AMBASSADOR, I'D LIKE TO START BY ASKING YOU ABOUT THE '79 DUAL TRACK DECISION. HOW, HOW DID THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION WHEN IT CAME IN IN EARLY 1981 FEEL ABOUT THAT DUAL TRACK DECISION BEING TAKEN IN '79?

I think the first point to make is that as with any new administration there were a large number of people who didn't know anything about the double track decision. Here you had very important legacy, a decision that was in train and a number of people who simply weren't up to speed with its implications and its importance for the alliance. Secondly, you had a group of people who I think were for both technical and for political reasons somewhat skeptical of that decision. Technically there ware people I think mainly in the Defense Department who had doubts about the actual weapon systems. They worried about the vulnerability of cruise missile deployments, the difficulties of moving the systems with their large logistic trail or tail in and out of their deployment areas and then politically because it was viewed as a Carter administration legacy they were just simply skeptical. Any new administration tends to think at least the first six months or a year into its life that the last administration made nothing but mistakes. There was I think though a core of people, I would say mainly in the State Department because of foreign service officers you tend to have more continuity there who understood the importance of that decision not only for what it represented in strategic terms, that is linking the defense of Europe to the strategic deterrent of the United States but political terms here was a decision that the alliance had taken and it was important that we carry through.

THANK YOU. NOW TOWARDS THE END OF NOVEMBER 1981 PRESIDENT REAGAN ANNOUNCED THE SO-CALLED ZERO OPTION WHICH HAS FORMED THE BASIS FOR THE CURRENT INF DEAL. THAT PROPOSAL ORIGINATED IN GERMANY. HOW DID IT COME TO BE ADOPTED BY THE US ADMINISTRATION?

Let me say first of all I'm not too sure where that proposal originated. There are some talk that it originated in Germany; there is also some discussion that it originated with the Dutch peace movement. So I would be very careful in deciding just exactly who invented the zero option. How it originated I think was first of all we had to make a decision to get back into the negotiations and that in itself was an important struggle within the Reagan administration. There were those who felt that the administration needed to take more time before it got back into the process of negotiation. I'm sure there's some people who hoped there never would be any negotiations. There were others who recognized that given the structure of the double track decision, their ability to move forward on the deployment track necessitated some form of negotiation. The first decision the Reagan administration which, which it had to make was in the spring of 1981 which was to agree that before the end of the year we would get back in those talks. We then moved to the question of what should our proposal be and there was a lengthy debate between two camps: one camp lead by the Pentagon mainly, who believe that we should propose zero, both on the grounds that it was a very old proposal, that it would capture the imagination of the public and I think on the grounds that this was the optimum military outcome, that doing away with the substantial number of Soviet forces was about the best we could achieve in the negotiation. There was another school of thought at the State Department which felt that the problem with the zero option was that it tended to undercut the logic of the double track decision that we needed these systems not only because of the SS-20 threat but in a period of strategic equality or parity we needed to couple the defense of Europe to that of the United States, especially given Soviet conventional advantages, and there were those who also argued at that time that it wasn't a credible option, that it wouldn't capture the imagination of the public. These issues were, were debated back and forth through the summer of 1981. They were presented to the President in the fall of 1981 and I think the President was attracted to the simplicity of the zero option and the fact that this would give him the initiative in the public diplomacy debate with the Soviets, and so of course he went for it and announced it in a fairly famous speech in November.

EUROPEANS SAY THAT IT WASN'T SERIOUSLY INTENDED AS A NEGOTIATING POSITION, SOME EUROPEANS MIGHT SAY THIS. WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE TO THAT?

I think it's difficult to, to really argue that. I think some people may have felt that it wasn't a serious negotiating position. Maybe some people even supported it with the understanding that the Soviets would never accept it. Of course that didn't turn out to be the case. The Soviets did accept it and it demonstrated I think the leverage that the deployment of cruise missiles and Pershing IIs gave us at the negotiating table.

I'D LIKE TO TURN TO THAT QUESTION IN A MINUTE BUT FIRST JUST ANOTHER POINT WHICH IS THAT EUROPEANS, NOT ALL OF THEM ON THE POLITICAL LEFT OFTEN ACCUSE THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION BETWEEN 1981 AND 1933 OF NOT BEING SERIOUS ABOUT ARMS CONTROL NEGOTIATIONS. WAS IT SERIOUS?

We were very serious but I think we had a very different concept that some European leftists did about arms control and it's a philosophical difference really and it's worth I think flushing out. I think some people on the left in Europe and in the United States for that matter believe that arms control is an alternative to defense policy, that there are two different paths to security. You can either build up arms or you can try to reduce them through negotiation. It is, it was the view of the Reagan administration and it continues to be my view that those are phony options. That in fact defense policy and arms control are intimately tied together and that arms control can only work if you have a strong defense policy and that a strong defense policy is a pre-condition for arms control that you can't achieve good outcomes at the negotiating table unless you give the other side incentives to negotiate. Moreover there are times when negotiations can't solve all military problems, that where unilateral military improvements are necessary as an end to themselves but I think this conceptual difference of looking at them on the one hand as two alternatives and other, and on the other hand as different sides of the same coin, as linked and married together for effective policy, that, that was behind this debate about whether the Reagan administration was serious. The Reagan administration believe that in the 1970s our relative military power in contrast to the Soviet Union had declined, that thus we were in capable of negotiating sound arms control agreements. The only arms control agreements we can negotiate in the '70s were ones that could legislate or quantify a Soviet military build-up. President Reagan wanted reductions and he argued that we couldn't achieve those reductions at the negotiating table unless we strengthened our military capability to demonstrate to the Soviet Union that without a reductions agreement we would be, we would become stronger.

DO I UNDERSTAND FROM THAT ANSWER THAT YOUR VIEW WAS THAT DEPLOYMENT WAS INEVITABLE BUT THAT YOU NEEDED TO AS IT WERE MANAGE THE ALLIANCE TOWARDS DEPLOYMENT?

No I think my view was in part that deployment was inevitable, that, that the Soviet Union was unlikely to negotiate seriously in Geneva until we demonstrated the capacity to deploy. Now at what point the Soviets became convinced of that you would have to really address the Soviets. Whether it was six months prior to deployment or six months after deployment, but I do believe that, say in 1981, that there was no way we could get the Soviets to negotiate seriously because I think the Soviets believed, and I think that policy demonstrated this belief, that they could derail the double track decision, that they could through a public propaganda campaign directed against Europe and exploiting the peace movement in Europe stop the deployments without paying a price at the negotiating table. So yes, deployment or at least moving close to deployment was I think a pre-condition to achieving an outcome in the INF negotiations.

THANK YOU. IN 1982 PAUL NITZE AND MR. KVITSINSKY WENT FOR THEIR FAMOUS "WALK IN THE WOODS," AND CAME UP WITH A PROPOSAL WHICH WE'RE BOTH FAMILIAR WITH. THAT WAS REJECTED IN WASHINGTON AS WELL AS IN MOSCOW. WHY WAS IT REJECTED IN WASHINGTON?

I think it was rejected in Moscow for a very simple but important reason and that is under the famous "Walk in the Woods" scenario the United States would not have deployed or to have been permitted to deploy the Pershing II missile and remember this proposal was discussed prior to the actual deployment of American systems in Europe. Many of us felt that if we signal that we were prepared at that stage to live with an agreement that did not permit the deployment of the German, of the Pershings in Germany we would have never then been able to go forward with their deployment and thus achieve a zero option. If we had, would have publicly said we don't need these missiles in an arms control outcome then given the state of public opinion in Germany at that time we wouldn't have been able to go forward with deployment, and that of course in my view would have meant that years later we wouldn't have, have achieved the entire elimination of these systems. So it was very important prior to the deployment of those missiles to say that either we would accept a proposal that had zero on each side or if we deployed above zero, as envisioned by the "Walk in the Woods," that it would be a mixed force of cruise missiles and Pershings.

THANK YOU. WE'LL COME BACK IN A MOMENT TO ONE OR TWO OF THE PROPOSALS WHICH WERE AROUND, CAME, CAME TO THE SURFACE IN 1983. I JUST WANT TO ASK YOU NOW, YOU REFERRED TO THE STATE OF GERMAN, OF GERMAN AND EUROPEAN OPINION AT THIS TIME. WAS THERE A MOMENT IN 1982 WHEN SOME PEOPLE, AND PERHAPS SOME IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION DOUBTED IF DEPLOYMENT WOULD PROVE POLITICALLY POSSIBLE?

Well there were, there were. I happen to be one believed throughout this process that if we managed the negotiations properly, that if we, if we worked in the negotiations to, to actually seek an agreement we didn't appear to be reluctant on the negotiating track and if we consulted closely with our allies that we could achieve deployment. There were others who disagreed. There were some in the Pentagon who believed that the, that the Europeans were not strong enough politically or courageous enough to, to actually deploy; some of our negotiators had doubts on this score. Some of the, some of, some people in the administration who had close links with the, with left of center parties in Europe and particularly the SPD in Germany were worried that deployment would, would lead as some, as some argued to a civil war, that it would create social convulsions so great that it wasn't worth the cost, and my view was that view was wrong and I believe in retrospect I was vindicated, that what was interesting was the following deployment and the Soviet walk-out that, that these, there wasn't the kind of social unrest that some people believed. I have to say one thing: I think there may have been a generation gap in, in people's analysis. Some of them, I think some of the older participants in this process, in the Reagan administration I think in some ways felt they were reliving a Vietnam War experience they saw on their television screens or on their visits to Europe these very large protests and they felt they, they had to ultimately bend to the, to these protests. I think perhaps the younger people who hadn't experienced that while serving in Government felt that we could manage this process, but that's only pop socially, sociology theory.

YOU WERE BY THIS STAGE QUITE INVOLVED IN PREPARING THE GROUND FOR DEPLOYMENT AND YOU MASTERMINDED AND PERHAPS ONE COULD SAY RODE SHOTGUN ON BUSH'S TOUR OF EUROPE, VICE PRESIDENT BUSH'S TOUR OF EUROPE IN FEBRUARY 1983. WHAT DID YOU FIND AS YOU WENT ROUND THE EUROPEANS, I'M THINKING PARTICULARLY OF THE GERMANS AND THE DUTCH?

I found first of all a great deal, a great deal of polarization and I think that was the case prior to deployment and it remains the case, polarization of security party, policy in Europe. I think the spectrum of views in Europe are, are much broader than say they are in the United States. I felt a recognition on the part of most of the European governments that this was more than a simple deployment or arms control issue, that this was an issue that was becoming a symbol of whether the alliance could actually follow through on a decision it had made so that you had Chancellor then, the new Chancellor Kohl, Prime Minister Thatcher and others very strongly determined to see this through and on the other hand I think you had people who believe that this could be a fundamental watershed in, in alliance policy. There was, that that was the high point really of the argument for unilateral disarmament, the belief that that if we disarmed that the other side might reduce its forces by example. What was necessary I think during the Bush visit really was first of all reassurance, a sense that, that Mr. Bush could provide, which was that he was close to the President and that the President was not kidding around and that the President wanted an arms control agreement and it was important I think for people to hear that both in private and in public, and secondly, George Bush with his I think kind of typically American say maybe Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart type of style, laconic, easy-going, was a calming factor in what was becoming I think a very heated debate.

NOW YOU, YOU WERE... YOU WERE, AS YOU SAY YOU WERE, YOU WERE NEEDING TO CALM THE EUROPEANS DOWN A BIT BECAUSE THE EUROPEANS WERE CONSTANTLY AT YOU AT THIS TIME, YOU BEING THE AMERICANS, TO REACTIVATE SOMETHING LIKE THE "WALK IN THE WOODS" OR SOMETHING LIKE IT. WHAT DID EMERGE AT THIS TIME WAS THE SO-CALLED INTERIM PROPOSAL. WHAT WAS THE THINKING BEHIND THAT?

Well I was a great proponent of the interim proposal and I think the thinking simply was that the zero option from a standpoint of public opinion had worn out its welcome. We had had it on the table for over two years and that from the public standpoint the negotiations really hadn't, hadn't, hadn't moved ahead. The time had come for the United States to demonstrate that it wanted an agreement and was willing to seek an agreement that didn't, wasn't as far-reaching as a sign of its good faith in, in the arms control process. By the way, there was a benefit or an additional benefit. By getting away from the zero option you could re-establish the function of INF deployment in the first place, which was to deploy systems in Europe capable of hitting Soviet the homeland thus linking the defense of Europe to the United States.

I'LL COME BACK ON THE ISSUE WHICH WAS RAISED BY THAT IN, IN ONE MOMENT. RIGHT, WELL DEPLOYMENT DID TAKE PLACE...[BACKGROUND DIRECTIONS]…WERE, DID THE EUROPEANS TRY AND WHEEDLE OUT AT THE LAST MOMENT OR WAS IT ALL PERFECTLY STRAIGHT FORWARD...?

No, there, I, there was very little jitters at the last minute. I think that, that we were very lucky indeed to have some very strong people in the saddle in Europe. I put Chancellor Kohl and Mrs. Thatcher in that camp and also in a, in a, in an important way Francois Mitterand, the French weren't deploying but he was a very helpful factor I think in stabilizing at least the German debate and I think by that time these governments had committed themselves, they recognized that their credibility was on the line and they were going to see this process through.

I'LL PICK IT UP. YOU WERE TELLING US ABOUT DEPLOYMENT. THAT WAS FOLLOWED OF COURSE BY THE, THE WALKOUT OF THE SOVIET DELEGATION IN GENEVA. WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE WALKOUT OF THE SOVIETS AT GENEVA?

I was somewhat...

[BACKGROUND DIRECTIONS]

I was somewhat and to me it told me more about the state of coherence within the Soviet leadership than, than anything about their arms control strategy. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do. What it did was lead I think both European and American public opinion to assume that the Soviets were after all seeking an unequal security advantage in Europe. After all most Europeans and Americans understood that the Soviets had these systems, SS-20s that could target Europe and why was it that the Soviets weren't prepared to continue the negotiations because the Americans had deployed equivalent systems? So I think that the Soviet walkout probably dampened what might have been the negative reaction on the part of the European left to deployment. They played right into our hands. I doubt Mr. Gorbachev would make a similar foolish mistake.

HE HAS APPARENTLY PUT IT ON RECORD THAT HE DID THINK IT WAS A MISTAKE. RIGHT, LET'S MOVE ON NOW TO WHAT WE WERE MENTIONING BEFORE WHICH WAS WHEN YOU WERE STANDING ON THE COLD TARMAC IN GENEVA IN 1985. CAN YOU GIVE US A QUICK ACCOUNT OF HOW NEGOTIATIONS CAME BE TO REVIEWED AND WHAT THE EXPECTATION WAS?

Well, once the Soviets walked out of the negotiations, they put themselves at a propaganda disadvantage but nevertheless as time went on there was a real desire on the part of the President and the Secretary of State to get the negotiating process going again. One of the, one of the things that the Soviets had unfortunately done, even when they returned to, to - that's not right... Let me say, can I start off...

YES, BY ALL MEANS.

One of the things that the Soviets unfortunately did with INF deployment was link the whole question of IMF to other areas of negotiation. Our efforts to negotiate reductions in strategic offensive arms and then you'll remember of course there was the issue of the President's strategic defense initiative and so all of these questions were linked and the Soviets took the position really that you couldn't negotiate on one without the other, and the Soviets through the period of post-deployment moved really away from INF to the SDI issue and they began beating the drum on SDI and so they kept coming back to us saying that they needed to negotiate about space. We discussed this through diplomatic channels with them saying that we wanted to address the current problem, which was INF deployments and strategic arms deployments and it was in that Geneva meeting really that, that George Shultz and Andrei Gromyko compromised. What they said they would do is discuss all these issues, that they would be related to one another very loosely but that we could discuss INF and the strategic arms which was our interest but that we were also prepared to discuss space systems, i.e., SDI systems in a third negotiating forum, so what the Geneva meeting created was a framework that permitted the Soviets to save face and come back into the negotiating process, so that was a well it was a procedural breakthrough. It really paved the way for making progress on the INF issue.

GOOD, THANK YOU. I'D NOW LIKE TO MOVE ON THROUGH THE FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH, BETWEEN GORBACHEV AND, AND PRESIDENT REAGAN IN GENEVA ON TO THE REYKJAVIK ENCOUNTER, WHICH WAS IN NOVEMBER 1986 UNLESS I'M VERY MUCH MISTAKEN. BY THAT STAGE YOU WERE HERE.

That's correct. Yeah.

WHAT DID THE GERMANS SAY TO YOU WHEN THEY DISCOVERED WHAT HAD GONE AT REYKJAVIK?

They, they were very ambivalent about the Reykjavik summit. What was interesting was Reykjavik was a litmus test if you will of different German views toward the alliance and nuclear deterrence. There were some Germans on one end of the political spectrum towards the right who were very worried about Reykjavik because of the non-nuclear specter that had been raised, the discussion, for instance, of not only the zero option in INF but also the elimination of all ballistic missiles and in fact the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Those Germans were 'worried that the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons from Germany would leave Germany exposed to superior Soviet conventional capacity. On the other end of the political spectrum there were those who called Reykjavik I think Black Sunday, By that they meant that here you had a great opportunity to make great strides in nuclear arms control and that it broke down at the very end. So what you have I think was, was a reflection of the polarization of the German security debate with people in the Green Party and the SPD hoping to see a massive reduction of nuclear weapons. People, CDU, Christian Democratic Union, and Franz Joseph Strauss wing of that party, the CSU, worry that the American security umbrella would be removed. There were also though elements of both groups who were well supporting or not supporting the idea of reducing nuclear weapons or just plain unhappy that this all took them by surprise, that this meeting was meant to be a pre-summit. It wasn't meant to be a meeting where both sides roll up their sleeves and got down to the technical detail that it did. So there was some complaint about the lack of consultations.

IT DID IN FACT, DID IT NOT, REVIVE A SORT OF LONG-STANDING GERMAN FEAR WHICH HAD APPEARED EARLIER IN THE '70S OVER THE NEUTRON BOMB DECISION, ABOUT THE KIND OF UNPREDICTABILITY OF AMERICAN INTENTIONS VIS-A-VIS EUROPE AND, AND THE WEST GERMANS IN PARTICULAR.

Well I think think it revived a problem which is almost inherent in the German-American relationship and perhaps inherent in the broader European-American relationship and that is the fact that people are very uneasy when the Americans and Soviets aren't talking to one another but that when they appear to start making real progress on these arms control issues they also get uneasy. It's what you might call condominium, concern about condominium, that is when things are going well, versus concern about confrontation when they're not and it I think just reflects the overall fact that the Germans and to some extent the Europeans are dependent on the United States for security. They don't like it when the Americans are talking to the Soviets in a bilateral framework about their security.

NOW SIMILAR PROBLEMS AROSE, THOUGH SIMILAR ADVANTAGES TOO ALSO AROSE EARLIER THIS YEAR WHEN THE SHULTZ, SHEVARDNADZE TALKS TOOK PLACE IN MOSCOW AND WE HAVE THE DOUBLE ZERO BEING UNVEILED. DID YOU HAVE TROUBLE GETTING CHANCELLOR KOHL TO WEAR THAT?

No, I mean it wasn't my job to get Chancellor Kohl to, to support the double zero. It was my job to explain what we in the Reagan administration saw as the advantages of the double zero. It was also my job to report to Washington why there were some concerns in Chancellor Kohl's party about this, this move. The important point was, is that in this case there was far more consultation; George Shultz came back from his meeting in Moscow, met with the NATO allies in Brussels, laid out the options for them and I think he made a very important point and that is that as he put it it's very difficult to take yes for an answer. No, that's not what he said. He put it...This time the experience was very different from Reykjavik. George Shultz immediately went to Brussels after leaving Moscow from his talks there with Shevardnadze and Gorbachev and he laid out the options for the alliance and he made it very clear that the most attractive element of the double zero was that in the absence of any European or American deployments in that range band between 1,000 and 500 km that we had the opportunity to get rid of a, of a whole additional category of Soviet systems. I think that Chancellor Kohl faces, faced some conflicting pressures on this issue but he recognized that removing an additional number of nuclear weapons, was very popular with the German public and he reflected that opposition in coming to support what became the NATO consensus.

THANK YOU. LOOK, JUST ONE MORE STEP DOWN THIS PARTICULAR TRACK WHICH IS THE, WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON OVER THE SUMMER. WHY WERE THE RUSSIANS SO INSISTENT ABOUT GETTING RID OF THE PERSHINGS? CAN YOU PERHAPS TELL US LESS INFORMED PEOPLE WHAT THEY WERE ACTUALLY PLAYING ON HERE? WHAT WAS THERE...?

I think, I think that you have to view the Soviet position on the German Pershings as essentially a psychological ploy. These are older systems. Only 72 warheads altogether but here the, first of all the Soviets as always focused on a potential German threat. I don't think they were ever comfortable with this program of co-operation between Germany and the United States. Obviously thinking about their World War II experience the idea of having nuclear weapons in the hands of the Germans, even if they're in, under the control of the United States, makes them uneasy. More importantly though I think they love to meddle in this German domestic debate about security and arms control. On the one hand they recognized that there is a very strong element of public opinion here that is concerned about the east-west confrontation, that is worried that if there is a war or a conflict in Europe that it will take place on German territory. And so any kind of effort to put the Germans on the spot, make the Germans appear to be an obstacle to progress on arms control is a good way to bring pressure to bear on the German government and that's precisely what I think they did. They put, they put Chancellor Kohl in a difficult position on the one hand not wanting to weaken the German-American security relationship but on the other hand appearing to be an obstacle to progress on arms control. I think that was clearly what their purpose was, to play on the special psychological and political dynamics here in the Federal Republic.

AMBASSADOR, YOU HAVE BEEN QUITE A NOTED NUCLEAR STRATEGIST YOURSELF, YOU'VE WRITTEN ON THESE QUESTIONS, I'VE HEARD YOU TALK VERY INTERESTINGLY AND FLUENTLY ABOUT FLEXIBLE RESPONSE, NATO'S STRATEGY OF FLEXIBLE RESPONSE. WHERE DOES THE CURRENT DEAL LEAVE FLEXIBLE RESPONSE?

I think that flexible response must consistently be updated because of changes in the nature of Soviet military capabilities, because of changes in arras control agreements we can achieve and because of, of changes in, in technology. I think, I think that what is happening now is that we are moving to a strategy where we are gradually placing less reliance on nuclear weapons in our overall strategy. That means to me that we are moving to what some people call a less nuclear world. It doesn't mean that we are moving to a non-nuclear Europe and that nuclear weapons are no longer relevant for the defense of Europe. It means that we will have to place greater emphasis on conventional capabilities and will either have to build up our conventional forces or will have to achieve reductions in arms control with the Soviets, probably to achieve the latter we'll have to do the former but at the same time in order to maintain deterrence and political stability in Europe we will have to continue with a strategy that says that the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict, a conflict in Europe cannot be ruled out. That means that the United States will need to continue to deploy nuclear weapons in Europe of a certain number and a certain mix, and that we will have to continue to deploy a large number of ground troops in Europe. It means that we will probably place less emphasis on missiles, nuclear armed missiles and probably more emphasis on both air-delivered and nuclear systems, aircraft deployed in Europe and sea-based nuclear systems, but an INF agreement should not be construed to mean first that we are going to eliminate the American nuclear presence in Europe, nor should it be construed to mean that this is the beginning of an overall American withdrawal from Europe. Flexible response remains the only viable alternative for maintaining peace and stability in Western Europe.

THANK YOU. AS AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY HOWEVER YOU MUST OF COURSE BE AWARE THAT THE GERMANS HAVE PROBLEMS WITH, WITH SYSTEMS WHICH, THE LAND-BASED SYSTEMS WHICH REMAIN. THE POINT ABOUT THE '79 DECISION OF COURSE BEING THAT IT PUT IN INTERMEDIATE STUFF. THAT'S NOW BEEN TAKEN OFF. WE'RE LEFT MAINLY WITH BATTLEFIELD STUFF. THE GERMANS OF COURSE ARE NOT TREMENDOUSLY HAPPY WITH IT. I MEAN HOW DOES ONE RESOLVE THAT PROBLEM?

Well I think first of all we have to get away with the sense that the only American nuclear weapons in Europe after an agreement are going to be the short-range systems deployed in Germany. That's simply not the case. Again we have nuclear weapons that are designed to be delivered by aircraft and they're distributed throughout most of the alliance so there isn't this special singularization of Germany as, as many Germans argue. Moreover, Germany is not the only country vulnerable to Soviet nuclear attack after an agreement. Well its true that the Soviets will keep the short-range systems targeted on Germany, the rest of Western Europe continues to be vulnerable to Soviet longer-range systems, their strategy missile force backed by their bombers. We believe now, following an INF agreement that the next priorities for the west in arms control are first of all capping this strategic arms race, that is getting for the first time a reduction in strategic capabilities and hope to get, achieve a 50 percent reduction. Secondly, we have to deal finally after so, any years with this imbalance in conventional capabilities. That's why American nuclear weapons were brought into Europe in the first place in the late 1950s, it was because of an imbalance in conventional capability and a Soviet invasion, a Soviet conventional invasion came about and we had to deal with that in conventional negotiations. That doesn't mean that we can't talk about the shorter-range nuclear weapons at some stage. This is something that we will also have to do but I think our priority now must be after removing a substantial number of nuclear weapons in Europe, getting to grips with the strategic systems and dealing with the real source of insecurity in Europe, which is Soviet conventional preponderance.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I'D JUST LIKE TO ASK YOU ONE, POSSIBLY TWO FINAL QUESTIONS. AMBASSADOR, THIS STORY BEGINS WITH THE GERMANS BEING WORRIED THAT THE AMERICANS ARE TALKING TO THE RUSSIANS WITHOUT, OVER THEIR HEADS IN THE '70S, SCHMIDT WAS ALARMED AND SO ON. IT ENDS AFTER REYJKAVIK PERHAPS WITH A SIMILAR WORRY ON THE PART OF THE GERMANS, AND YET MUCH HAS CHANGED, HASN'T, A GREAT DEAL HAS CHANGED. IN MANY WAYS A NEW ENVIRONMENT EXISTS. PERHAPS A NEW ENVIRONMENT EXISTS IN THE SOVIET UNION. I JUST WONDERED IF YOU HAD ANY KIND OF PERSPECTIVE YOU COULD GIVE US THAT ONE CAN TAKE AWAY FROM THIS EPISODE. IS IT KIND OF STRANGE TO DETOUR IN HISTORY WHICH ACHIEVED NOTHING. DOES IT, HAS IT CHANGED FOREVER THE CLIMATE IN EUROPE? DOES IT BEGIN, MARK THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF NATO? WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS EPISODE?

Well I think, I think one of the, one of the, one, one of, one important element or one important lesson of this saga is that much of our, of our task in trying to assure Western security and to achieve greater stability, East-West military balance is management. We are not going to solve this problem through bold strokes. I believe in the dictum: if it ain't broke don't fix it, and what isn't broken in my view is the Atlantic alliance. What we demonstrated in making the, the 1979 double track decision in the first place and implementing that and then achieving an agreement was that the alliance is relevant to European peace and stability, that the alliance has been an effective instrument for achieving arms control, for achieving lower level of armaments and that it remains the only viable option, the only viable security framework for on the one hand maintaining European security and on the other trying to gradually diminish the chances for conflict in Europe.

RIGHT...AMBASSADOR, DO YOU THINK THAT THE DEAL WHICH HAS BEEN REACHED DOES AS THEY SAY DECOUPLE EUROPE FROM THE UNITED STATES? THIS IS, THE CRISIS BEGAN WITH SCHMIDT HAVING WORRIED ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF THE AMERICAN NUCLEAR GUARANTEE. DO YOU THINK THAT THE DEAL THAT'S FINALLY BEEN REACHED NOW IS LIKELY TO SOME EUROPEANS TO BRING BACK THOSE SORTS OF WORRIES?

Well if I, I am going to be perfectly honest. I think I have to say that an optimum agreement would have left some residual number of US system; in Europe capable of striking the Soviet homeland and thus coupling the defense of Europe to the United States, but I think we have to recognize that in any negotiation you can never achieve the optimum and that given the fact that the reductions in this agreement are so heavily asymmetrical and given the fact that we have removed this whole category of threat that was facing the Europeans, I don't believe that a credible argument can be made that this does decouple Europe from the United States. I make that argument really on three grounds: first, this is not the denuclearization of Europe. The United States will continue to deploy several thousand American warheads in Europe, it can be delivered long ranges and short ranges. Secondly, I think equally important pillar of the American guarantee in Europe is the presence of a substantial number of troops and of course those troops will remain. And thirdly, coupling or decoupling is really not a, is not as mechanical as those words sound. Coupling is much more a psychological phenomenon and in my view the fact that the United States has demonstrated that it can, that it can exercise leadership within the alliance and that it can negotiate effectively with the Soviet Union and achieve a good arms control outcome tends to couple Europe and the United States in a political sense.

MY FINAL QUESTION AMBASSADOR RELATES TO THE SOVIETS. NOW STRANGE THINGS HAVE BEEN HAPPENING, HAVEN'T THEY IN THAT YOU BECAME INVOLVED WITH THIS WHOLE QUESTION IN 1981 WHEN THE SOVIET RESPONSE IN NEGOTIATIONS WAS VERY STOLID AND, AND, AND MONOLITHIC AND THEN LATTERLY, UNDER MR. GORBACHEV, IT'S BEEN TRANSFORMED INTO A SORT OF STRANGE RATHER MERCURIAL SORT OF EXERCISE. HOW HAVE AMERICAN POLICY-MAKERS FOUND THIS STRANGE TRANSITION IN, IN THE RUSSIAN ATTITUDES, WHICH ARE SLIGHTLY OVER-DRAMATIZED BUT WHICH ARE NONETHELESS…?

Well I think you've had some change in some kind of way. The change of course I think is in the public diplomacy area. You had the Soviets using policies of intimidation towards the Europeans in the early '80s, threatening a new ice age in relations with, with the Europeans if the missiles were deployed. You had the Soviet decision to leave the negotiations after American deployment, which backfired and was a bad mistake. So I think you had a Soviet policy that was very crude and as a result it was ineffective. With Mr. Gorbachev you have excellent public diplomacy. You have arms control proposals; you have proposals that are designed not only to, to serve Soviet interest but to appeal to peace movements in the East; you have this image of a man who appears to be anxious to negotiate and ready to think about new ideas, but where you have continuity is I think the Soviet strategy toward Europe remains the same, that is the Soviet Union would like to keep Europe as a hostage to its superior military power and at the sane time in the event of a conflict in Europe the Soviet Union would like to remain a sanctuary and where Brezhnev may differ from Gorbachev is that Brezhnev sought to make Europe a hostage through nuclear, a nuclear build-up. I think Mr. Gorbachev may seek to make Europe a hostage through a nuclear build-down because if he can achieve the withdrawal of all American nuclear weapons in Europe he then can use his conventional superiority, his Red army to intimidate Europe. So this change in continuity, and we have to be very careful that we can distinguish between public diplomacy on the one hand and strategy on the other.