National Security Council-68 and the Korean War
Military and nuclear strategy during the Eisenhower Administration
Presidential Transition
Nuclear strategy under secretary of defense, Robert McNamara
Cuban Missile Crisis

National Security Council-68 and the Korean War

Interviewer

One question, whether the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan ended World War II?

Nitze

As I saw it, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, really gave this... the Japanese an excuse to surrender. They -the Emperor's advisors had determined after the Battle of Saipan that the situation was militarily hopeless, and that they must seek another course to recommend to the Emperor with respect to the war. And they then tried to find ways and means to work out a way in which they could with honor surrender, and they were unable to do so. The... the Army in particular was just dedicated to fighting to the last minute, so that they tried to work something out with the Russians whereby the Russians would intervene and... act as go-betweens in order to enable them to surrender, but the Russians wouldn't do that. The Russians refused to do that. So that they were caught where they just couldn't figure out a way to... to get out of the war. They had to get out of the war. And then when we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that gave them an excuse to surrender with some semblance of honor.

Interviewer

Can we just ask you again because there was some interference. I'll ask you once again the conclusions of the bombs being dropped on Japan.

Nitze

I better start from the beginning. It was my... my view that the atomic bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave the Japanese a way in which they could surrender. They were seeking a way to surrender, but the problem was one of being able to do that. They tried to get the Russians to help them by acting as intermediaries. And the Russians didn't want them to be able to surrender. They wanted to intervene in the war and take the -- ah, Manchuria and so forth and so on. So this was -- this did give them an excuse and it did result in a surrender. I don't believe it was the military effects of the atomic bombs that caused them to surrender.

Interviewer

can you tell me any stories you remember about the drafting of the NSC-68 and some of the initial policy debate surrounding it? I was thinking how for example there weren't any figures attached to it initially and... anything that would give us some sense of how, how it was before the Korean War broke out? How different it was?

Nitze

In the period before we drafted NSC-68, there was really a great difficulty between the Department of Defense and the State Department. Ah, Secretary Johnson of the Defense Department was determined to honor his obligation to hold the defense budget down to 12 and a half million dollars. The rest of us had come to the conclusion that this was an impossibility to maintain an adequate deterrent posture, vis-a-vis the Russians within that...that defense budget. Particularly in view of the fact that the Soviets had removed our atomic monopoly. They had just tested an atomic bomb, and the Chinese communists had consolidated their position on the mainland of China. It was also at that time that the scientists talked to me about the possibility of developing a hy -- a hydrogen bomb. And Ed Teller persuaded me that this was in fact a feasible proposition and it could be -- that it might very well be feasible. And I came to the conclusion that the Soviets were undoubtedly working on the same thing and later that was confirmed, and that we would be in a very poor position if we had refused to go forward with research on that, and the Soviets had gone -- had succeeded in producing a thermonuclear weapon. And therefore, I supported the view of the Pentagon that we should go forward with the research in connection with that thermonuclear weapon. But the people in the AEC had quite a different view. In particular Lillian -- Lilienthal. And Lilienthal thought we had not thought through all the consequences ah, the existence of nuclear weapons and their impact upon world politics and the future of the world. And that this would be exacerbated by the development of a thermonuclear weapon, and we really should do, undertake a fundamental review of policy and that's what we did in NSC-68 despite the differences of opinion between the defense department and the state department. And we found that after a short time we got complete collaboration from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and from Louis Johnson's staff, even though he himself thought it was a... merely a conspiracy to upset his 12 and a half billion limitation on the defense budget. So that that was the atmosphere in which that report was written. When we finally got it written it was approved by all the Chiefs of Staff, by all the Service Secretaries, by the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Joint Liaison Committee which dealt with nuclear matters. And so the -- Secretary Johnson had no alternative really but to sign it and he did sign it.

Interviewer

If you could just tell me about how the figures weren't actually put on NSC-68 until a little later?

Nitze

Well, one of the -- When we were preparing NSC-68, obviously I was much interested in how much a program of that kind would in fact cost. So I did some work myself in trying to estimate the probably cost of such a program. And in contrast to the 12 1/2 billion dollars which the Secretary of Defense was determined to hold the budget -- the defense budget to, I came to a conclusion it would be of the order of magnitude of $40 billion dollars, an enormous increase. And I talked to Dean Atcheson about that, and he said, well Paul, he said, you've done this study all by yourself. It has not been done in a rigorous way. It hasn't gone through all of the procedures that a budget estimate would have to go through. And why don't you just keep that figure to yourself, I'm glad you told me about it, but the document itself deals really with the policies to be followed, not with detailed budget estimates. And therefore the document went forward without any estimate as to the budgetary cost. And Mr. Truman when he approved NSC-68 did not approve anything having to do with the budget. But he approve -- he approved the conclusions but he directed that the various agencies involved should do a detailed budgetary estimate, and that estimate had not been completed at the time that the North Koreans attacked on a Sunday into South Korea by -- in surprise. And it was only after that attack from North Korea that really people approved that we go forward with real...with a real program.

Interviewer

What difference did the Korean War make to NSC-68 and the decision to go ahead?

Nitze

Well, it's wholly doubtful as to what would have happened with respect to the concrete recommendations of NSC-68 unless it had been confirmed that it was a military problem not just an economic and political problem in the east-west relationship.

Interviewer

Can you tell me your recollections of President Truman's 1958 press conference, the one where there was the...

Nitze

I remember it very -- I remember it very well when I was in the State Department and I received a telephone call to come over to the White House immediately. So I rushed across the street. We then had offices right next to the -- to the White House. And I rushed across the street to that room where the Press Conference was holding -- was taking place, and I was told that the president, Mr. Truman, had just said that he had -- would rely upon a recommendation from General McArthur as to whether or not to use nuclear weapons in Korea. And that that was totally contrary to policy. And they asked me what should be done about it. And I said, well, I would suggest that that section of the record of the press conference be excised. And ah, they said, we agree with you. And I suggested some other language which... which would be substituted, that substitute language was that any recommendation for the use of nuclear weapons in Korea would require the president's approval before it could be executed. And that so that's the way the record was changed. Well, the press had been there and they had all heard what the president actually had said, so that ah, by the time the press conference was over, we got word that Mr. Attlee was going to take a plane and was on his way to Washington.

Interviewer

What steps did you take to placate the British prime minister when he arrived?

Nitze

I was not involved in it. The...the President had...you know, he's just misspoken. He...he, McArthur had never -- no authority had been...had ever been delegated to McArthur to use ah, nuclear weapons. And he had given that impression and he had not intended to. So he assured Mr. Attlee that that was not the intention. The intention was that the final decision would be a presidential def -- decision, with respect to the use of nuclear weapons.

Interviewer

Did you have other personal involvement in the decision whether to use nuclear weapons in Korea? What were the arguments for and against using...

Nitze

I'd never...I never heard anybody recommend that they be used other than General McArthur indirectly. Everybody else in the Pentagon and in the State Department and the White House were perfectly clear in their minds that this should not be done. Ah, the question as to how many nuclear weapons we had at that time was a very closely held secret. I think there were only three or four people in the Pentagon and I think only two or three of us in the State Department who were aware of that fact. And so that the number of people who could really do any planning with respect to it was very small indeed. And I worked closely with General Loper and Mr. LeBaron who was head of the Joint Liason Committee which dealt with nuclear matters between the AEC and the Pentagon, and we were clear in our minds there was no health at all to using nuclear weapons in... in connection with the Korean War.

Interviewer

This is the final question on Korea. How did the state department see the Korean War? Did they see it as a local conflict or the beginning of a global conflict?

Nitze

No, it was clear from day one that the Soviet Union and to some degree the Chinese in turn had been behind this surprise attack into South Korea. And that therefore, that it indicated that the Soviet Union was in -- was in fact prepared to use power through -- military power through satellites in order to carry out their objectives. So that this in fact demonstrated that point. Now the other question and issue was, were they prepared to do the same thing elsewhere and when and under what circumstances. Certainly the Europeans by and large thought that this demonstrated the main point that the Soviets were prepared to use military power in support of their objectives if they found it convenient and if they thought the risks were not too great. Therefore, the Europeans became very much troubled at that time, and they urged us then to expand the military assistance program and to go forward with other measures which would give greater security to Europe.

Interviewer

So there was a very real feeling that the Red Army might march across Western Europe?

Nitze

There was indeed. Unless there was an adequate deterrent. Therefore a great deal of energy went into creating an... an adequate deterrent. Because we'd already gone through the point that with the Soviet Union having broken our monopoly on nuclear weapons, over time they would achieve something close to equality, and that therefore one...the cutting edge of policy had to rely upon conventional el...ah, military forces, not only nuclear military forces.

Interviewer

I'll just ask you about the Berlin Crisis then...

Nitze

At that time I was working on economic matters. I was Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. Therefore I was much involved with the currency problem in Berlin. And the Berlin block -- the Berlin crisis arose over a currency problem in Berlin. Ah, we had supplied to the Soviets the plates with which the marks were printed for both their section of Berlin and our section. And they printed an unconscionable number of marks which we then had to redeem in dollars. So it was complete drain into the Treasury. And we then cancelled that, and created our own currency in our section of Berlin. And the Russians were furious that they no longer had this pipeline into the U.S. Treasury. So that then they instituted this blockade. And General Clay who was our Commanding General in Berlin at the time, he ah, declared a counter-blockade without authority from Washington, and he was quite right about doing that. But then the question arose as to whether or not to use military force in order to what was called clarify whether this really was a blockade or not. It really was trying to push aside the roadblocks to the roads and so forth and so on, with the threat behind it that we might go to war in the event that ah, they were thrown back because they had complete military... conventional military superiority in the area. So that it was really the... the background of our nuclear monopoly which was the main thing that we were relying upon at the time. Ah, now the question is still debated as to whether or not Khrushchev would have back -- backed down, ah, Stalin would have backed down, in the event that we had done what General Clay wanted. And we did not, and decided that the airlift was enough. What we did also as I remember is send some 60 B-29s that looked as though they were nuclear capable -- we didn't have that many nuclear weapons -- to Europe, and that I -- seemed to us to be the correct balance between what we could afford to do militarily without too much risk. Now ah, I think probably if we'd followed Clay's advice, Khrush -- ah, Stalin would have backed down, the Russians would have backed down, because they were engaged in quite a different operation. They were engaged in pressure on Tito at the time, and I think that was more important to them than carrying out this ah, blockade operation.

Military and nuclear strategy during the Eisenhower Administration

Interviewer

When John Foster Dulles began to speak of massive retaliation in 1954, what was your reaction?

Nitze

I was at--at the dinner at which he made the speech in which he announced the the doctrine of massive retal-

Interviewer

Could we say... We want to eliminate indefinite references.

Nitze

In 1954, when John Foster Dulles announced the doctrine of massive retaliation, he announced it at a--at a dinner--dinner given at the Counsel on Foreign Relations in New York and I was present at that dinner and I immediately felt that this was entirely the wrong doctrine to have announced and I talked to the people at the table with me and they all agreed with me. That this was a--incorrect position for the United States to take.

Interviewer

What was wrong with it?

Nitze

What it really purported to do was to look upon nuclear weapons as the weapons of choice that you would use these at places and at times of your own choosing. And that suggested that we wanted to use nuclear weapons and it seemed to me that the last thing in the world that we wanted to do was to used nuclear weapons. We wanted to have nuclear weapons in order to keep the Soviet Union from pursuing its expansion as planned. And therefore, only under the circumstances where we could, there was no alternative, would we want to use nuclear weapons and that John Foster Dulles had gotten it just exactly reversed.

Interviewer

Was there anything you could do to try to convince the Eisenhower Administration? Did you do anything of the danger of this policy?

Nitze

I talked to John Foster Dulles about it. I talked to Bob Bowie who ran the policy planning staff under--under Foster at the time. I had the feeling that Bob Bowie agreed with me. Eventually Foster did understand what was wrong about it and changed it. But it took some time before he--he did change that policy.

Interviewer

Let's talk for a minute about the Gaither Report. Our understanding was that there were a good many of scientists who gave testimony. What was your role among all these scientists?

Nitze

We're talking about the Gaith--Let me start again. The Gaither Committee Report was issued I think in 1959, and then we started work on it the year before. It was done by a large group of people under the chairmanship of Gaither, Gaither got ill then, a man by the name of Sprague took--took over the job. But a number of scientists and people knowledgeable in the field of defense worked on the report. It was supposed to deal with--with civil defense as a matter of fact, we turned away from that 'cause we didn't think that was the main problem at the time. We thought the main problem at the time, was that of the vulnerability to a surprise attack of our bomber force in the United States, now that the Soviets had demonstrated from Sputnik and the--they'd announced intention to build ICBM's. That those bomber forces would be vulnerable, they were on a small number of fields and bombers were not then prepared to take off on short notice and we had no radar warning system in order to give us advance warning of a Soviet attack. So that the main purpose of the Gaither Committee--the main result of the Gaither Committee Report or the main recommendation of the Gaither Committee Report was that we must with all speed cure that vulnerability of our major deterrent.

Interviewer

What was your role, did you write it?

Nitze

No, James Finney Baxter was the--a professor at--at Dartmouth College or Williams College I guess, was the person who was given the role of writing it, but I was-I worked with him and I think I probably contributed more on the substance of the report than most.

Interviewer

Did you find there was any cause to be alarmed?

Nitze

Yes, indeed. Albert Wohlstetter had done a very careful study of the vulnerability of our bomber force to a surprise Soviet attack and this was wholly persuasive to the leadership of the Gaither Committee, these included John Jay McCloy, Bill Foster, and Sprague I guess were the principal ones. That way they were uh, it was a very large group that, and it was a very careful study that was done.

Interviewer

What was President Eisenhower's reaction to the report? Did he share your sense of concern?

Nitze

I think he did. Foster Dulles was very much opposed to his paying attention to the report, he wanted Eisenhower to listen to him, not to us, but in fact Eisenhower did all the things that we had recommended in that report, all the things we gave the highest priority to. During the last years of the Eisenhower administration, you know the defense budget was some 9 or 10% of the gross national product and the percentage of that which went into strategic forces was much higher than it's ever been since. I mean few people realize that.

Interviewer

The report found its way to the <>Washington Post</>, what was President Eisenhower's reaction to that so called leak?

Nitze

The report didn't find its way, but so--somebody uh--a--but uh, I forget who it was, was told a good deal about the main points within the report.

Interviewer

Did that bother the president?

Nitze

I--I believe it probably did. The administrations never like leaks.

Interviewer

How would you describe President Eisenhower's attitude toward nuclear weapons and the Soviet threat. Did he underestimate the Soviet threat and cling too long to massive retaliation?

Nitze

I always find Eisenhower's views ambiguous, he said a lot of different things at different times, and he was not I think a very precise and clear thinker on these matters. John Foster Dulles had the clear ideas. Admiral Radford who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had clear ideas. When it came down to the issue as to whether nuclear weapons might be used in connection with the Quemoy-Matsu episode there the original decision was that they should be. I was very much against this and talked to--to uh, to not John Foster Dulles but to his brother, Allen Dulles about it at length. But from then until the proposition was discussed with General Eisenhower and he turned down the use of nuclear weapons in connection with Quemoy-Matsu. I think h--when he really understood what the issues were about he came out on the right side. I think his instincts were on the right side.

Interviewer

The Berlin Crisis in 1961, was this a serious crisis?

Nitze

It was a very serious crisis. Mr. Krushchev had told us in no uncertain terms that he--he had put down a deadline of--of of December 31, 1961. He said, unless you will agree with our proposals with respect to uh, Germany, we will turn over control of the access routes of Berlin to the East German government and we will wash our hands of any responsibility whatsoever. Now, it was perfectly clear that the East German government would take a very str--would probably take very forceful steps and would reinstitute the blockade which the Russians had lifted before. And it was uh, a serious crisis. The problem at issue was how to respond to this ultimatum, because it was an ultimatum by Krushchev, how should one respond to it when it took place. We thought it was going to take place.

Interviewer

What did you feel our options were?

Nitze

We went through all the options as to how we could immediately respond to the particular block, the particular stoppages that they might put in our access to Berlin, such as block--blocking the roads, or the railroads or the canals or the air space and what we might do immediately in order to see that this was serious, we did not propose to make the same mistake we made in--in the preceding Berlin blockade where we hadn't really tested their determination. But once having tested their determination then we thought we would have to recognize the fact that they had clear military superiority on the spot and that with--the result of going further than that say, putting 2 or 3 divisions into an attempt to get to Berlin would end up, clearly in a disaster, we did not have the military forces in order to do that. Therefore, the thing to do was to--after we'd probed their intentions, then what we should do is to go into a period of intense mobilization. And after having really mobilized our full capability then to try again, when we're in better shape to really see whether they really meant it or not.

Interviewer

Was there--do you know Bill Kaufmann--did Bill Kaufmann help in the Pentagon's re-evaluation, evaluation of objects?

Nitze

It is my recollection that he did not. I think he worked on--he had ideas, lot's of people had ideas. But the way in which this was organized was that there was a quadro-partite committee, consisting of--of Foy Ko--Kohler, who was our assistant secretary for European affairs and including the French ambassador, the British ambassador, the German ambassador, and then under that there were two committees, one a contingency committee which dealt with these contingencies and how to respond to them. And then a military committee which dealt with what would be the basic military posture of the alliance in the event these, the--the ultimatum really uh, came to be and in other words they did in fact turn over the excess routes to East Germany.

Interviewer

Kaufmann says he recommended three conventional options in the limited nuclear options. Are you aware of that?

Nitze

He may have, but I don't remember that we took them very seriously. We had examined all the various options that were possible doing in this military committee. They have--each one of the countries had a senior military man from--from the NATO, and mili--military commitee which in those days was stationed in Washington and we had senior people from their, from their governments as well, and we worked almost continuously for several months on the various options of what to do with them.

Interviewer

Carl Kaysen in Mack Bundy's office, said he proposed to do the first strike against the Soviet Union, did you agree with this?

Nitze

No, I did not. I don't--I don't even remember its taking place. He may have proposed it but I don't remember that he proposed it to our military committee.

Presidential Transition

Interviewer

During the transition from the Eisenhower to the Kennedy administration, do you care to re-evaluate our security policy, what were your concerns and recommendations at that time?

Nitze

One of our principal concerns was uh, had to do with what kind of a nuclear strategic policy we wanted to adopt. Did we really want to set for ourselves the objective of maintaining or achieving and maintaining nuclear superiority as a foundation for our policy more or less to the idea that Foster Dulles's doctrine had implied. Or did we rather want to adopt a policy which would try to negate any possibility that the Soviet's might have of themselves achieving, of the Soviet's achieving nuclear superiority. And in essence the decision that was made was that we would do the second not the first. That we were really trying to deter the Soviets, not achieve the usable nuclear superiority ourselves. The second uh, batch of problems we dealt with were the various crisis spots that we could see arising around the world in--including in the Middle East and uh, Vietnam and Laos in particular but with Vietnam behind that uh, and in Latin America and in other parts of the world. And then there were some-questions having to do with the organization of our defense establishment, that we should go for a unification of the arms services or not. We recommended against unification of the arms services.

Interviewer

Did you recommend of conventional build up?

Nitze

We did indeed. Uh, I'd chaired a committee earlier--earlier than that which dealt with a committee, the advisory committee of the Democratic National Advisory Com--Committee, there was a sub-committee of that dealing with foreign policy and defense policy and we'd prepared a paper titled The Nuclear Forces we Need and How to Get Them. And in that we'd recommended a build-up that increased the defense budget of approximately 5 billion dollars, some 3 billion as I remembered should be for conventional forces, and 2 billion to cure some of the defects in our uh, nuclear posture, and that's more or less what we did when the--when we took office when the Kennedy administration took office.

Interviewer

I thought that the conventional wisdom always was at the Warsaw Pact, the strength was overwhelming, but what confidence did you have that a build-up in NATO conventional forces could match the Warsaw Pact?

Nitze

We didn't really think it needed to match one for one the Wa--Warsaw Pact. We thought it sh--should be serious enough to--to be able to resist and contain the Warsaw Pact and that Warsaw Pact attacked for some time. And that in the long run, the Soviets wouldn't really want to attack Europe if it involved a serious conventional first stage and if we maintained the possibility to deny them clear nuclear superiority in any subsequent stage.

Interviewer

McNamara announced his strategy at the Ann Arbor--Ann Arbor speech of 1962, avoiding soviet cities and hopes of limiting damage to our civilian population. What was your reaction to that was he moving in the right direction?

Nitze

This was in part my recommendation to him that we adopt a no-cities policy. I was strongly in favor of it and I'm still as strongly in favor of it.

Nuclear strategy under secretary of defense, Robert McNamara

Nitze

Like anybody who contemplates a nuclear war in which one goes after the other fellow's cities doesn't know what he's doing.

Interviewer

He shortly gave up on the... this stirred up the air force, I understand that they wanted, if we're going to counter forces if they wanted more forces, as the Soviets build up more forces and so he moved away from the rhetoric of this, but did he move away from it when he began to talk about assured destruction. What did that mean to you?

Nitze

That, that was an attack not necessarily directed against cities, but directed against uh, industry supporting resources and where the destruction involved would be unacceptable to the Soviet Union and therefore it would be adequate for deterrence.

Interviewer

Were you comfortable with that?

Nitze

I thought it--I thought the priority should be given to c--counter force not to that kind of an attack. So I was not comfortable with his decision.

Interviewer

Could you accept it? Did you appreciate his concern about the air force wanting more and more hardware and the concern of trying to put a lid on the budget.

Nitze

I did indeed. You always- have to live with budgetary problems after all the-I was became McNamara's deputy, and then when he was given the job of head of the World Bank, why I really had to run the--that part of the Pentagon, which dealt with the budget and I certainly had to meet budgetary targets too. So that certainly I was involved in the--in the budgetary allocations and those are very real but that's a different thing than saying that's a desirable thing that your doing to--to uh, limit yourself so that you have only the option of going after cities. It's a wholly undesirable thing which you might be forced to by virtue of the fact that you didn't--couldn't get enough support in order to have a more intelligent nuclear policy.

Interviewer

What would you have preferred within the same budget constraints, what would you have prefered that he do in the mid 60s?

Nitze

Well there were a number of things which I differed with him on, on the details of the budget. But uh...

Interviewer

In terms of strategy?

Nitze

I'm talking about strategy. And there I'm saying I didn't think that he should of changed, walked away from the Ann Arbor doctrine which I thought was the correct doctrine.

Interviewer

When he began to foresee a situation of--where each side would have the, an assured destruction capability, this condition that came to be known as mutual assured destruction or MAD, what was your reaction to that?

Nitze

Well, that became much more pertinent during the early days of the--of the SALT I negotiations in '69 after the years when McNamara was in office. And there in negotiating with the Soviets was perfectly clear that they were not had no use at all for the idea of their assuring that they would be vulnerable, they were not going--there wasn't going to be any mutually assured destruction. They said in fact we're going to see to it that you'll be deterred by our capability to destroy you. But if you want to have any--have a comparable capabilit--that's up to you, we're not going to help you.

Interviewer

Did you disagree with McNamara when he sort of moved against ABM in the mid 60s?

Nitze

He didn't move against ABM after all he was the one who proposed the safeguard sentinel system. And I supported him in that.

Interviewer

But he wanted to bargain in a way didn't he? He was hoping that the soviets would, would...

Nitze

I also wanted to bargain in a way.

Interviewer

You did. You were in agreement on that?

Nitze

Yes indeed.

Interviewer

How would you characterize then your disagreement with McNamara on nuclear strategy?

Nitze

Exactly what I've said. That I thought that what should up to the point that one could afford it, that people would support you in it, have a counter-force strategy rather than a city-destruction strategy, you want to avoid cities if you possible could... Which was--I don't think he really disagreed with me. I think he was locked into the doctrine that the U.S. could afford whatever forces it needed. And my view was we ought to separate out what it would be that would be desirable and then what it is you could afford and these were not the same thing. But he thought they were the same thing. And that's where I really disagreed with him.

Interviewer

Harry Rowan and Wohlstatter think that he by not making R & D commitments at the end of the 60s presided over a decade of neglect in our nuclear posture? Do you agree with that?

Nitze

Well, we had a real problem and that was the Vietnamese War, 'cause the Vietnamese was--was a--you know we were putting a tremendous effort in the Vietnamese War and that's where the--all the political pressure in the United States was, is with respect to whether or not we were going to be able to succeed or not succeed or whether that was the right war to be in. And while we were putting these resources in the Vietnamese War, we did not put the resources into the strategic part of our budget which would be necessary in order to keep anything resembling equality with the Soviet Union.

Interviewer

So you saw a slipping in the late 60s?

Nitze

I did indeed.

Interviewer

Could you say that...

Nitze

I did--I dd--I did indeed in the late 60s, see a slipping in our relative nuclear posture vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.

Interviewer

Did you tell McNamara this?

Nitze

Certainly, it wasn't hard to see. I'm not sure that he didn't dis--he didn't agree with it too. But the question at issue, what do you do?

Interviewer

What would you have wanted to do?

Nitze

He and I both agreed on the f--on the general posture that uh, we really wanted to get out of the Vietnamese War if we could and...

Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer

What did you argue should be done about the missile when you first heard the news and those first meetings?

Nitze

I first heard the news of the Cu--the fact that we had photographs which confirmed that the Soviets had--were putting missiles into Cuba on a Sunday night, when I was having dinner with Dean Rusk and a whole group of Germans, and I'd just been talking to one of those Germans about my suspicion that the Russians were about to create a double crisis and response for their political defeat with respect to Berlin. That that double crisis might include Cuba. And at that moment there was a knock on the door and Roger Hillsman asked to see Dean Rusk and he took him outside and told him that there were photographs indicating that the Cuba-- the missiles were there, which McCone--John McCone of the C.I.A. had thought was probably true, and I had also thought was probably true. We didn't have confirmation of it. So then immediately thereafter Rusk took me out on the terrace of the State Department on the 8th floor and told me what Hillsman had told him and said what do you think we ought to do next? And I said, well this seem to me to be a very serious development and that clearly the president should be immediately informed but that I--my--myself didn't have an immediate answer as to what I thought should be done. And the next day I had to go out to make a speech out at--in Knoxville and but on the plane coming back I wrote out a memorandum as to what I thought. And Soviet maximum objectives and minimum objectives and what our objectives should be in connection with this crisis. And then after that the meetings went on, day and night for several days before we really got the situation more or less thought through in an orderly fashion.

Interviewer

What was your position? What did you think we should do?

Nitze

Well, I think everybody changed their positions at various times during the debate. But I-I thought that we began to get some clarity as to the problem, when Alexis Johnson and I went off to his office and wrote and dictated a scenario as to how to handle this issue. And which began with--he did all the political parts of it. And I did all the military parts of it. And when I was proposing in that scenario was that we start with a quarantine. That then if that worked, why then the crisis would be over. If that did--if that did not work, then we had to be prepared to take out the su--the air defenses on--on the island. And if we could get those air defenses out then we should destroy the uh missile sites. And if that worked, by then, we were through with the crisis. If that did not work, then we had to be prepared to engage in a--in a landing--an invasion of the island. So that what it turned out in my mind was that it was not a choice between one or another, what one wanted to do was to use the minimum force necessary in order to achieve the result. And the result we wanted was the elimination, to get those missiles out of there. And that's--I think everybody finally came to that conclusion. And the key date, the key of this scenario that we developed was that the president at some time, would have to make a speech to the American public and to the world. We needed a draft of that speech in order to make us--give our scenarios some degree of concreteness. And we asked Ted Sorenson to dr--to write that draft and he did a brilliant job. He did it over night and it was a first-class job.

Interviewer

...In the initial reaction to it, that you favored an air strike?

Nitze

I think that was probably my--I don't quite remember but I--I've favored one thing or another as we went through it, trying to think through the logic of the case. And as I say, I think we finally did find the logic of the case when we worked out this scenario with the minimum use of force necessary to achieve the objective. But being prepared to do whatever was necessary in order to achieve that objective.

Interviewer

I mean the initial reaction that some of the people had--the initial sort of camps that formed...Where did you stand in that sense...In the end almost everyone came around to the idea of what eventually was..?

Nitze

Well I--i stood, as I remember it more with the harder line camp, rather than the softer line camp during the initial phase. I sided with Dean Acheson, with respect to the quarantine. There'd been some argument by the lawyers involved that a blockade was illegal under the circumstances, 'cause we hadn't declared war. We were not at war with Cuba--with Cuba and we didn't want to declare war. And Dean Acheson came up with the idea well, you know international law's is a matter of precedent. Then we'll create a precedent. And we'll-- if you object to the word blockade, we'll call it a qu-a quarantine. And so that I was behind that when he suggested that.

Interviewer

What was your reaction to Secretary McNamara's assertion that the missiles didn't change the strategic balance.

Nitze

I thought he was quite wrong. Totally wrong.

Interviewer

Can you put that in a sentence for me. That you thought...

Nitze

Uh, when McNamara suggested that the--the presence of these medium-range and intermediate-range missile in Cuba, would not in any way change the strategic balance, I thought he was quite wrong about that. His view was on the one hand, that we were quite vulnerable in any case to the intercontinental-ballistic missiles and the heavy bombers that the Soviet Union had. And that this would not appreciably increase the danger to the United States. And I think he also rather felt that there was a--was a better chance of getting along with the Soviets if there was a greater degree of equality between the uh, the nuclear capabilities of the two sides. I thought that uh, the presence of these missiles in--in Cuba with their much shorter time of flight than ICBM's would in fact give the Soviets union, not just equality. It would help them along the road toward having superiority and I thought that this--that whoever had a clear superiority would thereby gain political advantages, which we could ill afford to give to the Soviet Union. So I disagreed with McNamara on that right from the beginning in the arguments of the ExComm.

Interviewer

Did you feel that you won the day in terms of that argument, that strategic balance argument?

Nitze

I think I did.

Interviewer

Was it a tough argument, was it a bitter--I mean you're both strong, you're both kind of strong, articulate individuals, I would think that must have been quite a--an interesting...

Nitze

Oh no, there were lots of tough arguments between lots of different people in the ExComm during those--those days. The view of one or another person was very passionate at any given time and then we changed their viewpoints. We were seeking to argue these things out and argue--arguing them out, this was a serious matter. And therefore you don't do that timidly, you do that by honestly putting forward what your views are, arguing it out and seeing whether you can't come to a consensus and we eventually did come to a consensus.

Interviewer

Some of what you call the hard liners were upset I think by the blockade decision. I'm thinking or Acheson perhaps...

Nitze

I don't believe that Acheson was upset. No, I don't remember that he was upset, because after all, here if you could get the job done through a quarantine, why not? There was some additional risk, that the Soviets might have missiles that, warheads there. And that they might use those before the quarantine really could take effect. And there were some that argued that this was you know more rapid and certain, but on the other hand, some of the military agreed that you couldn't be certain you'd get all--get them all out in an initial strike. And therefore, it was a certain, another way of looking at it, so that the risk perhaps was greater if you carried out an air strike first, and a strike against the-the missile installation. So it was--it was of--you had to have a balanced judgment after you knew all the facts. And the facts kept coming in, so we knew more and more about it day after day.

Interviewer

How did you feel the Soviets move in Cuba related to other situations in the world?

Nitze

I think it did relate to Berlin. I think that. Wait a minute. I did--I did believe that the uh, Mr. Khrushchev's decision to try this rather hazardous uh, experiment in Cuba was related to the fact that he'd had to back away from his ultimatum that he'd given the preceding year with respect to Berlin. We won that one on Berlin and he felt that this was an opportunity to reverse the... a) to reverse the corollation of--of strategic nuclear forces which had caused him to back down in Berlin, by putting these missiles in Cuba, it would change the strategic relationship; and b) could then exploit that politically in order to gain a political victory which would compensate for our having out faced him in the Berlin situation. Now subsequently uh, you know when they fired Khrushchev they--they called this, uh, a harebrain scheme, the odd after deploying this as the Soviets, uh who fired him, calling it a harebrain scheme to deploy these missiles in Cuba.

Interviewer

I mean how close do you think we came to nuclear war during the Cuban...

Nitze

I thought during the time that we were not coming very close to it. We had clear cut conventional superiority around Cuba and we found the 4 or 5 submarines that they had and made them surface, so they were not a threat. We could have carried out whatever we wanted to with respect to Cuba. We could invade, we could capture the island, we could have done all those things, but we also had uh, really effective strategic superiority at that time. At that time the effect of Mr. Eisenhower's very great emphasis in the latter years of his presidency have been the nuclear part of our defense had paid off. So we were beginning to get into the--at sea--the Polaris submarines and the--and the intercontinental missiles etc...etc...and the heavy bombers. So we weren't in better shape than they were with respect to the nuclear situation at that time, the strategic nuclear. And the combination of being in a posi--superior position both locally in the conventional and in the strategic seemed to me to reduce the risks not to zero. You never could tell what somebody might do out of anger or irrationally. But it was my feeling that the Russians are very careful, conservative and very rational people, who believe in having a greater fire power per mile of front. And that's what they-that's the basis of their, their military thinking.

Interviewer

You didn't feel, I mean this was kind of irrational act...certainly a miscalculation by Khrushchev. Kennedy was quoted as saying well the chances were between one and three and even or something. Other people, like McNamara has said he wondered if he was going to wake up and see another sunrise... You didn't feel that this was an irrational act that changed the ball game, that you couldn't sort of logically figure out what the Soviets might do?

Nitze

I thought it was, the probability was very high that they would not wish to get themselves involved in a war with us at that time, about Cuba where they were in a--in poor shape, that they--it was not in--not im-possible that they might react. I thought that if they did react, they might very well react against our--our missiles in Turkey and in Italy, or perhaps by reinstituting the Berlin blockade. I thought it would be unlikely that they would even do that.

Interviewer

What do you think are the essential lessons we should learn from the Cuban Missile Crisis today, to help us today in the relationship between the United States and...

Nitze

That it's a--that if you have clear cut conventional superiority backed by nuclear superiority you're in very good shape. If you don't have it you're not in as good shape.

Interviewer

Do you think this--can you state that again as a kind of a lesson of the--you feel is the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Nitze

In my feeling there's, that's--the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrated that when you have conventional superiority on the point of--at the point of conflict, confrontation, plus superiority in nuclear weapons, you're in very good shape. There's very little that the other side can rationally do about it. Now, they might do something irrational, but if they do something irrational, they'll get it much worse than we would get it, so they're not apt to do that. Now, it isn't that easy to have the combination uh, eh, conventional superiority. Plus being backed up with nuclear super--superiority. We don't have it today. And there are many parts of the world where we don't have, where we have, where we're faced with gross conventional inferiority because of the geographic position favors the Soviet Union. And we don't have nuclear superiority either, nor do I think we have even nuclear equality. So we're in a much more dangerous position today than we were. But we still, I think have a sufficient nuclear capability, so we don't have to panic at all, because I don't believe as I said earlier I think that the Soviets are conservative, therefore I don't think that they will do--push that hard where there is a real danger of war. You can't be certain of it. And we certain, certainly shouldn't let our guard down. But we've got--if we do the intelligent things we'll be alright.

Interviewer

Do you think the Cuban Missile Crisis changed the world in any way? Do you think it changed the thinking about nuclear weapons, for example the utility of the nuclear weapons perhaps?

Nitze

I think not. Because there are many in the United States, many who were--who worked with us in the--during the ExComm, like Mack Bundy who evaluate the situation quite differently than I do. He thinks the nuclear weapons had nothing to do with it and he so says. He thinks all you need is a minimum --nuclear deterrent, I think he's quite wrong, totally wrong. But all I'm saying is it didn't set off these arguments.

Interviewer

Can you put that direct counter to what Bundy has said in our interview, actually, he said, in a tight sentence for me, the role of nuclear weapons in the cuban missile crisis...

Nitze

It seemed to me that the role of nuclear weapons was crucial, not the only thing that was crucial. Our conventional superiority at the point of confrontation was equally crucial, both were crucial. I think the lesson is that if you have both conventional superiority and that it's backed up by nuclear superiority then you're in very good shape. You're not, it isn't riskless, but the risks are clearly risks that you can take with confidence. If you're in the reverse of that situation where you have both conventional inferiority and you--and it is not backed up by nuclear superiority but you have nuclear inferiority, still the power to retaliate, you got a much more dangerous situation.

Interviewer

What do you think was the greatest moment of danger during those 13 days?

Nitze

You ask what it--what was the greatest moment of danger. My feeling was that the--I was most concerned during the period when we couldn't make up our mind what to do. But once we made up our minds what to do and we'd adopted this uh, policy really, of using the minimum amount of force necessary to achieve the objective, but still stage by stage being prepared to use, whatever force was necessary in order to achieve the objective of getting those missiles out of there, I felt confident after we arrived at that decision.

Interviewer

You don't recall that moment, that day on the high seas when the Soviet ship was approaching the line and everyone was sitting around?

Nitze

I remember it very well indeed.

Interviewer

Can you tell what you remember?

Nitze

It was McNamara, and Ros Gilpatric and I went down to flag plot which was in the uh, in the navy part of the Pentagon, and uh, with uh, General, I mean Admiral uh, what's his name,...

Interviewer

Admiral Anderson...

Nitze

Yes, at the time when the Soviet Ships were approaching our quarantine line, uh McNamara and Ros Gilpatric who was deputy secretary of defense and I went down to flag plot to go over with Admiral Anderson the exact location of all the ships and to discuss what was going to be done next. And during that conversation McNamara insisted that he be kept informed minute by minute as to what was going on. And how the situation was evolving on the spot, so that he could inform the president and he and the president could be sure that all the political consequences of whatever was done had been thoroughly taken into account. And Admiral Anderson was of the view that this was quite an improper procedure. That the history of naval doctrine had in--had always been based upon the fact that the person on the spot was the only person who could take into account all the factors which bore upon, what--what was happening on the spot. That he should be given correct s--general instructions but he should be given a great deal of leeway as to how to carry out those general instructions. He ought to be--his instructions ought to be specific as to what the purpose was, but not in detail as to what he was to do. And that this--this procedure that McNamara was suggesting uh, a master minding of McNamara and the president, master minding what was said and done minute by minute seemed to be--to him to be a total violation of that doctrine, and quite improper.

Interviewer

What was your feeling about that relationship, I mean did you feel that this was a...

Nitze

I thought on this that McNamara was right, I thoroughly sympathized with--with the Admiral's viewpoint as to what the--history had been. But under these circumstances it--it seemed to me that the political considerations outweighed the immediate military considerations on the spot and this was partially due to the fact that I was sure that we had naval superiority at that spot and no great disaster could come from some improper action on our part.

Interviewer

You gave me a clear understanding of the way you feel the lessons of the missile crisis were, do you think these lessons are understood or appreciated today by the administration and by the populace?

Nitze

I think they're understood by the administration I do not believe that they're understood by the populace.

Interviewer

But instead of saying they, if you could say...

Nitze

I think the lessons of the--of the Cuban crisis are understood today by the administration. I doubt that they are understood by a large segment of the populace.