LET ME BEGIN JUST BY ASKING, FOR THE RECORD, WHAT WAS YOUR PERSONAL ROLE IN THE TRANSITION TEAM?

In the transition team, I was pretty much in charge of the European part, that is, the European desk. And my job consisted of speaking to the sort of top people at the Europe desk, the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs and some of the deputy assistant secretaries, to see what their problems were, how they did their work, what improvements they'd like to see and to pinpoint issues with which we could deal when the Administration came in.

DID YOU THEN MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS OF CHANGES?

Well, we were about to do it, but as you probably know, we were summarily dismissed by Secretary Haig. He came in just about when we were finishing our work. He asked from us very brief oral reports and then more or less thanked us and let us go. We were appointed by Richard Allen, the National Security Advisor, who had come in before him. And he immediately to a, the position that it was not the business of the National Security Advisor to appoint people to look at the State Department, so we never really made any recommendations. In a sense, you had a feeling of futility of the whole enterprise. I mean, I learned a great deal, but we run into enormous hostility from the State Department people. They thought we were a kind of hatchet gang and they were mortified. We thought, we are going to urge dismissal of many of them and call for very, very major changes and so on. I made a recommendation, which was confidential, but which was very promptly leaked, I suspect by people in the State Department, to the press. And it was all over town to the effect that I thought that it made very little sense to include the Soviet Union, which is our arch rival, you might even say enemy, in the same unit that deals with NATO and Canada our allies. I thought that the Soviet Union was sufficiently important somebody higher than that, maybe even an undersecretary who deals specifically with the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc. But the State Department didn't like that. They immediately said this is an ideological approach instead of a regional approach as we'd like and they let it be known in no uncertain terms that the only the reason I made the recommendation was because I aspired to take over the job. So, this was quickly torpedoed and ended and to this very day the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs deals with Western Europe, Canada and the Soviet Union. But, in fact, the bulk of his, or in this case, her, time is spent on dealing with the Soviet Union. And I think it makes very little sense. This is a leftover from the 19th Century.

WAS THERE AN IDEOLOGICAL SHIFT UNDER HAIG? I MEAN, DID THINGS HAPPEN DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE YOUR TRANSITION TEAM WAS REMOVED OR WAS -- DID THINGS PROCEED PRETTY MUCH AS THEY WOULD HAVE?

I think maybe there a was a slight ideological shift, but the principal shift was personal. This question of turf. I mean, Haig is, you know, no dove. He's very tough, very hard line, but he brought to it a kind of sense of belligerency, a kind of defensiveness about his turf that precluded anybody from outside giving any advice. Before Haig became Secretary of State, I met him once or twice. He invited me to give a major address at SHAPE Headquarters and, I think in '79. He then liked me, told me what a great speech it was and so on and so forth. So, it wasn't that he disagreed with me. It's just that I was White House, NSC, and he was State Department. I think there also was very...certain slight shift in ideological approach, because when you are in the State Department, you become co-opted by the State Department personnel which is much more dove-ish, much more conciliatory, much more opposed to any ideology than the NSC is or other parts of the White House. The real issue was personal and turf, not ideology and approach.

ASIDE FROM THOSE NUANCES, WAS THERE A DOMINANT MOOD OF THE INCOMING ADMINISTRATION?

Oh, there was, definitely. We were a group of, united by a very strong ideological commitments to the kind of philosophy that the President espoused, that is, reasserting America's role in the world, America's pride and America's primacy after many years of humiliation, which sort of culminated or reached its nadir in the Iranian hostage affair, when night after night we would see on TV Americans humiliated, the American flag burned or dragged through the streets. So, one had to do that. And, secondly, to put a determined end to the policy of détente and appeasement. There was a great amount of esprit de corps, I think.

YOU LINKED THE WORDS DETENTE AND APPEASEMENT. COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT?

Well, détente is not meant to be appeasement, but détente in practice tends to be towards appeasement, because it rests on the premise that good relations between the Soviet Union and the United States or the West are essential to the preservation of peace. Now, once you assume this premise, in practice, though not necessarily logically, it leads to a position that you must not ever really cross the Soviet Union except perhaps at a verbal level. Because if, indeed, America the maintenance of good relations between the Soviet Union and the United States is of paramount importance, then everything else, somehow is relegated to second or third rate importance. Well, to take a concrete example, people who really believe in détente would say, well, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, regrettable though they may be and though they should be condemned ought not to stand in the way of American-Soviet relations, improved American—Soviet relations. That is an appeasement policy, because it precludes by its basic psychological premise of standing up to the Soviet Union and really taking the Soviet Union to task.

I DON'T WANT TO LOSE THAT THREAD BUT I WANT TO GO BACK AND ASK A COUPLE OF THINGS...I'VE READ THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO CAME INTO THE, WHO JOINED THE ADMINISTRATION IN THE EARLY DAYS CAME FROM THE COMMITTEE ON THE PRESENT DANGER AND I JUST WONDER IS, WERE YOU A MEMBER OF THAT COMMITTEE AND IS THAT TRUE?

Well, I was, I am a member of the Executive Committee. Well, it was true, I mean. It can be demonstrated numerically. I don't remember the exact figure now, but I think it was said at the time that over 40 members of the Committee went into the Administration. Of course, the most prominent member is the President, himself. But there were others as well, say, Freddy Iklé, Paul Nitze, Gene Rostow, Ed Rowny, you know, all along the line, there were people in the Administration. The Committee on the Present Danger probably supplied, along with the whole institution more high officers in the field of foreign policy and defense policy than other set of institutions.

LOOKING BACK AT THAT TIME, THERE SEEMS TO BE A KIND OF IDEOLOGICAL PURITY TO THAT GROUP AND TO THE ADMINISTRATION IN THE EARLY DAYS. WAS THAT A -- IS THAT TRUE?

Well, I don't know what you mean by ideological purity. We had an ideological commitment. You know, the world ideology is treated as a pejorative term in the State Department. They like to call themselves pragmatists. Well, it depends, you know, all these terms have different definitions. Somebody who sticks to his guns can be called a stubborn person or a principled person, it depends on whether you like these ideas or not. You can call somebody whose ideas you don't like an ideologist or a person of ideas. You can call somebody whose actions you don't like a pragmatist if you like them, or an opportunist if you don't. I believe that we were people with principles, people of ideas, people with an outlook. And people who had a long—term view and I think you need that in policy in general, but in regard to the Soviet Union, in particular, because the Soviet Union does that in long—term ways.

HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE CORNERSTONE OF THE EARLY POLICY TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION OF THE NEW ADMINISTRATION?

The policy was that the Soviet Union was a fundamental enemy of the United States and the West and our way of life and it tried to influence our policies in their interest largely by attaining military superiority and especially nuclear superiority, which gave it an opportunity to blackmail the West, to do its bidding. Now, to overcome this, we had to, first of all, free ourselves of the détente ideology, which assumed that we have basic fundamental interests; namely, to preserve peace in the world. And also to beef very considerably our armed forces so that we're not liable to blackmail. The third corollary would be to support democratic forces throughout the world in order to stop further Soviet expansions. That would have been roughly the sort of premises in which we operated.

THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM CALLED FOR, I BELIEVE, AMERICAN SUPERIORITY IN STRATEGIC ARMS OVER THE SOVIET UNION. AM I RIGHT?

I think that was inserted. That's true, but I don't believe that this was really a very important idea in terms of what we thought. I mean, I don't think that anybody there would have objected to American superiority, but we also felt that the Soviets have attained such a lead over us that it would be impossible for us practically to attain a superiority, certainly not in conventional weapons, but even in nuclear weapons. Because the lead was too great and at the same time the opposition of the legislature to granting money for this purpose was also too strong. And I think to some extent influenced the President in 1983 to develop the idea of SDI. Because if you can't catch up with them in offensive weapons, then why not match them in defensive weapons, where we may have a lead in technology.

TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PRESIDENT'S STRATEGIC MODERNIZATION PROGRAM OR STRATEGIC WEAPONS. I MEAN, WHAT WAS, I THINK YOU'VE DONE A LITTLE BIT, BUT DO IT AGAIN WITH THAT...

Well, as you recall, the Administration came up with a program which was only partly implemented, the MX, the possibility of mobile missiles and so on. I remember hearing it. I remember being very pleased with it, but they have never really resolved the problem of how to deal with the vulnerability of our strategic deterrence, land—based strategic deterrence to Soviet missiles, particularly the new missiles, which are increasingly accurate and which have attained in the most advanced models accuracies comparable to our own. This issue...

...LET'S TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT HAD HAPPENED PRIOR TO THE ADMINISTRATION. THE SOVIETS HAVE GONE THROUGH A BIG MILITARY BUILD–UP. DO YOU WANT TO TALK A LITTLE ABOUT THAT?

The Soviet Union military build-up is, was a very positive phenomenon in terms of the assumptions we had made. The dominant assumption in the United States as you know, in the '50s and particularly '60s under Secretary McNamara, was the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, which assumed without really deep thought being given to the subject that nuclear weapons have no utility except as a deterrent. That is to say, they have altered the traditional function of warfare which was to win, because with nuclear weapons, you cannot really win. With this being so, and this was taken to be an axiom, much as a scientific axiom, not subject to reinterpretation on the basis of different ideologies or different national cultures, it was presumed that the Russians think in the same way. So, we decided pretty much in the '60s to allow the Russians to catch up with us in terms of nuclear deterrent on the assumption that if they have an effective deterrent, they will become more stable because they will be less frightened. You know, as long, the argument...run, as long as we have consumer preponderance, the Russians will be nervous, edgy and possibly aggressive. So, we allow them to catch up. And it is generally agreed that by 1969 they did catch up. So that in effect we both had a deterrent. It was assumed at the time that, therefore, they would stop their build-up and this would make possible arms control agreements leading to cutbacks and so on. Well, the people who developed this theory were on the whole scientists and engineers who had very little knowledge of, or interest in, foreign cultures and ideologies. People of that kind generally aren't interested in this matter. So, they absolutely ignored the fact that in Russian literature, beginning with the late '50s but through the '60s a very different point of view was expressed. And the point of view was that, indeed, nuclear weapons, far from serving only deterrent purposes had become the decisive weapons of modern warfare. Just as the machine gun decided the war of 1914—18, and the tank, the war of 1939-45, so nuclear weapons will decide if there will be a World War III. So they sought not only a deterrent that was equal to ours, but a first strike capability, and they went ahead with this in the '70s, building to our great surprise, a next generation of nuclear weapons far beyond anything we imagine, enormous scope, enormous force and yield and increasing accuracies. Now, for a number of years the people whose responsibility it was to explain these phenomena, mainly the intelligence community, where it was so imbedded in the previous hypothesis, which they took to be an axiom, that they explained away this build—up in such terms as, well, the Russians always had, were very insecure, there must be a margin of safety so, they're building more, even though it's useless, or that they have now a new enemy...China and so on, so forth. But the notion that they are building up something for the purpose of winning a nuclear war, if it should be...didn't enter their minds, even when the evidence was overwhelming. And all you have to do is read what they were saying and look at what they were building. The mere fact that they were putting the bulk of their forces in ICBMs which were land-based and, therefore, very vulnerable indicated that they didn't expect to be struck first, but do the first strike themselves. Well, it is in this connection that some of us began to wonder whether we are not making a fundamental mistake, you know, mistake that would have the tragic consequences and not unlike that which the French committed in the '30s when they built the Maginot Line. The Maginot Line was built to fight World War I. In the meantime, the Germans were developing mechanized, motorized warfare, whose purpose it was to break through fortresses such as the Maginot Line. But no attention was paid to this, except by some mavericks like General de Gaulle and others, who were not listened to. The question was now whether we are not basing our strategy on a totally faulty premise, namely that the Russians do not intend to use these weapons. And in this connection, I got involved in something called Team B which was appointed by President Ford and George Bush, as head of the CIA, to look into the matter and to come up possibly with new interpretation.

WAS THERE A SHIFT FROM THE, UNDER CARTER, AS I UNDERSTAND IT, A DOCTRINE OF FLEXIBLE RESPONSE WAS DEVELOPED THAT, WAS THAT A MOVEMENT FROM MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION IN ANY SENSE AT ALL?

No, no, not flexible response. There was not a movement away from mutual assured destruction. What happened was this, Team B completed its work just as President Carter came in. Its finding were secret, but the basic finding was leaked, namely the Soviet Union seeks nuclear superiority. The Carter Administration rejected it outright. In fact, said that the, this, the only reason these findings were made is to force the Carter Administration into making greater defense appropriations, which, of course, is not true. But what they did quietly was to appoint a special commission to study the problem and they came up with conclusions which were very similar to those of Team B. On the basis of which, President Carter a Presidential Directive 59, which assumed that indeed the Soviet Union is planning in the event of war a first nuclear strike, that it is seeking nuclear superiority. And as a result of this, the United States has to take certain counter measures and these were various, but the most important was that our deterrent would be aimed not at Soviet cities and civilian populations and industrial bases, but at Soviet military targets and so on. So, it will be counter force rather than counter value. And also that we have to protect our missiles from a possible first Soviet strike, so we started looking for a mobile missile and you know that story, how this happened. So, PD 59 was a direct issue from Team B and that, in turn, led to the Reagan administration quite openly adopting the war fighting policy that is the premise that if need be the United States will have to fight and try to win a nuclear war.

...MUCH OF WHAT THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION DID IN TERMS OF BUILDING UP STRATEGIC ARMS HAD BEGUN UNDER CARTER, HADN'T IT?

The Carter Administration did begin a number of programs, especially the MX, but the whole tempo of progress was accelerated and, of course, the Reagan administration introduced weapons into Europe and the Reagan administration brought the SDI and so on. Yeah, there is a continuum here. There is, I think that the change from the old McNamara sort of philosophy began in the middle of the Carter Administration and Reagan picked up from there.

TELL ME AGAIN WHAT WERE YOU SAYING ABOUT OUR STANCE TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION, VIS-A—VIS, IF WE EVER CAME TO FIGHT A NUCLEAR WAR. WHAT WAS THE SHIFT THERE?

The shift in terms of our policy was this that before under mutual assured destruction we found first of all a Soviet first strike virtually inconceivable. And we threatened in return to a Soviet first strike a massive retaliatory strike, which would do, which would inflict on the Soviet Union what was defined by Mr. McNamara as unacceptable damage, you know, killing of masses of humanity and destruction of cities, industries and so on. But then it dawned upon our strategies with the Soviet Union things in different terms, human lives...are precious, cities can be rebuilt, industries can be rebuilt, what really matters are strategy forces, military forces and the cadres leaders, political, military and economic. On that basis, we began to think of different targeting policies, policies directed against, more against what's known as counter force targets, targets that represent a force rather than a value, which are human lives and economic resources. Because we felt, and we do feel in this Administration that they are much more vulnerable in this respect, they're much more sensitive to this kind of strike. So, you reorient your targeting policies and everything that goes with it.

WAS THERE A SHIFT IN TERMS OF, FROM THINKING ABOUT NUCLEAR WARS BEING AN IMPOSSIBILITY TO THINKING ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR AS SOMETHING WHICH MIGHT BE FOUGHT AND WON?

Well, definitely, I think that the new Administration said this is true, the pronouncements of Secretary Weinberger. When he is pressed and asked, he will say, I think the possibility of nuclear war breaking out is very low and so on, but if it breaks out, I'll be remiss in my duties as Secretary of Defense if I did not want our side to win, survive and win. Well, I think this is, makes perfect sense. I think, why would the Department of Defense, if you don't believe in that then you should dissolve the Department of Defense and, or dissolve it in the State Department, but this is, just isn't the world we live in.

GOING BACK TO THOSE EARLY DAYS OF THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION, COULD YOU TELL US WHAT STEPS WERE CONSIDERED NECESSARY TO PUT US IN THE POSITION WHERE, IF IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT WAR BROKE OUT WE WOULD BE ABLE TO FIGHT SUCCESSFULLY AND WIN OR AT LEAST EMERGE.

Well, the, first of all you want to develop a deterrent, a retaliatory strike-force that is reasonably unvulnerable, that means your hardened silos. You make redundant systems of communications and so on, so that they couldn't be knocked out and...become futile. You develop a new bomber force, which could penetrate through Soviet radar you know, Stealth bomber and so on, a new B-1 bomber and so on. You develop new submarines, in particular new submarine missiles of very high accuracies. All of this was already planned under Carter was developed under Reagan. So, our strategic forces now, offensive strategic forces, and use some of our defensive measure, they're far more effective than they had been before, a more formidable force. But that, that is precisely the premise, that they're not just needed to frighten the opponent but even to fight them if necessary. Well, SDI caps the whole thing, because SDI then puts a kind of dome over, I won't say the whole nation, because that seems to me unfeasible, but at least over our strategic targets. Which even if they don't totally prevent penetration by Soviet warheads, which I don't think anybody expects to happen, at least destroy enough of them so that any calculations of a first strike become very chancy.

ALONG WITH THE IDEA OF SHIFTING FROM COUNTER VALUE TO COUNTERFORCE AND ASSUMING THAT THE SOVIETS HAVE A COUNTER FORCE STRATEGY AGAINST US, WHICH SEEMS CLEAR...

The Soviets have a counter force strategy. They don't have a counter value strategy.

WAS THAT THINKING BEHIND THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION'S INTEREST IN DEVELOPING A MUCH MORE AGGRESSIVE CIVIL DEFENSE PROGRAM? CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT A LITTLE BIT?

Well, naturally a civil defense program is extremely important, because if you cannot protect your population from, you know, Soviet attack, in our society, unlike Soviet society, democratic society, where people don't just obey orders and where human lives are extremely precious, you are being very vulnerable. Because your population becomes hostage. Even if the Soviet Union does not essentially pursue a counter value strategy by threatening counter value attack, they inhibit us enormously. If you imagine a scenario where the Soviet Union strikes first and knocks out a high proportion of our missiles with a very small proportion of their own, because as you know when you MIRV a missile, one Soviet SS-18, for example, could knock out five, or six, or seven of our Minutemen. So, they only have to use a fraction of theirs and then they have a huge reserve left. They destroy the bulk of our missiles and have, inflict heavy casualties, but still the country remains intact. The President of the United States is very inhibited from striking back if the Soviet Union then says on the "hot line," if you do that, the United States will be obliterated from the map, the United States will be obliterated from the map by our counter value strike. So, you have to prevent this from happening, partly by being able to knock out a very high proportion of Soviet missiles so they cannot strike back in a third strike and partly to protect your population. But civil defense in this country, I am convinced, is a hopeless affair. And I don't think you can proceed with it.

...MY IMPRESSION IS THAT REAGAN'S STRATEGIC BUILD—UP WAS -- SAILED THROUGH CONGRESS, ONE MIGHT ALMOST SAY, IN THE EARLY YEARS, AT LEAST FOR THE FIRST TWO, MAYBE EVEN INTO THE THIRD YEAR. BUT CIVIL DEFENSE RAN UP AGAINST, THAT WAS THE FIRST REAL BLOCK THE PRESIDENT FOUND. JUST NO SUPPORT FOR THAT AT ALL. DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT A LITTLE BIT?

I simply don't think that our society is disciplined enough...I don't believe that in a democracy such as ours civil defense is a feasible proposition. People are too undisciplined, people are not used to taking orders. People are not registered anywhere, you know. I think that any effort at civil defense would result in total chaos. It's almost better to have nothing than to have bad civil defense, though it is very important. You can make a good case for it. Also, there is a great opposition from the arms control crowd and from the supporters of mutual assured destructions, who feel that civil defense undermines the principles of mutual assured destruction. Because we are supposed to be vulnerable to destruction. This is one of these more inane ideas which has been developed in their history of military thought, that the more vulnerable you are to an enemy attack the more secure you are. You know, future generations will wonder that anybody's come up with such a paradox. But that is, they believe that. Therefore, they are against any defensive counter measures. Of course, the Soviet Union believes firmly in defense and they have an enormous, a very disturbing program of civil defense, particularly for the leadership, for whom they are providing a vast network of shelters, where they will be, in the event of war, quite invulnerable.

DOESN'T OUR LACK OF A CIVIL DEFENSE PROGRAM MAKE THE CREDIBILITY OF US FIGHTING AND WINNING A NUCLEAR WAR QUESTIONABLE TO THE SOVIETS?

Well, it does, probably, and that is why SDI is so important. Because the only kind of defense we can have is really to destroy these missiles before they reach the Continental United States.

MAYBE THIS IS A FALSE DICHOTOMY I'M GOING TO STATE IF IT IS, THE STRATEGIC MILITARY BUILD-UP, WAS IT DESIGNED TO FIGHT AND WIN A WAR OR DESIGNED TO BRING THE SOVIETS TO A NEGOTIATING TABLE TO TALK?

Oh, I think in the first place, it was designed to stop Soviet plans for a first strike you know, because the possibility of a first strike is that much greater the weaker the opponent's response. But if you have a really very effective deterrent, such as we have discussed, then the idea of a first strike becomes very chancy and less attractive to the other side. And I think that was, without question, the original motive. After you have done that, after you have built up your forces to the point where they are effective, of course, you are in a position to bargain. But you can bargain, you know, on a really credible basis. Say, I'll give up this, you give up that. But you've got nothing to trade really if you're stripped down to the bone and the opponent is so much more powerful, then you're not in very good position to bargain. You can only bargain when you're more or less equal. But I think to answer your question the original idea was to attain equality for military purposes and only then were we in a position to start using some of these weapons systems for the purpose of bargaining.

REAGAN ALSO INHERITED FROM THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION THE NUCLEAR FREEZE MOVEMENT. ALTHOUGH, IT'S FREQUENTLY SAID THAT IT CAME AS A RESULT OF REAGAN, IN FACT, IT BEGINS UNDER CARTER. DO YOU RECALL A FEELING AMONGST THE ADMINISTRATION TOWARD THE FREEZE MOVEMENT?

Do you mean the freeze movement on testing or the freeze movement on build—up?

WELL, REALLY ON BOTH.

Oh, I don't think it was taken terribly seriously. We knew. We knew of the role played by Soviet front organizations in this movement, particularly the World Peace Council. This is very closely tracked. And it was very clear that they stand behind it. We took some measures which made life for the World Peace Council a bit uncomfortable. We made it very difficult for their President to travel free to this country and disburse funds and organize things. He was, for example, on his visit here, the first visit, the Reagan Administration confined to New York City and an area a few miles around it. And that had a dampening effect. In any event, because we knew of the role of this, that is not to, not to say that everybody involved in this movement was a Soviet stooge. But they provided the organization impetus, and these things without this kind of impetus don't work. We didn't take it all that seriously nor do we take it all that seriously in the case of Europe where these things are really massively organized and financed by the World Peace Council.

BUT IN THIS COUNTRY, EVENTUALLY IT CAME INTO CONGRESS WITH RESOLUTIONS AND IN '83, KENNEDY IN THE SENATE AND MARKEY IN THE HOUSE WERE REALLY LEADING, YOU KNOW, MAJOR CHALLENGES, WEREN'T THEY?

They were, but they weren't in a position to do much about it. And they have, the Administration just went ahead. There's been no freeze. The Administration felt it had a good case and the population was behind it.

DID THE ADMINISTRATION FIND IT MORE DIFFICULT TO GET THEIR DEFENSE BUILD-UP THROUGH CONGRESS, THOUGH, AS, BY THE TIME '83 AND '84 COMES AROUND?

Well, I think this is a function of the general weakening of the Administration. I mean, first of all it lost control of the Senate. And it's a known fact that as an Administration goes on it loses some of its impetus and so on, which it has in its first year or two. So, to the extent that the Administration is weaker, it can get its way in many things and not only in fields of security. You see what kind of problems they have had with getting a Supreme Court Justice appointed. That is a fact. It's a fact of life.

THERE'S A LOT OF SPECULATION ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF PRESIDENT'S STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE. AND AS I READ, I SEE IT EVER PRESENT, NOT AS SOMETHING WHICH HE KIND OF CAME UPON IN 1983 AND SAYING 'WHAT A GREAT IDEA,' BUT CONSISTENT WITH THE LITERATURE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE PRESENT DANGER, OTHER PEOPLE WERE CONCERNED WITH THE NATIONAL DEFENSE. COULD YOU DESCRIBE --

I am not aware of the actual antecedents of the President's decision. I have some, I've heard some rumors, but I really don't have the knowledge. The Committee on the Present Danger was not very active on behalf of SDI, but many of us thought along these lines. I remember once at a conference I attended at the very, very beginning of the Administration, which James Schlesinger chaired, I made a very strong plea for paying more attention to defense. And I also gave... I was given entry to the "International Herald Tribune," where I talked about the psychosis of fear produced by Soviet nuclear terror. I said, they use terror abroad with nuclear weapons the way KGB uses terror domestically. And we have to somehow neutralize that terror. And I said, wouldn't it be wonderful if we would have some kind of a shield, some kind of dome that will protect Europe and us from nuclear weapons, because I'm convinced...the whole attitude of the Soviet Union would change. Of course, I wasn't speaking of anything technical. I was just an idea. But that tells you that many of us were thinking along these lines. But this was not, as I recall, part of any formal pronouncements of the Committee on the Present Danger.

WAS SDI A RESPONSE TO THE FRUSTRATION OF NOT BEING ABLE TO HAVE A CIVIL DEFENSE PROGRAM, OF NOT BEING ABLE TO BUILD UP OUR STRATEGIC FORCES AS MUCH AS WE COULD HAVE? IS IT A COMPONENT OF THAT BUILD—UP?

I think SDI is something profounder than just a response to the failure of the civil defense program or frustrations. It's something very, very fundamental. As I say, I don't know the exact antecedents of it. I was told it was Edward Teller who persuaded the President, there may have been others. But a President sitting in the White House seeing this build—up of offensive weapons, I guess it kind of, a sense of hopelessness, where is it leading to? He, of course, knows it's dangerous. He knows it's very unpopular. He knows it's costly. What do you do? The other side operates on a different premise from yours. You can't persuade that enough is enough. They don't seem to play by the same rules. So, he suddenly hits upon the idea...you know, there is a way of stopping this. You simply neutralize these weapons by making them vulnerable to counter offensive weapons, so that you render them fairly useless. You don't eliminate them all together, but you, they no longer can serve really, truly military purposes for winning a nuclear war. They can still inflict great damage, but they can't win a nuclear war. The President says, yes, a wonderful idea, you know, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. You know, I can see that maybe we can somehow stop this mad race. Because if you have SDI then what's the point of building up more nuclear weapons? I mean, I assume SDI functions and that more nuclear weapons cannot overwhelm it. This, of course, is an assumption which may or may not be true, but obviously the President proceeds on this assumption. So, this is, then becomes an historic opportunity to get away from the nightmare of nuclear warfare. And President Reagan is the kind of man who likes certain principle ideas, like, he likes certain principle ideas like, say, reducing taxes to bring more money to the economy, getting the government off the backs of the people, reducing bureaucracy, restoring the Monroe Doctrine, getting the communists out of the Western Hemisphere. And, you know, he clings to these areas. They become articles of faith with him. And this obviously became an article of faith with him, a very strong article of faith with him and you can see why. It's not just a gimmick. And I think most people miss that. They don't understand the man very well, and certainly the Russians mistook it. They thought, oh, it's just a clever gimmick which will allow him to bargain for reductions in the, our offensive weapons. With him it's really an article of faith. And I think that he may make some adjustments as to the rate of deployment, but I don't believe that he's going to give the idea all together, that he's restricted only to, you know, research and laboratories and so on. He, I think he will insist on it going forward and I think he may well feel that this would be his principal legacy to the nation.

WELL, IF THE SOVIETS HAVE BEGUN AN AGGRESSIVE SDI PROGRAM, WOULDN'T WE HAVE BEEN DEEPLY TROUBLED BY IT?

Well, they have had an aggressive SDI program. We have not been deeply troubled on it, by it, because first of all, we never pay much attention, what they are doing. And, secondly, our scientists were telling, this is a foolhardy program, so why worry? But the fact is the Russians don't think it's foolhardy, they're spending a lot of money on it and they're terribly worried about our program. Nevertheless, we were not worried about it.

ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT THE ABM SYSTEM AROUND MOSCOW?

Well, the ABM system around Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, and everything else. There are a lot of indications that they are, in fact, thinking of a nationwide SDI program. So yes, they have done it. They do all kinds of defensive things that deviate from the theory of mutual assured destruction. They're building shelters for the leadership. They have a civil defense program. They are building anti-satellite weapons. They are doing all kinds of things that are defensive and they indicate that they don't intend to use nuclear weapons simply to punish us in the event we strike first, but nobody pays attention to this here. We are an extremely arrogant nation, you know. Despite all the breast beating in which we engage, we feel that there are fields, particularly having to do with science technology in which no one has anything to teach us. Now, we have gotten a horrendous beating from the Japanese because our arrogance in the field of consumer technology. We about get the same kind of beating from the Soviet Union in the field of military technology but it just does not occur to us. This is our national vice.

ASSESSING THE WHOLE EIGHT YEARS OF THE ADMINISTRATION, NOW, TOWARD THE END OF IT, CLEARLY THE STRATEGIC BUILD-UP HAS SLOWED DOWN, SDI IS BEING FUNDED AT LOWER AND LOWER AMOUNTS EACH YEAR, WHAT -- HAS THE ADMINISTRATION PUT US IN A STRONGER POSITION, SIGNIFICANTLY STRONGER POSITION?

Well, clearly, some of the steam is running out in terms of defense appropriations and so on. This is in part due to the fact that the economic situation, particularly the enormous budget deficit, is forcing cuts. And partly because the Democratic Party is mounting a very irresponsible counter attack against defense appropriations. I say irresponsible because there were Democrats who thought differently. I think, of course, of Senator Jackson. But going back to President Truman days, this was not the case. But the Democrats have gone way off on a kind of anti-defense limb, imitating maybe the British Labor Party and to some extent the German Social Democratic Party. But when all is said and done, when President Reagan leaves office, we will be in a stronger position, considerably stronger position, militarily, than we were when he took office.

WE HAVE TWO DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED POINTS OF VIEW HERE, DON'T WE, TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION, NOT TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION, BUT TOWARD HOW TO DEAL WITH THE THREAT OF THE SOVIET UNION. I MEAN, ONE RELYING ON THE BUILD—UP OF MILITARY POWER AND THE OTHER RELYING ON, I GUESS, STILL MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION. IS THAT, HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THAT DIFFERENCE? AND WHY THE LACK OF AGREEMENT?

Well, there are two schools of thought, one of which I like to call realistic and the other Utopian. The realistic bases itself on a study of Soviet history and the analysis of what the Soviet Union is doing and saying, particularly for internal consumption, which leads you to conclude that military power is the very basis of Soviet world political position and that they intend to increase rather than decrease it. And that if you don't want to be a completely helpless victim of Soviet manipulation you've got to respond in kind. You don't have to use them, but you have to at least be able to say, if it comes, push comes to shove, we can do to you what you do to us, therefore, don't try it. And the Utopian school, which sticks to the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, and which argues that further military build-ups are not only futile but dangerous, that we already have overkill, so by building up more weapons, you just increase the risk of these weapons being used. And the way to security is not by means of arming oneself, but disarming. I call this Utopian, because there's nothing in the history of the Soviet Union or American-Soviet relations that suggest this to be the case. I mean, the poor Afghans presented no threat to the Soviet Union of any kind and it's precisely because of that they were invaded. The Chinese, whom the Russians dearly wanted to invade around 1960, were obviously a much greater force and they were sure to fight, were not invaded. Czechoslovakia, which in 1968 made it very clear that it would not resist Soviet invasion by force, suffered Soviet invasion, occupation. Poland, which was likely to fight back was not invaded. Well, it seems to me when you have all that evidence, and on top of that evidence that the period of détente of the '70s had not led to the Soviet Union to decrease its arms build-up, but rather to decrease it, I would say that people who hold to the second point of view, which I characterize as Utopian, are living in a world that does not correspond very much to reality. And they are very dangerous, because they occupy important positions in Congress and in the media.

WELL, I COULD RESPOND BY SAYING THAT THESE ARE CONTIGUOUS BORDER NATIONS AND THE EXPERIENCE WITH CONTIGUOUS BORDER NATIONS IN NO WAY WOULD INDICATE SOVIET INTENTIONS TOWARD A SUPER POWER LIKE OURSELVES.

Well, I don't see, while it is true that the Soviet Union tends to invade in contiguous areas, it has outposts outside of its areas. Cuba is not exactly contiguous. Cuba has been engaged in aggression for quite some time. In the 1960s the Soviet Union deployed its missiles on Cuban soil, and the Soviet Union now is assisting Sandinistas, assisting subversion in El Salvador, assisting forces in the Philippines. You know, I mean, we're dealing in a world which is very porous and to simply say the Soviet Union is not likely to invade an area that is not contiguous to it is, I don't think, very realistic.

TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW, WHEN ANOTHER SET OF HISTORY BOOKS IS WRITTEN ABOUT THIS ADMINISTRATION, WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY'LL WRITE ABOUT THE REAGAN YEARS IN TERMS OF NUCLEAR WAR POLICY, NUCLEAR ARMS POLICY?

It's probably difficult to say at this point, yet. Because we're still a year ahead of the Administration leaving. I would say that what historians may conclude, if, you know, the Administration ended today, is that it fundamentally reversed the attitude towards nuclear weapons. That if it was the first Administration, though there were the beginnings under Carter, the first Administration to look seriously on the Soviet nuclear build-up, to take the pronouncements on the function ...seriously and to adjust the American nuclear response to Soviet strategy and to Soviet build-up. Not the hypothetical model of what nuclear weapons can and should do, but what the Soviet Union actually thinks they can and should do. That is a very fundamental change, because we are now conducting a strategic build-up that is, We are now conducting a strategic build-up that is geared to the actual threat as it exists and not to a hypothetical threat which was devised by physicists and civilian strategists in this country. And that is a very major accomplishment. I don't believe that even if we should get a Democratic Administration, even a left Democratic Administration, it is likely to reverse this completely. This would be a very hard thing to do. So, that is very likely an abiding legacy. Because after, what, over 20 years of following a wrong path, we have reversed it and adjusted ourselves now to the realities of the situation.

HAS THAT REVERSAL AND ADJUSTMENT MADE WAR, NUCLEAR WAR, LESS, MORE OR LESS LIKELY?

I think this adjustment has made war less likely, because any time you are ready to match a potential enemy on his ground, fight his way, you are safer and therefore less liable to be attacked. Because an enemy attacks, an aggressor attacks only when he's, thinks, fairly certain of winning. If the British and the French in the 1930s had adapted themselves to the kind of warfare that Hitler was obviously planning, and then instead of sitting behind the Maginot Line, develop highly mobile strike forces, the chance of Hitler attack will be much less. So, it seems to me that this has been a very positive development that has made war less likely rather than more likely, and I hope we keep this up for whatever changes occur in Soviet strategic thinking. Always, since they're the potential aggressors and not we, so that our defenses are always geared to their offensive plans and not to some imaginary models of warfare devised by civilians in this country on the basis of calculations known only to them.

I HAVE A FEELING THAT SOMEWHERE MIDWAY THROUGH THE REAGAN YEARS, THE PRESIDENT KIND OF GOT INTO A COMPETITIVE STRUGGLE WITH GORBACHEV FOR BEING MR. PEACENIK, THAT THE WHOLE THING KIND OF CHANGED. SUDDENLY, THEY BOTH BEGAN TALKING ABOUT PEACE AND DISARMAMENT AND ALL THIS STUFF. AND ESSENTIALLY MY IMPRESSION IS THAT GORBACHEV HAS, AT LEAST IN THE MINDS OF MANY WESTERN EUROPEANS, KIND OF WON THAT BATTLE. IS THAT, DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT THAT?

Well, the President did change his attitude, but it happened before Gorbachev. It happened, when, in January of 1984 the President delivered the first soft speech and gave the first olive branch to the Russians. I don't know what precipitated it. There are various hypotheses. One is that he may have felt that he has built up the forces, his forces sufficiently so he could sit down with the Russians on even terms. That's one possibility. The other is that when he felt that he's entering the second term, and that this would improve the image of the Republican Party and possibly retain him the control of the Senate. Another is perhaps he saw himself as a historic figure identified with peace rather than confrontation. Any one of these hypotheses may be true or maybe others as well. I don't know. But he did do that. Now, it is true that Gorbachev is winning this battle because he can make the most irresponsible statements without being taken to account. American Presidents, the President of any democratic country is a responsible leader. His words count. He's held to account for them by legislature, by public opinion. He cannot throw out totally irresponsible proposals. The Soviet leader is not accountable to anyone except his immediate colleagues. So, if the Politburo approves of a certain proposal, he can throw it out. He can then renege on it if he wants to. It means nothing at all. From this point of view...regime is always an advantage. If you recall, or maybe you don't, I recall it, because I was, you know, sufficiently mature then to follow these things, Hitler was winning all kinds of peace campaigns as well. . Hitler, Hitler in the '30s when he was preparing for World War II was continuously talking about peace. He was a peace candidate. It was anybody who stood in his way who was an enemy of peace. The greatest warmonger was Churchill, because Churchill was warning about what Hitler was doing. That is a totalitarian technique and they can get away with impunity with this, you know, we want peace. Of course, at that time, one used to joke, we used to say, "Does Hitler want peace?" And the answer was, "Of course he wants peace, a piece of Poland, a piece of Czechoslovakia," and so on and so forth. That's the kind of peace he really wanted. But if you look back, I travelled through Nazi Germany at the beginning of the war as a refugee and I was astonished by the various anti—war propaganda that was being spread in Germany, showing a battlefield full of corpses and so on saying we don't want war. But what Hitler wanted, of course, is what every aggressor wants. He wants peace. Napoleon once said that, the aggressor wants peace, it's the victim that has to resist. And that's the situation we're in. So, they're aggressive, they can talk peace with impunity while carrying on aggression and we have to prepare ourselves to defend ourselves from their aggression. They talk peace as surrender, you know. If the Afghans surrender today, they will be at peace, but what kind of peace is this. It's pacification, not peace.

WHAT ABOUT THE ARGUMENT THAT GORBACHEV DESPERATELY NEEDS A REDUCTION OF MILITARY SPENDING TO SOLVE DEEP ECONOMIC PROBLEMS?

He does need, I don't know how desperately he needs economic cutbacks. He needs defense cutbacks to be able to build up his economy, but he's not going to get it, because his military people will not allow him to do that and he cannot take the chance on incurring their hostility. So, what we are seeing now is that while he's talking reform, economic perestroika, the defense budgets keep on climbing and the Soviet subsidies to Soviet client states abroad are increasing and there's been absolutely no change in the aggressive posture of the Soviet Union as of the end of 1987.

FINAL QUESTION, LOOKING IN THE FUTURE, ARE YOU AN OPTIMIST OR A PESSIMIST ABOUT THIS WHOLE THING?

...optimist, pessimist. I think the Gorbachev reforms will not succeed very likely. And everything depends on the West, whether the West is enlightened enough and tough enough to defend itself. If it falls prey to illusions, if it starts fighting among themselves and particularly if we have an economic depression, things will go badly. I am basically optimistic, but in a cautious way.

Well, what happened with the START...was this that we had a meeting of the National Security staff with Richard Allen very early in the Administration. The question what to call the new proposals. And all kinds of acronyms were proposed... All kinds of acronyms were proposed, but for one reason or another they were unacceptable. And I remember sitting at this meeting, and says, well, "Why don't you call it START, Strategic Arms Reduction?" And I recall Allen, who has a very good sense of humor, saying that's a great idea, but no one in this room dare to say it was Pipes's idea. He says, "I'm going to take credit for it." And the idea was proposed to the President. He liked it and that's how it got into it. Well, it was just one of these on the spot, on the spur of the moment ideas.