS INTER-SERVICE RIVALRY THAT WENT ON DURING THIS PERIOD AS WELL. WHAT WAS HIS REACTION,TO THAT AND HOW DID HE TRY TO COPE WITH IT?

Well, he knew that the services, of course, were each trying to get as big a military budget as they could; they were trying to modernize at—excuse me—at as rapid a rate as they could; he felt that it was necessary to some-, for someone to maintain control over that. He felt that no one was in better position to do that than himself. In detail, of course, it would be the Secretary of Defense, but out of his own experience, he was completely confident that he had a very good appreciation of just how much was really required. He then... understood that there would be this rivalry for budgets and there would be some undercutting of each other. Now that's, any time there was criticism by one service of another, in order to try to enlarge their own budget and program, that, he felt, was improper. Also, I think he felt that because of this rivalry, we were not putting the strategic plans and the policies as uppermost but that the rivalry itself had become a dominant factor, and it was with that background that he then made his proposals in 1958 for the reorganization of the Defense Department, to clarify and strengthen the authority of the Secretary of Defense, to clarify and strengthen the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, their joint role, their national role, rather than their service role, and to establish commands in the field, which would not be linked to a particular service, but would be responsive to the overall direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense and the President.

BUT HE DIDN'T REALLY SUCCEED IN CHECKING THAT RIVALRY VERY MUCH.

He had what I would call a fair measure of success; the authority of the Secretary of Defense was greatly strengthened, and when Secretary McNamara came in, he made clear how much it had been strengthened, because he did exercise strong control. I think he would have been disappointed in what was achieved with regard to the Joint Chiefs of Staff; their joint role never became the driving or guiding factor to the extent that he would have liked to see. I think he felt that the field commands were well set up but, of course, during his period there wasn't time for them really to evolve or develop too far, so it was a partial attainment of what he had in mind.

BETWEEN 1957 and 1961 THE STRATEGIC ARSENAL NEARLY TRIPLED. WHAT WAS THE PRESIDENT'S REACTION TO THIS?

He... increasingly he felt that we were going beyond the bounds of anything that was sensible at all, and that's the... kind of term that he would use in talking about this. He had by that time set up the his science advisory committee — after Sputnik that was restored and greatly strengthened, and he was increasingly looking to them to make... rational overall analyses of what was required. In addition he had a net assessment group, which was responsive to the National Security Council, that investigated what the effects of a nuclear conflict would be, and out of that more and more he felt that we were... going, reaching the point where more just didn't make very much sense. Now, one thing he did support was to go to modernized better, more controllable systems, such as the... And ... he was strongly in support of the naval system, the Polaris, because it had this invulnerability, and therefore would be, in his view, a stabilizing element of the force. Also, the Minuteman — it was a, it was a solid rocket and he regarded that as much more dependable, much more reliable than the early forms, the Titan and the Atlas, that were in the initial generation. But he felt that increasingly, that additional forces in this, of this kind, simply didn't make much sense.

AND YET HE DID AUTHORIZE THAT TREMENDOUS INCREASE IN THE NUCLEAR ARSENAL, AND PARTICULARLY THE BOMBERS.

Well, he supported the B-52. He thought that was a very fine system — he was not persuaded by the I think it was the B-70 that they were proposing at that time. So he wanted to keep a diverse force; at the same time he wanted to and, be he wanted to concentrate on the improved systems. He authorized what he called a "bulge" in 1958, 1959... because the military... services came to him and said, "We now have these improved systems that we are bringing into existence, but we have to maintain and continue the old ones at the same time." So he authorized what he called a "bulge" of three billion dollars in the defense budget, authorizing it to go from $35 to $38 billion. I recall talking to him on occasion and asking whether he thought he would ever see that three billion go down again, and I think it's fair to say that he really expected it to stay at that higher plateau. But what I'm...

SO WAS THERE ANYONE AT THAT LEVEL OF THE WHITE HOUSE ACTUALLY DECIDING HOW MANY BOMBERS WERE TO BE PRODUCED?

...Only indirectly. You had the Well, on how many bombers to be produced, yes, that would be contained in the budget and it would be contained in one of these budget issues that would go to the top of the Pentagon, to the Secretary of Defense, and in all likelihood, would come over and be argued before the President. With regard to the weapons themselves, the warheads themselves, that argument generally came in terms of the what capacity for production of nuclear material did you require, and specifically opening up a new reactor, or something of that... kind, that's when those decisions would come about. Now Eisenhower was resistant very resistant to the continuation of the production of large numbers of these weapons. But of course, he had arguments being made against him, coming from many directions, from the Congress and from the military services and elsewhere.

THE IMPRESSION'S RATHER GIVEN THOUGH, THAT HE DIDN'T TAKE MUCH INTEREST IN THE ACTUAL WAR PLANS THAT WERE BEING WORKED OUT DOWN AT OMAHA... IF DETERRENCE FAILED. WOULD THAT BE RIGHT?

He took an interest in the sense of wanting to see that we had coordinated plans for very reliable and effective operations in case they should ever be required. And with that in mind, he authorized and under... Secretary Gates there was set up the single integrated operational plan. He had been concerned over the fact that different people were planning on different bases, doing... different things, so in that respect he was interested in it. He had a saying, though, which he attributed to... von Moltke (?), as he attributed a great many things, that "Plans are nothing, but planning is everything"; in other words having the mate-, the information at hand, having the process by which the plans were made, that was very important. But the plans, he had no idea that they would ever carried out exactly as written.

SO, WAS HE ALARMED FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN DR. KISTIAKOWSKY CAME BACK IN THE FALL OF 1960 AND TOLD HIM THAT THE NEW SIOP PLAN INVOLVED MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MEGA-TONNAGE AND RADIATION AND SO ON?

I think he found that confirmation of the, of the view that he had developed. We often talked about the effect of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and if you think of multiplying that by any factor at all, those effects are devastating. And the notion that talking about a thousand or more of these warheads made any kind of military sense that notion was he just didn't accept that at all.

AND YET HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT.

Except initiate his work in the direction of arms control, arms reduction, arms limitation — he felt that was the way to try to bring this thing back under some kind of control. He recognized that the pressures from the military would always be for more, and more, and from the Congress they would have their friends in the Congress, from the industry, and then there would be some people, the publicists and so on, who would certainly be supporting them. And he was trying to generate a counter-action that would have a lot of public appeal, as indeed it did, and I think that his initiatives in the field of disarmament and arms control were very well regarded, very well received by the American people. He certainly had that view.

BUT MOST OF THEM DIDN'T GET VERY FAR, BECAUSE OF THE SOVIET REACTION. ONE THAT MIGHT HAVE DONE, OF COURSE, WAS THE SUMMIT MEETING OF 1960 DO YOU THINK THAT WAS A CHANCE THAT WAS MISSED?

Oh, I think so, and he did as well. He was... that was one of the very disappointing effects of the U-2 affair and the breakup of the summit conference, and the withdrawal of the invitation for him to visit Russia. He had thought that he might really have an effect in conveying his views and those of the American people to the people of the Soviet Union. He was he was deeply disappointed because of the results of the U-2.

SO YOU WOULD SAY THAT IT WAS A MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

Yes, I... it was a missed opportunity, and I think he saw it as a missed opportunity; it was the price that we paid for having conducted this operation. On the other hand when this was discussed ..shortly after the U-2 affair, he said, "Now, I want any one of you who think that the U-2 program was a mistake, to tell me that he would have been willing to give up all of the intelligence information that we gained through that program." And I can tell you there was silence all around the room. And he better than anyone else, I think, foresaw what the effect would be if we lost one of these U-2s. But even so, he felt that it was so important to know what we needed to do in the military field, and to know what would be excessive if we went beyond that... it, that he was willing to pursue that.

WITHOUT THE U-2, IN FACT, THE UNITED STATES ARMAMENT PROGRAM WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT DEAL GREATER THAN IT WAS, WOULD IT NOT?

I think that it would have. The... it was even though we did not disclose the U-2 operation — it was held to a very small circle — it gave him added reassurance that what we were doing met his view of what our, what the security of our country required.

FINALLY THERE'S BEEN AN ATTITUDE TOWARD THE EISENHOWER PRESIDENCY, THAT HE'D BEEN COMPLACENT AND DIDN'T REALLY KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON IN HIS OWN ADMINISTRATION.

Well, I think the... more recent scholarship now has given a much better picture of Eisenhower. He was a very complex man; I myself felt that I never saw his whole card, so to speak, and I suppose in this field I was the closest to him of anybody. Though he was he followed it very closely; he didn't like his hand to show; he oftentimes made clear that he expected others to carry the public presentation of these policies. One of the best examples of that, I think, uh: one day Jim Hagerty, who was his press secretary came to him and on some problem, and the President told Hagerty what to say, and Hagerty said, "If I say that, the press is just going to eat me up," and the President clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Jim, better you than me." So, I think more and more it's understood that here was a man who had a deep understanding of the processes of government; he was using them — You can make a question, Could he have pushed harder in many of these areas? but to answer that, I think, would require very serious and deep inquiry to understand the whole complex of pressures that existed in our country at that time. And those pressures were reflected in his comment about the military-industrial complex, for example, in his final address to the nation.

AS YOU SAID, HE WAS TRYING ALWAYS TO DEMILITARIZE THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SOVIET UNION – THAT SPECTACULARLY HASN'T HAPPENED, SINCE 1961. WHAT DO YOU THINK HIS SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE PRESENT ERA WOULD BE, WERE HE ALIVE TODAY?

Well I have to go to your, to your first statement there. I think that relation has been demilitarized; it's much less harsh than it was at the outset of his term; it eased during his term; I think the facile references to war, and nuclear war, and so on, that existed in the early 1950s — those are gone now, and occasionally there may be some excessive rhetoric, but there's a much deeper understanding on both sides of, just the terrible catastrophe that a nuclear conflict would represent; and... there are negotiations and discussions of many kinds, which I think... do serve as a restraint, and do move in the direction that he had in mind — we're certainly not as far along as he would wish, and the, but we're better off than we might have been, and we have survived what 40 years now of the existence of the bomb, without it being used other than in the case of the final use in Japan—and that is no small achievement in a world as dangerous and as fractious as this one is.