War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Haves and Have-Nots; Interview with Marshall Shulman, 1986

Part of War and Peace in the Nuclear Age.

11/11/1986

Marshall Shulman was the founding director of the W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advance Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University, and served as special adviser on Soviet Affairs to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance during the Carter Administration. He begins by discussing the ill-fated Vance mission to Moscow in early 1977, then moves to an assessment of different levels of concern in the United States about Soviet missile developments, and of what the Soviets were actually up to. He follows with a broad discussion about security concerns in the late 1970s, which leads to a discussion of how the MX came about. The interview turns to Soviet activities in the Horn of Africa and to the question of whether Moscow actually had a grand strategy (which he doubts). He walks through how different views on the subject translated into different proposed counter-strategies, and how these various notions were expressed by Zbigniew Brzezinski and the National Security Council staff, versus the State Department. He discusses the latter's attitudes toward linkage, then goes on to explain specific policy issues such as the Cuba brigade and playing the China card. He makes the argument that fears about major Soviet geopolitical gains at the time were, in retrospect, greatly exaggerated.

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Series

War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Program

Haves and Have-Nots

Program Number

108

Title

Interview with Marshall Shulman, 1986

Series Description

The first atomic explosion in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, changed the world forever. This series chronicles these changes and the history of a new era. It traces the development of nuclear weapons, the evolution of nuclear strategy, and the politics of a world with the power to destroy itself.

In thirteen one-hour programs that combine historic footage and recent interviews with key American, Soviet, and European participants, the nuclear age unfolds: the origin and evolution of nuclear weapons; the people of the past who have shaped the events of the present; the ideas and issues that political leaders, scientists, and the public at large must confront, and the prospects for the future. Nuclear Age highlights the profound changes in contemporary thinking imposed by the advent of nuclear weapons. Series release date: 1/1989

Program Description

A case study of the dynamics of nuclear proliferation: China triggers India and India triggers Pakistan in the competition to have their own nuclear weapons.

In 1953 President Eisenhower announced the Atoms for Peace program. This marked a total reversal of American foreign policy. Americans would give material to allow countries to build reactors. “So overnight we passed from nuclear middle age to nuclear renaissance,” recalls French atomic scientist Bertrand Goldschmidt. The Soviet Union started its own program and helped China learn to build a bomb. The first Chinese nuclear blast was in 1964. Indian defense expert K. Subrahmanyam recalls that a nuclear China prompted India to set off a “peaceful” nuclear explosion in 1974. “There is no such thing as a peaceful nuclear explosion,” responds General A. I. Akram of the Armed Forces of Pakistan. “’74 was a watershed. It brought the shadow of the bomb to South Asia, and that shadow is still there.”

Duration

01:13:21

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

Mengistu Haile-Mariam, 1937-

China

Jackson, Henry M. (Henry Martin), 1912-1983

Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894-1971

Dobrynin, Anatoly, 1919-2010

Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 1928-

Soviet Union

Perle, Richard Norman, 1941-

Horn of Africa

Soviet Union. Treaties, etc. United States, 1972 May 26 (ABM)

Nuclear weapons

United States

United States. Dept. of State

Developing countries

Cuba

Kissinger, Henry, 1923-

Committee on the Present Danger (U.S.)

Afghanistan

Carter, Jimmy, 1924-

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II

Somalia

Ethiopia

Vance, Cyrus R. (Cyrus Roberts), 1917-2002

Antimissile missiles

Nuclear arms control

Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994

Gromyko, Andrei Andreevich, 1909-1989

Genres

Topics

Contributors

Shulman, Marshall Darrow (Interviewee)

Publication Information

WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Haves and Have-Nots; Interview with Marshall Shulman, 1986,” 11/11/1986, GBH Archives, accessed November 23, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_5CE8909D66224D0D8EB6F57CC572C0B5.

MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Haves and Have-Nots; Interview with Marshall Shulman, 1986.” 11/11/1986. GBH Archives. Web. November 23, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_5CE8909D66224D0D8EB6F57CC572C0B5>.

APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Haves and Have-Nots; Interview with Marshall Shulman, 1986. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_5CE8909D66224D0D8EB6F57CC572C0B5

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War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Haves and Have-Nots; Interview with Marshall Shulman, 1986