ARE THE EVENTS OF THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS STILL QUITE CLEAR TO YOU? DID...

Twenty-three years have elapsed, so the answer is no. But certain of the events are burned into my mind and will never leave me.

WOULD YOU THINK IN MANY WAYS IT WAS THE MOST DELICATE TIME, OR THE MOST...WHAT ADJECTIVE WOULD YOU USE?

I would use the most dangerous time of the seven years I served as Secretary of Defense. And I say that because it was a period of great tension confrontation between East and West. And confrontation in the nuclear age carries with it risks that the world has never faced before. And that's what led to the tension. I think it was fortunate that we had a President who understood that the nuclear age introduced totally different dimension into political reactions to crises such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. And not only was it the most dangerous period in my seven years as Secretary of Defense, but I think it was also the most expertly handled.

LET'S GO BACK TO THE SORT OF PRE-MISSILE CRISIS TIME FOR A MINUTE, DID YOU, DID YOU THINK -- IF YOU CAN TRY TO TAKE YOUR MIND BACK THERE -- THAT THERE WAS ANY CHANCE THAT THE SOVIETS WOULD PUT MISSILES IN CUBA?

Certainly I didn't think it was a probability. I don't want to say I didn't believe there was any chance. But I didn't think it was a probability. Before the photographs became available in approximately October 15th or 16th, 1962, we had for two or three months reports that the Soviets were engaged in some additional activity in Cuba. Additional military personnel, Soviet ships apparently landing military equipment in Cuba. We were fairly certain that they were introducing some form of missiles, presumably anti-aircraft missiles or something of that kind. We had no indication that they were nuclear-tipped surface-to-surface missiles capable of striking at intermediate range the West-- the East Coast of the United States. And as a matter of fact, when we had queried the Soviet Union on the possibility that they were introducing offensive weapons into Cuba they indicated that was not the case. They made categorical statements that they-- there were no offensive weapons being introduced into Cuba, and there would be none?

AND YOU BELIEVED THEM?

We believed the statements in the sense that we saw no evidence at that point of contrary action. But we continued to maintain very heavy reconnaissance of what was going on. And it was through that reconnaissance carried out on Sunday the 14th of October, that we obtained photographs of the missiles being introduced into Cuba.

BEFORE WE GET INTO THE PHOTOGRAPHS, YOU HAD NO-- I MEAN, DESPITE THEIR PRONOUNCEMENTS THAT THEY WEREN'T DOING IT AND, I MEAN, DID YOU EVER HAVE ANY FEELING THAT WAS SOMETHING THAT THEY MIGHT DO? I MEAN, PSYCHOLOGICALLY?

I, myself, didn't think it a likelihood. Because it seemed to me that, (a) it would not change the military balance I can go into the reasons for that later if you wish; and (b) it would carry with it very serious political risks which might actually lead to some form of military confrontation. And therefore I thought they would be sufficiently wise to avoid those risks and they would not introduce the weapons. But, I recognized before -- this isn't just with hindsight -- I recognized before the possibility that they would, and it was absolutely essential that we carry out the reconnaissance that would keep us informed of whether they were introducing offensive weapons.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS? WHERE YOU WERE AND WHAT THE SITUATION WAS?

I don't recall when I first heard about the photographs. It was, I believe--

IT WAS THE NIGHT OF THE-

...early Tuesday morning or Monday evening. The photographs were taken on a Sunday, they were developed and rushed up to Washington on Monday. I believe the President was informed very early Tuesday morning, 8 or 9 o'clock. I don't recall whether I had been informed late Monday evening or not.

BUT-

In any event, by Tuesday morning 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, both the President and I knew.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST REACTION WHEN YOU SAW THEM? WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THEM? COULD YOU, COULD YOU SEE ANYTHING ON THEM YOURSELF?

Well, they were interpreted for me by photo-interpreters, and once the photo-interpreters interpreted them properly, it was very obvious that offensive weapons had been introduced, both aircraft and missiles. And it was clear that it was essential we immediately organize ourselves to decide how to react. And that was, of course, the President's conclusion. And right on the spot very early Tuesday morning he formed what came to be known as the executive committee a very small group of high level officials whom he charged with considering how to react and whom he instructed to tell no one, other than a very limited number of people, of the evidence we had of the introduction of offensive weapons into Cuba.

THERE'S ONE OF THE UH, I DON'T KNOW IF THAT RINGS A BELL FOR YOU OR...

Well, sure, it's a picture of a missile site. I don't recall whether this was one we-

THAT'S ONE OF THE FIRST ONES.

--had on that Tuesday morning.

THAT'S ONE OF THE FIRST ONES.

Well, you can see very clearly the missiles. You don't have to be a photo-interpreter to see it. What you don't see on here are the nuclear warheads. And it's my recollection that we never had any photographic evidence of the existence of nuclear warheads on this soil of Cuba, even up to the time when Khrushchev said that he would withdraw the missiles. There was a high probability that the nuclear warheads were there. Why would they put the launchers there if they didn't have warheads? But I think it's interesting that there are no warheads visible on this photograph, nor were there on any other photographs that I'm aware of that we had throughout the entire period.

CAN YOU REMEMBER JUST WHEN YOU FIRST SAW THOSE PHOTOS, AND THEY WERE INTERPRETED FOR YOU BY ART LUNDAHL AND THE PEOPLE IN THE MEETING, WHAT YOUR IMMEDIATE SORT OF REACTION WAS?

Well, my immediate reaction was one of concern, because this at a minimum, carried very high political implications. It was clear that we could not tolerate introduction of Soviet offensive weapons into this hemisphere. And in some way we would have to accomplish their removal. I didn't believe that the introduction of the weapons shown here or shown on the other photographs would change the military balance between East and West. But I did believe, then, and I do believe now, that it was a politically unacceptable move. We could not allow this hemisphere to become a base for offensive Soviet forces. And this was the first step in that direction. It had to be turned back.

YOU'VE SAID, YOU KNOW, NOW THERE ARE THESE EXCOMM TAPES THAT HAVE BEEN RELEASED AND THAT SORT OF THING, AND ONE OF THE QUOTES FROM YOU IS "A MISSILE IS A MISSILE, AND IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER WHETHER IT'S..."

That's a very important statement.

SAY IT AGAIN, AND TELL ME WHAT IT MEANS.

My first reaction when I saw the photographs which I expressed in one of the early EXCOMM meetings -- I think I expressed Tuesday morning as a matter of fact -- was that the movement of those missiles into Cuba the introduction of those offensive weapons, and they are offensive weapons, into the Western Hemisphere, did not change the military balance between East and West or between the US and the Soviet Union. Now why did I say that? Because at that time, we had on the order of 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads, mostly bombs, some missiles. The Soviets had on the order of 300, mostly bombs. We were so far superior in numbers, you might have thought that we had military superiority in nuclear arms. That was not the case. Our numerical superiority, great as it was, on the order of 20-to-1, could not be translated into usable military power. Before the missiles were put in Cuba! Now why? Because we knew, having studied the possibility, that there was no way we could use our 6,000 warheads, if we launched first, against the Soviet Union. There was no way we could destroy such a high percentage of their 300 as to leave them with a number so small that it could not inflict unacceptable damage on the US Even a few of those 300, if launched on target in the U.S., would kill millions of Americans. And no responsible President and no responsible Secretary of Defense -- and certainly Kennedy was responsible, and I hope I was -- would expose his nation to that. And therefore we knew there was no way that we could utilize, in a military fashion, this tremendous military superiority- numerical superiority.

SO WHY DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?

Well, the important point I want to come to is that conclusion we held before the missiles were put on the soil of Cuba. Now after they were on the soil of Cuba, they didn't strengthen the Soviet capability because the Soviets didn't have a usable nuclear power against us before they were put there, and they didn't have a usable power in the sense of a first-strike capability against us after they were put there. So the military balance didn't change. But politically it was a different day, a different world. The Soviets had introduced offensive weapons into the western hemisphere. There was a strong possibility if we tolerated that they would expand their offensive forces. This was a political shift that would affect the behavior of our allies, the behavior of the Latin countries. They would be fearful. They would change their attitudes their political programs, their political platforms. We couldn't tolerate that. So it was absolutely essential that the missiles be withdrawn, but they should be withdrawn with the lowest possible cost, and the lowest possible risk that the actions leading to the withdrawal would lead to a military confrontation between East and West. And that was the initial conclusion I put forward Tuesday morning, it was the conclusion of the President. It w-- it was the problem we grappled [with] the remainder of that week. Because there were two totally different points of view amongst us. One group felt that at any cost, including military cost, those missiles must be driven out of Cuba. The other group felt we should avoid the use of military force, except as a last resort, and should use all forms of political persuasion to remove them, and included in political persuasion I would include the use of a quarantine which we eventually put in place.

WHAT WAS THE TONE IN THE MEETINGS? WHAT WAS THE STYLE OF THE MEETINGS?

Well, it's very interesting, because the President made quite clear in the first hours of the crisis that he wanted this group of high level officials -- the Secretaries of State and Defense the National Security Advisor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Director of CIA, and their immediate associates -- to calmly and quietly and continuously and secretly consider the problem, consider what options he had open to him, and not talk to anybody until they were prepared to expose the options to him, give him a chance to thoughtfully consider them, and allow him to make their -- make his decision. And he did not want us to feel under excessive time pressure during those considerations. And therefore the mood was one of tenseness, but it was not one of irrational response to a crisis. And I think that it's very important to understand that in the nuclear age war games rarely lead to one side or the other initiating the use of nuclear weapons. And the reason is that in a non-crisis atmosphere the burden of responsibility to an order initiating the use of nuclear weapons, is so clear in your mind that as I suggest rational people, operating calmly in a period, a quiet atmosphere, do not, in war games, except under the greatest of stimulus, initiate the use of nuclear weapons. But, the danger is that in a period of confrontation, such as we had, you're not in a quiet atmosphere, you begin to act emotionally rather than rationally, you have inadequate information, misinformation, emotion. And these act in multiplication. They're not additive. And they multiply each other's force, and you very quickly in a period of crisis -and I've seen this many times -- you very period-- in a period-- in a crisis make misjudgments. And you, as illustrated by the Soviet misjudgment when they shot down the Korean aircraft. I felt at the time no Politburo member issued the order to shoot down the Korean aircraft. The military commander who shot it down didn't believe he was shooting down a civilian aircraft with 269 civilians on it. It was a catastrophe. It would be a tragedy if one made the same misjudgment in a period of crisis, because of lack of information, because of misinformation, because of emotion, but instead of shooting down one civilian airplane, you launched a nuclear attack that destroyed your civilization. That's the danger. And the President almost intuitively realized that danger, and he established an atmosphere of quiet contemplation insofar as you can think of quiet contemplation recognizing the crisis we faced. But it was a rational debate. And it was a true debate, that went on for several days.

BUT YOU DID HAVE A TIME CONSTRAINT. I MEAN THEY WERE BUILDING THESE THINGS UP.

Well, they were building them up, but we concerned about the buildup that would occur in, say, another 24 hours if we were to use an additional 24 hours for debate, as I was that we would lose the opportunity for quiet debate because of a leak of the information. And we knew that once this information be-- became known to the world, we would have to act. We would have to act within minutes after it became known. Preferably we should make it known after we had decided how we were going to act. And therefore, there was that time constraint. (?) it for long. But while we held it, the President insisted that we consider the problem in a contemplative way, and we did.

ONE OF THE, ONE OF THE QUOTES THAT ONE SEES IN READING ABOUT THIS DEBATE IS ROBERT KENNEDY'S COMPARISON WITH TOJO AND PEARL HARBOR. DO YOU RECALL THAT?

Well I don't-- what Robert Kennedy said in partial response to those who were proposing what was called a surgical air strike, designed to strike the missile sites, destroy them, but which the advocates of it were honest enough to note would have to be followed almost surely by a land invasion. And what Robert Kennedy said was it was ill becoming of a great power to launch an all-out attack on a small nation such as Cuba. And it was ill becoming, it was in a very real sense, I think he used the word, immoral. And he didn't want to see a chapter in history read by his great grandchildren a hundred years from now that indicated that this great nation had that level of morality.

ONCE THE BLOCKADE DECISION WAS MADE, WAS CONTROL OF-

Well, my concern that the political message, and I want to stress this was a political message, not a military action that the President had authorized, that the political message was conveyed exactly as I'm gonna say it was written. Now, what I'm talking about is the President's determination that the offensive weapons would be removed from Cuba and not reintroduced into the hemisphere. That was the message, just exactly that he wanted conveyed to Khrushchev. The blockade was put in place to convey that message. The blockade wasn't put in place to sink ships. The blockade wasn't even put in place to stop ships. Now obviously, if we let all of the ships moving to Cuba pass through the blockade, it wasn't a blockade. It would have conveyed a different message, that he said one thing and did another. And so we clearly were going to have to stop some ships. But it didn't mean we had to stop all ships, it didn't mean we had to sink ships. It didn't mean we wanted to start a war with the blockade. And yet we were calling upon the military, to use military weapons, to literally convey a political message. That was something that there was no historical precedent for. And it was absolutely essential, therefore, that control in that sense, control in the sense of achieving the President's purpose and no other purpose, and in exactly the way he intended, be maintained. And I lived in the Pentagon, literally, except for moving-- going to the meetings in the White House, I lived there for the entire 10 or 12 days of the crisis. I never left. Slept there, whatever.

WHAT WAS THAT LIKE, SLEEPING...?

Well, it was...I'd spend so damn many hours in the building anyhow that a few more -- particularly when I was able to sleep a few hours a night -didn't bother me at all--

DID YOU GET ENOUGH SLEEP? I MEAN, YOU WERE OBVIOUSLY UNDER STRESS.

We were under stress, and we were working long hours, certainly 18 hours a day in which you were not going to go to sleep.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR VISIT TO THE NAVY'S-

Well, each evening during those days after the quarantine was put in place, my deputy, Ros Gilpatric, and I would go up to what was known as flag plot. Our offices were on the 3rd floor of the Pentagon, and the Chief of Naval Operations office Admiral Anderson's office, and the naval I'll call it war room, which was called flag plot, was on the 4th floor. And we would go up each evening, as I remember around 10 o'clock, and the navy staff would have received the latest reports of movement of Soviet vessels. At that time, by the way, we had taken many of the Strategic Air Command's aircraft off of Airborne Alert, nuclear alert, and put them on a mission of scouring the seas and recording the movements of all Soviet vessels moving toward the western hemisphere, moving toward Cuba. This in order to know what to expect to quarantine during the next 24-48 hours. And on one of these evenings, I've forgotten exactly which evening it was, probably Tuesday or Wednesday night we saw on the plot an indication that a Soviet vessel would move up to this guarantee line, an imaginary line as I recall 600 miles off the coast of Cuba within the next 24 hours, certainly before we would meet again with the officers in the flag plot. And I asked George Anderson, Admiral Anderson, the Chief of naval operations what he proposed to do when that ship reached this imaginary line, the quarantine line. He said, well, we're supposed to stop it. Well. I said. . . that's good, George, but how are you going to do it? Well, he said, we'll use our customary methods. I said, what are those? Well, he said, we'll hail it. I said, what language will you hail it in? Well, he said, how the hell do I know he said, I guess we'll hail it in English. Well, I said, do you know that the Soviets have individuals on that Soviet freighter that's moving up there that speak English? He said, come on, how would I know whether they have anybody. Well suppose you hail it in English and they don't speak English, what are they going to do? Well, he said, I suppose they'll move on. I said, what are you gonna do? Well, he said. we'll stop 'em. I said, how are you going to stop them now, they don't know what you're trying to say. Well, he said, there's an international flag code. We'll put up the flags. OK, what if they don't stop then? He said, well, we'll fire a warning shot across their bow. I said, what if they don't stop then. He said we'll fire a shot through their rudder. I said, what kind of a vessel is that? He said, it's a tanker. I said, what are you gonna-- what will happen if you fire a shot through the rudder? Well, he said, it might catch on fire, might miss a little bit, might catch on fire. I said, let me tell you something, George, we're not trying to start a war, we're trying to convey a message, a political message. There'll be no shot fired by anybody, by your order, by the order of the destroyer. And by the way, the name of the destroyer was the Kennedy. I said, there'll be no shot fired by anybody, no order issued by anybody to fire a shot, without my personal authorization, and I'm not going to give you that without discussing it with the President first, is that understood? He was absolutely furious, and I don't blame him for being furious in one sense. But he was absolutely furious. He said, he said, Mr. Secretary, he said, the U.S. navy has been carrying out blockades -- he called it a blockade, not a quarantine, we thought there was a slight difference -but he said, the US navy has been carrying out blockades for 200 years, since the days of John Paul Jones, and we've carried them out successfully. If you'll keep your hands off this, we'll carry this out successfully. I said, Admiral, let me tell you one thing, and I stood up -- there were 30-odd admirals in the room, wasn't a chair for him, enough chairs for all of them -- I said, let me tell you one thing, Admiral, there will be no shot fired without my personal authority. Do you understand that? Is that clear to you? He said, yes sir, and walked out of the room. Now that was a rather harsh way of conveying the message that control would remain in the hands of the President and in his designated representative, the Secretary of Defense. Not because we didn't trust the military. I had the most tremendous respect and admiration for them, then and now, but because this was a unique operation. It was using military weapons, if you will, to convey a political message. And it was a very delicate situation, and it had to be controlled, as the President wanted it. It was.

EVEN AFTER THAT, YOU WERE ON THE PHONE TO THESE SHIPS.

Oh, yes. During the day. And as a matter of fact, the vessel came up to the line, and it didn't stop, and it went on for while. But then, my recollection is, I may be wrong in this, but I think I'm correct, that before the vessel got-- certainly before it got to the island of Cuba and before it got very far past the quarantine line, we received word from our reconnaissance aircraft, including these B-47 bombers that'd been taken off nuclear-- or had been put on reconnaissance, we received word that every single Soviet ship moving to the Western hemisphere went dead in the water.

THEY-

They obviously, the Soviet Politburo had obviously decided that they were at least going to have to take the first step, which was to stop the movement of further forces, presumably offensive forces, into Cuba, and they were not, in effect, then going to contest the quarantine line. And I think it showed the wisdom and judgment of our not firing on that first ship which proceeded past the line.

NOW IN ROBERT KENNEDY'S BOOK -- I SAW YOU HAD IT OUT THERE THIS MORNING -- HE REMEMBERS THAT AS THE MOST SORT OF CRITICAL MOMENT IN THE WHOLE-

It was a dramatic moment.

HOW DID YOU GET THE NEWS AND HOW DID YOU FEEL WHEN-

I don't recall exactly. I was in the Pentagon at the time, and I must have gotten it from the war room. The war room was manned by a general officer or an admiral 24 hours a day. And my-- I had a telephone on my desk direct to the war room-

DO YOU REMEMBER HOW YOU FELT AT THAT MOMENT?

Oh, I felt immense relief. Now, now, it was only the first step. They weren't taking the missiles out at that point, hadn't agreed to take them out. But they very clearly were reacting to the quarantine. They very clearly in a sense wanted to proceed the way we wanted them to proceed. They did not wish to escalate the level of confrontation, which was already severe, but which we could have escalated by firing on that first ship as it came to the quarantine line and which they could have escalated by continuing to try to pour ships through that quarantine. And here they had in effect told us, by their actions not their words, that their ships were stopping. And they went dead in the water, and they turned around.

DO YOU REMEMBER GETTING ON THE PHONE TO SOME OF THOSE SHIPS, TO THE CAPTAINS OF THE FLAGSHIPS OF THOSE-

I don't. I don't. But I know we were in direct communication -- I don't recall that I was -- but I knew we were in direct communication with the Kennedy, which was the destroyer that was on the spot observing this Soviet tanker at the time it was passing this imaginary line.

NOW THE NAVY GETS VERY UPSET ABOUT ALL THIS. I'M SURE YOU'VE-

Well I don't-- don't blame them. As I say, I understand them. They have traditions. They had standard operating procedures. They had manuals. The manuals say a quarantine line's a quarantine line, stop the vessels. What does a quarantine mean? It means you don't go through it. You stop something. Particularly the word blockade connotes it even more clearly than quarantine. And by the way, the navy was calling it a blockade, because in a sense it was a blockade. We were calling it a quarantine, thinking it was something slightly looser than a blockade. The navy said it's a blockade. Standard operating procedure says, use your power to uphold the blockade, that means preventing things go[ing] through it. We have the power. And by the way, this is a very important point. It is often said that, in effect, the US won, if you want to call it that, prevailed in the Cuban Missile Crisis because of our superior nuclear power. That's absolutely wrong. We prevailed not because of our superior nuclear power. We had a superiority of 20 to one, but we couldn't use it in any way. It was a militarily unusable power. We prevailed because we had superior conventional power. And particularly we had superior conventional power in the region. And this is one of the things that made the navy even more upset, because it was absolutely clear we had the power on the scene, to uphold and maintain the blockade, and we didn't use it. And they couldn't understand why. And they hadn't yet really understood the delicacy of the situation, that the use of the military force to convey this political message.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY IN THE NUCLEAR AGE?

As it has always been, to anticipate military confrontation; to prepare force levels to recommend to the President and the Secretary of Defense force levels that will protect our security in the face of those potential confrontations. And then, if the confrontation develops, to recommend use of that force, and to propose alternative ways of dealing with a confrontation. The, the role of the military is no different today than it was prior to 1945. The factors it must take account of are different. And there is still great debate. Not solely or even primarily within our own military, but there is great debate within, I was going to say within the West, I would say within the East and West, as to the function of nuclear warheads. I maintain nuclear warheads today are not military weapons. They have no military role whatsoever, excepting only to deter one's opponent from initiating use of his nuclear warheads. Others in the military and out maintain that is not correct, that NATO's present strategy, which contemplates actual use, initiating the use of nuclear weapons in response to a Soviet aggression, a Soviet conventional force aggression war fighting capabilities of nuclear weapons the warheads for example, is a proper use of those warheads. There's a tremendous debate going on beneath the surface. Frankly, I think it's swinging in my direction, and within five or six years I think it'll be quite common to say nuclear warheads are not weapons. But that was not the view, that was not the common view at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is not the prevailing view today, it will be tomorrow, in my opinion.

LET ME SHOW YOU SOMETHING HERE. THIS IS A SECTION FROM -- THE SECTION ON THE RIGHT THERE -- FROM KHRUSHCHEV'S LETTER. CAN YOU READ A LITTLE BIT OF THAT PART THAT I MARKED WITH A PENCIL, AND...

Read it to myself?

NO, READ IT ALOUD, AND THEN I'LL ASK YOU TO SORT OF COMMENT.

THAT SATURDAY -- THAT SATURDAY MANY PEOPLE HAVE SAID WAS THE MOST CRITICAL DAY, THAT'S WHEN-

Yes.

ANDERSON WAS SHOT DOWN?

Let me think now, that was...

THE DAY BEFORE THE LAST.

Yes, that was the Saturday before the Sunday in which Khrushchev announced withdrawal of the missiles on a Sunday, and a U-2 was shot down on Saturday. That would have been the 27th, Saturday the 27th. I remember leaving the White House at the end of that Saturday. It was a beautiful fall day. And thinking that might well be the last sunset I saw. You couldn't tell what was going to follow. It sounds perhaps excessively dramatic to make such a statement, but the tension was so high. We knew we had to get those missiles out. Up to that point in the face of possible escalation to a large-scale conflict, the Soviets hadn't agreed to take them out. While those of us who had fought hard to avoid a military strike against Cuba had prevailed up to that point, there was a possibility if the Soviets didn't remove the missiles we couldn't continue to prevail and that some form of military action would take place. And those who had recommended military action in the first instance had always been forthright enough to say that they didn't know how it would end. They didn't know what would follow. They thought that if we had a surgical strike against the missile bases, we would have to follow that with a land invasion. They thought, and I felt strongly, that if we were to invade Cuba with armed force, not only would there be tremendous casualties suffered by the Cubans and by Americans in the invading force, but almost surely the Soviets would respond at some point of their choosing. Not in Cuba, because they didn't have the power to prevail there against our strong balance of power. But that they might well initiate military action against the flanks of NATO, for example, against Turkey, even possibly against Norway, the northern flank. Or even possibly against Berlin, the center. Or even almost too dreadful to contemplate, an unauthorized launch of a nuclear weapon from Cuba might not- might take place, not by order of the Politburo, we thought it very unlikely that-

TELL ME ABOUT ... WHAT WE DIDN'T GET WAS THAT YOUR CONCERN I SUPPOSE AND THE PRESIDENT'S CONCERN WAS NOT SO MUCH THAT A MISSILE MIGHT BE LAUNCHED FROM THE SOVIET UNION, BUT THAT-

Let me assume you've got through the possibility of Soviet strikes against Turkey and

RIGHT, WE DID GET THAT. WE GOT AS FAR AS BERLIN.

And most frightening of all-

YEAH. OK PETER?

And most frightening of all was the thought that one of the nuclear warheads which we had not yet observed but had every reason to believe were on the soil of Cuba, would be launched against a major metropolitan area on the East Coast. And I want to add that we didn't believe that even in the face of a an air strike on those missile bases, or even in the face of a land invasion, we didn't believe that the Politburo would authorize the launch of one of those warheads. They knew that we had a superiority of 20-to-1. We had 6,000 nuclear warheads against their 300. No sane political leader under those circumstances would authorize the launch of a nuclear warhead from the soil of Cuba against the East Coast. But we were fearful that in the face of an air attack, or in the face of a land invasion, a Cuban sergeant or a Soviet second lieutenant under that tremendous pressure without orders would launch a warhead against one of the metropolitan areas or several warheads. And in that event millions of Americans would be killed. And no responsible U.S. President, and no responsible U.S. Secretary of Defense would put his nation at risk under those circum--if he could possibly avoid it. And we were seeking to avoid it. We had avoided it up to that point. The question was, could we continue to avoid it? That was not clear.

WAS IT A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET?

It was lovely. It was lovely. It was a typical fall sunset in Washington, mid-October sunset.

DID YOU THINK THAT WAS-

Clear day. Absolutely gorgeous.

THINK THOSE THOUGHTS PASSED THROUGH MANY PEOPLE'S MINDS THAT WERE-

I don't know. It was not a thought I discussed with others.

LET ME ASK YOU BRIEFLY ABOUT THE JUPITERS. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE ROLE OF THE JUPITERS WERE IN THE CUBAN MISSILE CRI-- EISENHOWER SAID THEY WORTH-WORTHLESS RIGHT FROM THE START.

The Jupiter missiles became an issue, as I recall, when Khrushchev at one point late in the period, it would have been Thursday, Friday, Saturday of the last week in effect made an offer to as I remember it, remove the Soviet offensive forces, aircraft and missiles from Cuba, if we would both agree not to invade Cuba and remove what were known as Jupiter missiles, intermediate range nuclear tipped missiles in the US forces based in Turkey. Up to that point he had indicated that they might remove the missiles from Cuba if-- an offensive forces from Cuba, if we agreed not to invade Cuba. Then he suddenly threw in this new element. And it was a very shrewd move on his part. Because while the Soviets feared the missiles, perhaps, they were a pile of junk. They required hours and hours to bring them to readiness, the were unreliable, they were obsolete as a matter of fact, President Kennedy had asked the government particularly the State Department some time previously to consider ways and means of removing them. This was delicate because at that point we had nothing to replace them with, physically, on the spot. And the Turks looked upon them as an important supplement to the defense of Turkey. It would have been bad enough to try to negotiate removal of those missiles with the Turks without a Soviet threat. But to remove the missiles from Turkey under Soviet threat was just inconceivable. It would indicate to the Turks a loss of will, a lack of will on the part of the US And they would question the value of our commitment to their defense. So it was inconceivable that we would yield to that threat. And yet, should we go to war over an obsolete weapon that was a pile of junk. There is a great danger that you will try to deal with and solve political problems with military action. This was a political problem, it wasn't a military problem. Nobody in the Defense Department felt the weapons were worth a damn. Should we ... go to war or run the risk of going to war with the Soviets because we couldn't take care of a political problem with the Turks. And essentially we said no. And this was a story that for, I would say, 20 years wasn't told. And one of the reasons it wasn't told was that there were only about five people I think knew it the President, Bobby Kennedy, Dean Rusk, myself, I believe Mac Bundy. I don't think there were any others. And what we knew was that we had a discussion similar to what I just related my God, don't initiate military action to solve a political problem. Try to solve a political problem by other means. And what we conceived of was saying to the Soviets, we had intended to take those out. We are not going to take them out if you say that is one of the conditions of your removing the missiles and the offensive aircraft of Cuba. You must remove those weapons from Cuba unconditionally. Now, we will tell you that separate from that action, we will take the Jupiters out of Turkey. Moreover, if you ever say or even imply that our removal of those missiles from Turkey were a condition of your removing the missiles from Cuba our weapons will go back immediately and yours will never get in Cuba. This message was passed to the Soviets by Robert Kennedy, first to Dobrynin, through Dobrynin to Khrushchev personally. The Soviets never violated the understanding that we then had with them, in the slightest degree. There was never one hint from the Soviets or one statement from the Soviets that we removed the missiles from Turkey, which we did, because of their pressure or threat. What we actually did was I went back to the Pentagon, and I called one of my most trusted associates, John McNaughton, who was then the Assistant Secretary of International Security and I said John, I want you personally to get in touch with the proper military authorities to instruct them to remove the Jupiters from Turkey and to take them to Italy, to cut them up, I mean literally cut them up with acetylene torches, and bring me photographs of the cut up missiles, and I don't want you to ask me why I'm doing this. And I don't want you to give any instruction to anybody else as to why it's being done. Just instruct them to do it, period. It was done. We got the photgraphs.

SO IT WAS A DEAL?

No, it wasn't a deal. We had-- the President had instructed State and Defense prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, to get those missiles out of Cuba. I mean out of Turkey. And he had instructed them to do it because they were no-- they were worthless. And we in a sense were on the way of doing it, State was thinking about how to negotiate with the Turks the removal of weapons that we knew were worthless, but which they put some mythical value on.

SO THEY TURNED OUT TO BE VERY USEFUL IN A SENSE.

Well, in a sense that it probably facilitated the Soviet decision to remove their offensive weapons from-

IT HELPED KHRUSHCHEV TO SAVE SOME FACE IN A SENSE.

Yes, I think probably that's the case.

HOW CONCERNED WERE YOU ABOUT THAT? ABOUT KHRUSHCHEV'S SITUATION AND HIS EXCOMM?

Well, we were-- we were concerned not with his survival as a political leader, literally or figuratively, and of course he didn't survive figuratively, he didn't survive politically. He was forced out some months after that. And I think almost surely it's a function of his misjudgment in initiating this action that led to this tremendous crisis and what I think was widely recognized in the West and in the East as a crisis in which the US prevailed. We were, we were concerned not with behaving in a way that related to Khrushchev's political survival, but rather to something that was in a sense comparable. We were concerned, and the President was particularly concerned about behaving in a way that didn't force Khrushchev or his associates in a corner, in which they felt that, I'll call it the Soviet honor was at stake. And that regardless of the cost they must act in a, in a military manner, which might carry with it very heavy costs, both for them and us. So every possible effort was made to avoid that pressure on the on the Soviets. I think that is one of the most important lessons to learn from this crisis. Give your an opponent an out. Look at the crisis from his point of view. I don't mean to say be weak, that's not my point at all. My point is, look at the crisis from his point of view, look at the options that you are considering from his point of view. Try to pick an option that achieves your purpose at minimal cost to him, political, military, otherwise to him. That avoids pushing him into an emotional frame of mind in which he is likely to lash out irrationally with great cost to him and you.

DO YOU THINK IF KHRUSHCHEV HAD NOT REMOVED THE MISSILES ON SUNDAY THAT YOU WOULD HAVE ENDED UP WITH...

I like not to think about that. We, we were successful. I stop there.

HOW GREAT WERE THE PRESSURES-

I stop there except to think of the lessons, because I think there are many lessons to learn from that episode.

BUT DO YOU -- WE'LL GET TO THOSE IN A SECOND -- BUT WERE YOU FEELING THAT YOU'D JUST ABOUT RUN OUT OF TIME IN TERMS-

Well, the reason I felt so concerned Saturday evening, as I say, I wondered whether I'd ever see another Saturday sunset, was that events were moving out of control. There were forces at work in the Soviet Union, in the West, that very possibly would have escalated, perhaps not through initiation or action by the West, I hoped it wouldn't come that way, perhaps the Soviets would move in some fashion moved. And they had Castro to think of. Perhaps they weren't entirely in control of his actions. They had the troops to think of perhaps they weren't entirely in control of them. At that point neither we nor they had what are known as permissive action links in all of our weapons, nuclear weapons. We didn't have them in all of ours, and we were almost certain they didn't have it in even a few of theirs. These are automatic call it barriers, preventing troops on the spot from launching nuclear weapons without an external input of authorization from the President. And we therefore had every reason to believe that those nuclear weapons on this soil of Cuba could be launched by personnel on Cuba without any authority from outside. So all of these factors together were on our minds, and we would have been less than human if we didn't face the future with great concern.

BUT IN TERMS OF THESE MEETINGS, I MEAN, WERE THE MILITARY PEOPLE OR THE SO-CALLED HAWKS IN THESE MEETINGS STARTING TO GAIN MORE-

No, no.

CREDIBILITY AS THE DAYS WENT ON? BECAUSE--

No. The military were very well disciplined in this situation. They weren't putting what I'm going to call pressure on me or the President to change our course. They were carrying out the preparations for military escalation, should those become necessary. That was perfectly proper that they should. As a matter of fact, as I remember, we called up reserves during those last few days both to indicate to the Soviets will and intent, and also as a perfectly proper preparatory move toward possible use of military force. And the military were going through very detailed planning for application of force. But, but I didn't feel that they were breathing down my neck just panting for the opportunity to unleash military power, not at all. The military in our society understand war better than most civilians do. And I never thought that they were trying to push us into war. I didn't feel it then, and I didn't feel it on other occasions.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE SUNDAY MORNING WHEN YOU HEARD THE NEWS THAT KHRUSHCHEV HAD AGREED TO...

Well, I remember the great feeling of relief.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE INCIDENT AT ALL?

No, I don't recall. I think I was in the Pentagon at the time. I was either there or the White House, and I don't remember which.

WAS THERE A GET TOGETHER AT THE WHITE HOUSE?

Oh I'm sure there was. I'm sure there was afterwards. I-- I don-"t recall my- I was overwhelmed by joy at the at the recognition that we would not face the need to decide whether to escalate or not escalate, in a way that carried with it very ugly risks, and the burden of that potential decision was removed very suddenly. And it was with a magnificent sense of relief that I went through the rest of the day.

IT MUST HAVE ALMOST FELT LIKE BEING REBORN IN A WAY.

Really literally reborn, you're right.

AND HAD ANOTHER CHANCE. I UNDERSTAND THAT SOME OF THE MILITARY PEOPLE WERE UPSET BY THAT. I MEAN, THEY HAD WANTED TO GO IN AND GET IT OVER-

No, no, well-

ON TUESDAY MORNING. THERE ARE STORIES ABOUT LEMAY AND ANDERSON.

Well, there were-- I don't want to comment by name on who thought what. But I do want to confirm your point that the word "some" connotes many, it wasn't many, it was a very small group of both military and civilians. It wasn't by any means only military. Uh. those small group of civilian and military leaders, civilian particularly in the Congress, more in the Congress than in anywhere in the government than anywhere in the executive branch, a small group of both civilian and military leaders believed that we had missed an opportunity to throw Castro out of Cuba. And they thought we should have in a sense shaped our actions to take advantage of that and removed him, which we certainly had the military power to do.

YOU WEREN'T ONE OF THESE?

I certainly wasn't. And I'd say 80 percent of the senior military, and I'm speaking of chiefs and senior military leaders were not part of that group.

ONE LAST QUESTION BEFORE WE GET INTO THESE ... YOU THEN YOU TOLD US WHEN AUSTIN AND I WERE HERE LAST TIME THAT YOUR FEELING AFTER IT WAS THAT SOME OF THE CHIEFS OF STAFF WOULD HAVE TO BE CHANGED.

Well, I felt that there'd been some misunderstanding between civilian and military authorities during the crisis. Some indication that certain military leaders might not fully comprehend the limitations that one should consider perfectly appropriate on military action in a nuclear age, and that therefore it'd be wise to make some changes, and I did recommend certain changes to the President, and he approved, and we did make them.

YOU TOLD US YOU WANTED TO CHANGE TWO OF THEM, RIGHT?

Well let me simply say that I recommended to the President that he remove one of the senior officers and he approved.

ANDERSON-- I SPOKE TO ANDERSON BY THE WAY THE OTHER DAY -- AND HE STILL-- HE HAS QUITE A BIT OF RESPECT FOR YOU-

Well I want to stress I have for him. He's a magnificent officer.

HE GOT ON THE COVER OF TIME MAGAZINE DURING THIS WHOLE EPISODE, DO YOU REMEMBER THAT? HE'S VERY PROUD OF THAT. THERE'S A PHOTOGRAPH OF HIM ON THE COVER OF TIME MAGAZINE. BUT HE SAID, I THINK DURING THE CRISIS, HE FELT VERY HURT IN A SENSE BY-

I think he did.

BY YOU AND BY THE-

I think he did. And as I suggest, I think in a sense he had reason to feel hurt. Because we were behaving in ways that were not traditional. And the reason we were behaving in ways that were not traditional is because this was a crisis of the nuclear age, and I'll call it traditional behavior had not yet adjusted to the nuclear age. I think it began to do so. That was in a sense a watershed in behavior response to crises-

CAN YOU SAY THAT AGAIN?

Pre-nuclear and post-nuclear.

CAN YOU SAY THAT AGAIN AND SAY THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS IN A SENSE WAS--

The Cuban Missile Crisis was, in a sense, a watershed dividing the pre-nuclear and the nuclear age, and establishing forms of behavior. I hope norms of behavior that are appropriate for the nuclear age that were quite different from the norms of behavior in the pre-nuclear age. And it was that, it was that difficulty in shifting very quickly from a pre-nuclear form of behavior to a post-nuclear form of behavior that came quite considerable difficulties certain of the military leaders. And one can understand why. They'd spent a lifetime training for response in a pre-nuclear period. Almost none of them had any training or any experience in forms of response appropriate to a nuclear age.

BEFORE WE GET TO THE PARITY-- HOW DID THE MISSILE CRISIS AFFECT YOU PERSONALLY? DID IT CHANGE YOU IN ANY WAY DO YOU THINK?

Well, it was the first-

CAN YOU START AGAIN?

I'll start over again. The Cuban missile Crisis for the second time, but very early in my tenure as Secretary of Defense, I was in the second year of my service, concentrated my attention on the risk-

OK. LET'S GO.

The Cuban Missile Crisis for the second time in my tenure as Secretary of Defense, the first being the Berlin Crisis of the previous year, concentrated my attention on the risks of military action in the nuclear age. The situation is totally different today or then from what it was in the pre-nuclear period. And I don't think our doctrine then, and I'm not even sure our doctrine today takes full account of that. But for 12 or 13 days, we lived with the knowledge that a military response or a military action initiated by either party might well escalate into possible use of nuclear weapons. Not that either side would wish to initiate the use of nuclear weapons, but would possibly escalate to use of nuclear weapons because of I'll call it the fog of war that political leaders are enveloped in any confrontation. I don't think the public can understand the restrictions on I'll call it rational action, rational response to political and military crises. The restrictions are lack of information, misinformation, emotion; and these combine to bring misjudgments. Now misjudgments in any situation involving political confrontation or military confrontation between two great powers or two great alliances are potentially very costly and we must try to avoid them. But misjudgments that conceivably could lead to initiation of use of nuclear weapons could be disastrous, and they could occur. And there's a great danger that one side in a nuclear age, fearing that other may ultimately be forced to nuclear action, will preempt, even though they know how dangerous that is. And you say, well, that's, that's not possible. Look at the Middle East in July-- in June of '67. The Israelis knew as we did that the Egyptians were building up their forces. The Israelis were fearful that the Egyptians would launch against them not nuclear but conventional forces. The Israelis preempted it. Preemption is a perfectly rational military option in a pre-nuclear age. Preemption through the age of nuclear forces in the nuclear age is disaster. But it is the kind of risk that one must avoid. And the way to avoid it is to avoid crisis. And one of the major lessons we should draw from the Cuban Missile Crisis is anticipate potential crises ahead of time and take actions that minimize the risk of those crises developing. Look at the Falkland issue. Surely Britain didn't wish to go to war with the Argentines. Clearly the Argentines didn't wish to go to war with Britain. The people who initiated that war are now in jail. They clearly didn't want a war with Britain. Britain and the Argentines should have worked ahead of time to avoid that. The Soviet Union and the US could have made their intentions clear to each other before the Cuban Missile Crisis and avoided that crisis. The Israelis and the Egyptians could have made their intentions clearer before the June '67 crisis. We today could make clearer what I hope is our determination to defend the existence of Israel under all circumstances. We have not done so, to this day, there is no security treaty between the US and Israel. What are the Soviets to think about that? I say that carries with it an unnecessary risk. We should try, one of the major lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis is anticipate crises, try to avoid them, make clear to the other side your intended behavior under certain circumstances.

DID IT ALTER YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Not really. I didn't think before the Cuban missile crisis that nuclear warheads were weapons. I try to distinguish between the term warheads on the one hand and weapons on the other. We had nuclear warheads. We didn't have weapons in the sense that you could initiate the use of warheads as though they were conventional explosives in a typical military operation with potential benefit to yourself or with the intent of achieving a political objective. Weapons are the military hardware which you can initiate the use of under certain circumstances to achieve a political objective and a potential advantage to yourself. There is no circumstance, in my opinion, under which you can initiate the use of nuclear hardware to achieve a political advantage or with benefit to yourself. None. And therefore the warheads are not weapons. They weren't then and they aren't today.

DO YOU THINK IT CHANGED PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S VIEW OF THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR...

I think he in a sense went through the same thought processes I d-- I did.

BUT A LITTLE LA-- BUT LATER PERHAPS-

No, I think then.

DO YOU THINK THAT THE-

No, no, I think then. I think one of them, neither one of us at that date expressed quite as clearly as I hope I have now the distinction between a warhead and a weapon, or, nor did we divide military hardware into two categories. Hardware, military hardware that represents weapons that you can use, initiate the use of to achieve a political end and a potential advantage for yourself versus military hardware that you couldn't initiate the use of to achieve a political end and potential advantage to yourself. The second category not being weapons, the first category are weapons. That, that is a, I'll call it a rationalization of my thoughts that developed at the period but I've expressed since then. But, I think that Kennedy very clearly understood the necessity of avoiding unintended escalation in a nuclear age. He, he had earlier, I'm almost sure I'm correct in saying this, he had, prior to the missile crisis, he had asked each member of the Security Council to read the first chapter of Barbara Tuchman's book, The Guns of August, which describes the way that powers bungled into the First World War without any intention of starting the First World War. And he, in a sense he said, read that, recognize that it was a tragedy to bungle into the First World War that way. It'll be the end of civilization if we bungle into a nuclear war that way.

MANY PEOPLE FEEL THAT THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS HELPED PRECIPITATE THE ATMOSPHERIC TEST BAN TREATY.

I don't think so.

THAT KENNEDY WAS SO FRIGHTENED-

No. No.

BY THE MISSILE CRISIS-

No, no. I don't think that was the case. We were thinking of moving toward a test ban treaty before the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we continued to do so afterwards.

DO YOU THINK THIS WAS THE MOST SERIOUS NUCLEAR CRISIS?

I do. I do-

CAN YOU PUT THAT INTO A SENTENCE?

The, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a very serious crisis, more serious I would think than the Berlin Crisis of the previous year, although that also carried with it potential use of nuclear weapons. Not that we considered that, but under certain circumstances these things can escalate to that. I think that the June '67 war was a very serious crisis. At one point Kosygin sent Johnson a message which said, in effect, if you want war you'll get war. So during the seven years I was Secretary, we had three occasions on which confrontation between East and West carried with it the very high risk of military escalation. And once that starts in the nuclear age, then the risk of use of nuclear weapons is totally unacceptable to me. Because emotions take hold the mindsets of emotional people take hold. We have today between the two of us 50,000 nuclear weapons. We have contingency plans, military strategy, war plans, force deployments training missions -- all designed to support the use of those if necessary. Now, if you take that set of condi-- you take that environment and you see military escalation moving up in that environment, there is a, to me, totally unacceptable risk that those weapons will be used. And Kennedy realized that at the time. It's much greater today than it was then.

KUZNETSOV IS QUOTED AS SAYING TO JOHN MCCLOY THAT "YOU'LL NEVER DO THIS TO US AGAIN." MANY PEOPLE HAVE THOUGHT--RIGHT AFTER THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS--MANY PEOPLE HAVE THOUGHT THAT THIS PUSHED THE SOVIETS TO BUILD UP.

Well, I think it did. I think it pushed them to build up both their conventional forces and their nuclear forces. I think they realized that, as we did, and that as some of our critics did not -- or commentators did not -- that we prevailed because of conventional power. And I think therefore when Kuznetsov said you'll never do this to us again they believed it necessary to build both their conventional and their nuclear power, which they have been doing since that time. Now, as I, as I suggest today there is not Soviet superiority in nuclear power, there is parity. So as they have built we have built and we've maintained parity. It existed then, it exists today.

DID ANYONE WIN THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?

I don't like to use the word "win." I think we prevailed. There's a slight difference. We prevailed in the sense we achieved our political objective. We tried not to I'll call it win. We, the President made very clear, after he received the notice from Khrushchev that he was removing the missiles that we were not to boast about it. We were not to convey to the public that we had "won," because almost surely that would carry with it some Soviet response. And then you're on another train of potential escalation.

IN A SENSE, THE SOVIETS ALSO ACHIEVED THEIR AIM IF THEIR AIM WAS TO DEFEND CUBA FROM INVASION.

Well they had no reason to believe we were going to invade Cuba. We had no plans to invade Cuba.

WELL, THE-

It's inconceivable--

THE BAY OF PIGS--

Oh, well, my God, we learned -- in the first place that wasn't invasion, that was-

THERE WERE ALL SORTS OF ATTEMPTS TO KILL CASTRO, YOU KNOW...

Anyhow, the Bay of Pigs was a debacle. And let me just simply say that the US government, the Kennedy administration, had no plans whatsoever to invade Cuba, with or without the missile crisis. No plans to invade Cuba without the missile crisis.

BUT I MEAN THAT'S ONE OF KHRUSHCHEV'S-THAT'S WHAT HE SAYS; THAT HE WANTED TO DEFEND CUBA.

Well, look, if you'd gone through what he'd gone through, you'd seek for explanations that you hadn't lost completely.

AND YOU DON'T THINK THAT ALL THE CIA ACTIVITIES IN CUBA, THESE ATTEMPTS TO KILL CASTRO, THAT HAVE COME OUT SINCE THE..., THAT THEY WERE BLOWING UP BRIDGES AND ALL THAT TYPE OF THING COULD HAVE...

No. No.

COULD HAVE PROVOKED THAT KIND OF THING?

No. No, I do not. I do not. And I don't by that answer, I don't wish to convey that I believe there were attempts to kill Castro. I won't argue the point, but I just don't want the answer misunderstood.

LET'S NOT GET INTO THAT. LET'S JUST CONCLUDE THEN IN TERMS OF LESSONS, OTHER LESSONS THAT YOU MIGHT WANT TO DRAW FROM.

Well there's one-There's one lesson I'd like to mention, because I'm not certain that it's a conclusion accepted even today and it certainly had not been as vividly in our mind prior to the Cuban missile crisis as in was in mine and I believe the President's after the Cuban missile crisis. And that is that, as absurd as it may sound, I believe that parity in nuclear forces existed in October of 1962. It existed at a time when we had an advantage of 20 to one. We had 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads; they had 300. And yet, parity existed. Now why? Because I define parity as a condition ... of mind, a condition of the holder of nuclear weapons that believes he cannot initiate the use of those nuclear weapons against his opponent with advantage to himself, and that his opponent feels exactly the same way. Now that is parity. That condition certainly exists today. We have 11,000 strategic nuclear warheads, they have roughly 10,000. Clearly it exists. Some people say they have superiority. That's absolutely absurd. But clearly parity does exist today. It existed then, because we did not believe we could initiate the use of one or ten or a hundred, or all 6,000 of those 6,000 warheads directed against their 300 with advantage to us. So we were deterred from initiating their use. Parity existed. And a second point to make is that the band to parity was then very wide, and it is very wide today. The band of parity in a sense was measured by 20-to-1. And what that tells you is that arms control agreements do need to be drawn to be verifiable, it is absolutely essential that we not enter into an agreement that can't be verified. It is absolutely essential that we verify adherence. It is absolutely essential that we insist on adherence. But it is not correct to believe that deviations from arms control agreements will occur so covertly, so suddenly as to endanger our security. They will not, because the band of parity is so wide that before the deviations from an arms control agreement destroyed parity and put us at risk, we will have detected it. Now that is a very important lesson affecting arms control negotiations. I don't think it's yet learned, I don't think it's yet accepted.

APART FROM THE FEW PARTICIPANTS WHO ARE STILL ALIVE AND WENT THROUGH THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS OF THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS THAT PEOPLE TODAY HAVE PARTIALLY FORGOTTEN-- THE KIDS WE SPOKE TO, KIDS WE SPOKE TO JUST BEFORE WE CAME OVER HERE AT THE CEMETERY WERE SAYING, OH, THE AMERICANS WON THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. WE WERE TOUGH AND WE STOOD THEM DOWN, AND TOUGH GUYS CAN WIN, IN A SENSE.

I think that today, the American people almost intuitively accept the basic lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We must behave in ways to try to avoid confrontations. Because confrontations in the nuclear age carry the risk of nuclear war. Secondly, in the event of confrontations, we must minimize the risk that anyone of our actions, political or military, will escalate to nuclear war. I think the American people quite clearly certainly intuitively understand those lessons. And they are very important lessons. What I don't think they understand are the particulars of how to apply those lessons. Because we are behaving in way with respect to arms control, with respect to weapons development, with respect to weapons deployment, that run counter to those lessons. We should change the application of the lessons. We should change our behavior to more closely conform to the lessons.

DO YOU THINK THE ADMINISTRATION HAVE FORGOTTEN THE LESSONS OF THE-

Well, I don't want to charge this administration with greater insensitivity that previous administrations. Neither our military nor political leaders have thought carefully enough intensively enough continually enough about affecting and modifying our strategy, our weapons development programs, our weapons deployment programs, our arms control agreements to take account of those lessons and to be more appropriate for this very dangerous period we're living in.