GBH Openvault

War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink; Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986

Part of War and Peace in the Nuclear Age.

03/26/1986

Marcus Raskin served as McGeorge Bundy's assistant on national security affairs and disarmament on the National Security Council staff from 1961-1962. In the interview he discusses U.S. nuclear strategy and disarmament. He explains the White House response to the first-strike proposal created during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. He is repulsed by the idea a first strike, which he considers illegal and immoral, and compares it to the Holocaust. He also describes the buildup of U.S. nuclear capabilities under Secretary of Defense McNamara. He contends that trying to control the arms race, without nuclear disarmament, is impossible because neither side will be totally satisfied that they have a stable deterrent against the other's nuclear forces. In addition, he argues against the conventional forces buildup, which he thinks will only encourage the U.S. to get into more conflicts like the Vietnam War, which could eventually evolve into nuclear engagements. He also discusses the idea of a U.S.-Soviet negotiated disengagement from Eastern and Western Europe.

Series

War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Program

At the Brink

Program Number

105

Title

Interview with Marcus Raskin, 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

In October 1962, the Soviet Union and the United States are at the brink of nuclear war, the 13 most harrowing days in the nuclear age.

“I remember leaving the White House at the end of that Saturday and thinking that might well be the last sunset I ever saw,” recalls former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara of Black Saturday, the day the Cuban missile crisis pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war. Aleksandr Alexseev, Soviet ambassador to Cuba at the time, recalled, “We and the Cubans decided that, in order to avoid a United States invasion, we should supply Cuba with missiles.” The US effort to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs was an expression of President Kennedy’s disbelief about the missiles in Cuba while it surprised Soviet leader Khrushchev according to his speechwriter,Feodor Burlatsky. Major General William Fairborne, speaks about how “We loaded whole blood and a hundred coffins onto the carrier Iwo Jima.” Looking back on those 13 days, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk reflects, “...we’ve got to find some way to inhabit this speck of dust in the universe at the same time.”

Duration

00:43:17

Asset Type

Raw video

Media Type

Video

Subjects

Nuclear weapons

Germany

Zorin, V. A. (Valerian Aleksandrovich), 1902-1986

Bundy, McGeorge

Civil defense

United States. Dept. of Defense

Fallout shelters

United States. Air Force. Strategic Air Command

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

Dean, Arthur H.

United States

Kissinger, Henry, 1923-

McCloy, John J. (John Jay), 1895-1989

Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963

Vietnam War, 1961-1975

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Warsaw Treaty (1955)

Kaysen, Carl

National Security Council (U.S.)

Schelling, Thomas C., 1921-

United States. President’s Science Advisory Committee

Brezhnev, Leonid Il'ich, 1906-1982

McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009

Gorbachev, Mikhail

China

Wiesner, Jerome B. (Jerome Bert), 1915-1994

Teller, Edward, 1908-2003

Nuclear disarmament

Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894-1971

Soviet Union

Sorensen, Theodore C.

United Nations

Locations

Washington, DC

Genres

Documentary

Topics

War and Conflict

Science

Global Affairs

History

Contributors

Raskin, Marcus G. (Interviewee)

Publication Information

WGBH Educational Foundation

Citation

Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink; Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986,” 03/26/1986, GBH Archives, accessed April 20, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_9EEEEDCFEB1B4D06A9E8DA66B86A236B.

MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink; Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986.” 03/26/1986. GBH Archives. Web. April 20, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_9EEEEDCFEB1B4D06A9E8DA66B86A236B>.

APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink; Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_9EEEEDCFEB1B4D06A9E8DA66B86A236B