Interviewer:
GENERAL, LET ME NOW
ASK MY FINAL QUESTION. IT IS THIS, THAT, ESSENTIALLY, THERE IS AGREEMENT THAT WARSAW PACT HAS
SUPERIOR FORCES. THERE IS SOME DISAGREEMENT AS TO HOW ONE SHOULD EMPLOY NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THIS
SITUATION. THERE ARE THOSE WHO SAY THAT IT'S NOT WORTH GOING NUCLEAR WHEN YOU CAN'T PREDICT
WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. BUT YOU, I THINK, HAVE THE OPPOSITE VIEW. CAN YOU TELL US?
Farrar-Hockley:
You can predict
what's going to happen in this sense, that if you make a first use of nuclear weapon or weapons
a select number and the enemy reply, you still have that initiative that you can cut it out and
say, well, we bring this to an end. They may say it. You leave the options open as long as you
can. That would be the argument for beginning to use them. And incidentally, when we exercise,
we seek to get governments in part, to take part in these exercises, the prime minister or some
representative administrator of the day, taking part in them, to realize that these are the sort
of problems that have got to be faced. Some governments are better than others that facing up to
them. The other option that we might expect the Soviets to use, if we go nuclear, and they
decide they're not keen for a variety of reasons to immediately respond, is to respond with a
shower of chemical weapons, not only the battlefield but on our cities, which would again have a
devastating effect because we do not have anti-chemical weapons amongst our civil populaces. Now
if you take the other argument that it's too terrible a thought and would get out of control
I've heard it argued in the past, but it's rather forgotten now, in any case, even if the Soviet
Union won a military victory, are we to suppose that they're going to hold down Europe and even
the United States. Well, one can't give the exact answer to that, but we have to bear in mind
that Hitler, with relatively small forces, and the Japanese, with relatively small forces, held
down huge numbers of people for a long time and in appalling conditions in the sense that, at
leisure, the Gestapo were able to go around in, say, a place like Norway, or in France, not
looking for people who were Jews, but who were half-Jews, and then ultimately quarter-Jews and
that the civilian populace were cowed into accepting this. Indeed, it was very difficult for
them to resist. We think now of the great resistance movements. But they only sprang into being,
after a very long time. So that is the sort of option that people have to look at if they say,
no, we will not risk the atomic weapon. We'd rather go down and hope that in a hundred years
time, all will be well. Well, I just hope they know what they're doing, if they take that
course, if such a dreadful crisis ever occurs.