AMBASSADOR NITZE COULD YOU JUST TELL US WHO YOU ARE AND GIVE US JUST A SENSE OF THE KIND OF EXPERIENCE YOU'VE HAD SINCE THE WAR IN THESE MATTERS OF NATIONAL SECURITY?

I'm a New Englander, moved to Chicago, brought up really in the summertime in Colorado, Wyoming and lived many years in New York. Came to Washington in 1940 and was a business man, banking business but I never went back to Wall Street after my experience during World War II and I'm still here after 48 years in Washington.

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO DO IT AGAIN. SAY YOUR NAME AND ALSO TO MENTION THAT YOU SERVED NINE PRESIDENTS AND CONCERNING NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS OR HOWEVER YOU WANT TO PHRASE IT.

You want me to do the whole thing over again or what?

I WOULD LIKE YOU TO MENTION YOUR NAME AND TO MENTION THAT YOU SERVED NINE PRESIDENTS AND THE TYPES OF CAPACITIES THAT YOU SERVED.

I'm Paul Nitze. I was born in New England. I was brought up in Chicago and also in Colorado and Wyoming and then moved to Boston was educated there and then worked in New York for many years and in 1940 I came down here with James Forrestal worked then with Mr. Roosevelt and later went on to work with Mr. Truman in the State Department and subsequently worked with every other president, not very long with Mr. Carter but quite long with all the others and here I am after having had something to do with foreign policy, defense policy over nine, over the terms of duty with nine Presidents.

YOU WERE IN THE STRATEGIC BOMB SURVEY RIGHT AFTER THE BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI AND I WAS WONDERING IF YOU COULD JUST RECALL FOR US WHAT YOUR SENSE WAS AS ONE OF THE ONLY AMERICANS TO HAVE BEEN IN THE AFTERMATH OF A NUCLEAR BOMB, WHAT IT WAS LIKE THEN.

In 1944 from General Arnold who was then head of the US Air Force decided that there should be a review by impartial people who knew nothing about it. So what the effectiveness was of strategic air attack in Europe and after we had gotten through with that he asked some of us whether we would go, Mr. Truman asked us whether we would go, to Japan and whether we would sur... survey the effectiveness of air power in that Pacific theatre and in conjunction with that he gave us additional duties. One was to assess why it was that the Japanese had attacked us at Pearl Harbor, why they had surrendered when they did, what the effect of the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was and what recommendations we would make for the postwar organization of the US defense establishment in light of modern technology and particularly in light of the existence of nuclear weapons.

WHAT DID YOU FIND? WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN YOU WERE ON THE GROUND IN HIROSHIMA?

Well, I might say to be on the ground in Germany to see what had happened during the firestorms in Hamburg and the total destruction at Cologne and substantial destruction of Berlin and particularly the University town of Darmstadt. In a way that was, that was the very shocking experience because you saw exactly, talked to people who had survived and what the circumstances was were in each one of those incidence and when we got to Japan of course the big fire raid at Tokyo had burned up some 100,000, 110,000 people. So that war is a dreadful thing. When we got to Hiroshima and Nagasaki well I sent my administrative assistant out to look and see where we were going to put our team of 500 engineers and scientists and doctors and where were they going to live and he came back and he said, there's nothing there. There's no buildings you could requisition. So we got some ships from the Navy and put one ship in the harbor at Nagasaki and another in Kure Harbor near Hiroshima and that's where our teams lived then we, then we examined it in great detail I think, no one else has ever done anything like it before but we did measure all the effects. But you were asking me what was the emotional effect and I guess the main emotional effect was to see some of the survivors, particularly those who had not died but had been burned and there were those that you know had been... for instance I remember a man who had been sitting in a railroad train, two men one beside an open window and the other beside a glass window and the man who had been sitting behind the glass window was very badly cut by shattered glass but he was not burned because the glass had absorbed the rays while the man by the open window was badly burned by the radiation from the bomb. So its things like that small incidence where you see what actually happens to people.

WHAT EFFECT DID IT HAVE ON AMERICA WHEN THE SOVIETS EXPLODED THE ATOMIC BOMB FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1949? WHAT DID THAT MAKE?

Well even at the time we did the investigation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was perfectly clear that this, the knowledge of how to make a nuclear weapon would eventually be, technology would be mastered by others. We demonstrated that it could be done obviously others, in particular the USSR was going to achieve it at some day. So where the work we had done on trying to make recommendations with respect to the organization of our defense establishment, all assumed that there would be others including the USSR that would in time be able to make nuclear weapons the surprising thing is that the Soviets did it a little bit earlier, somewhat earlier depending upon who was making the estimate than had been anticipated. So that once that was clear that the Soviets did have a nuclear weapon then things that wanted thought about earlier as a contingency became an actuality. So that it was clear from that day on that the margin of deterrence of a sure deterrence that you got from being the only possessor of nuclear weapons was going to become less and less and less. That the Soviet Union was going to have more and more and more and that where that technological led would over time evaporate and that therefore we ought to pay attention to conventional forces because if both sides had nuclear weapons one would hope that they would offset each other that the there'd be, as Mr. Churchill said, two scorpions in a bottle. They both would be frightened of the other but that would not mean that the conflict would cease that it might be with more usable means with conventional weapons so that the immediate reaction that I had and that Mr. Acheson had was that we must properly address ourselves to our conventional capabilities and reduce the reliance we were putting upon our nuclear weapons.

IS THERE SORT OF AN INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND CONVENTIONAL FORCES SO THAT IN A WORLD IN WHICH BOTH SIDES HAVE SUBSTANTIAL NUMBERS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, YOU HAVE TO BE PERMANENTLY MOBILIZED IN PEACETIME READY TO FIGHT WITH CONVENTIONAL FORCES?

I wouldn't quite put it that way but I would... it's certainly clear that the side that has only conventional weapons is really in a very disadvantageous position against the side that has nuclear weapons, but if both sides are deterred by each other from using their nuclear weapons then of course conventional weapons would be the weapons of choice, if there is a military conflict so that you can't just, if both sides have nuclear weapons, you just can't rely on those, you also have to be sure that your conventional defenses are adequate.

WELL SOME PEOPLE SAID THAT AFTER HIROSHIMA THEY FELT THAT AFTER THE FIRST USE OF THE ATOMIC BOMB THAT MAYBE WAR HAD ENDED THAT IT WAS GOING TO BE TOO HORRIBLE IN THE FUTURE TO HAVE ANY WAR. WHAT WAS YOUR FEELING?

I thought those people were wrong. We had done the actual investigation at what these effects were. We knew what kind of effects they were and we did in fact, you know, estimate what the relationship was between the effectiveness of one plane carrying a nuclear weapon and the same plane being loaded with the, what would be called the conventional weapons, high explosive bombs and fire bombs and we came to the conclusion the ratio was somewhere between 100- to 200-to-1. In other words the effectiveness of a single plane load of munitions had been increased by this large number, by 100, 200 fold. And of course those nuclear weapons were the weapons of that generation. They were not the most advanced nuclear weapons that have since been developed so that ratio is now greater than the 100- or 200-to-1 but I would point out that over time, the size of the nuclear weapons in our stockpile and also in the Soviet Union has gone down. It isn't going up all the time. In fact the aggregate yield of our stockpile of nuclear weapons is about, is less than half of what it was in '65 and the number of our nuclear weapons is also not going up nor of the Soviets are. So that many people have thought that you know nuclear weapons were have been increasing exponentially in their yield and in their numbers but that isn't so.

WHAT IS THE GREATEST LESSON OF THE HISTORY OF THE NUCLEAR AGE IN YOUR EYES.

Well that the dangers of war.

CAN YOU START SAYING THAT...?

I would say that the greatest lesson of the nuclear war is that there has been a jump in a destructive power of weapons.

DO YOU MEAN TO SAY NUCLEAR AGE RATHER THAN NUCLEAR WAR? GREATEST LESSON OF THE NUCLEAR AGE?

I don't know that I would use the word nuclear age. I don't consider this to be a nuclear age. Certainly this is an important factor but there are so many things going on in this age.

[FOR THE FIRST WORLD...]

But I would say, I would repeat what I said earlier. Let me start all over again. Now I would say that the greatest effect of nuclear weapons is obviously with respect to war and these nuclear weapons are in fact much more destructive than any of the weapons that existed previously. And you know this is, revolutions in history have occurred before because of developments of new weapons, gun powder was such and the cross bow was such and artillery was such and the machine gun was such and this is a similar step upward by a very large factor and this of course does change the nature of war. Some of the lessons that have been learned over history with respect to military strategy, tactics and the rules of warfare, the principles of warfare, I believe had remained constant. But others are different and have to be thought through again with this change in, change in degrees so large that its really a change of kind.

WHAT HAS REMAINED CONSTANT IN THE NATURE OF WAR?

What has remained constant in war is that if war occurs clearly the objective of each side is to defeat the other and that continues to be the main objective of war and the possibility of deterrence is more or less as it was before. You know if one had a very great preponderance over others, the British Fleet at one time.

I'M SORRY. WE'RE GOING TO START THE PART OVER ABOUT THE WAR, WHERE IF IT BREAKS OUT YOU HAVE TO WIN, BECAUSE THE PLANE CAME OVER RIGHT WHEN YOU SAID THAT.

I've forgotten what I said.

I ASKED YOU WHAT HAS REMAINED THE SAME ABOUT...

Do I say you've asked me that or do I just

NO, JUST NORMAL AS IF I'M NOT HERE.

I see.

WHAT REMAINS THE SAME, ABOUT WAR.

Some things that remained the same in war over the years and have not necessarily changed because of the existence of nuclear weapons, if there were to be a war the object of the two sides would in fact be to defeat the other and that is has been the nature of war forever. Clearly you would want both sides... would want to make peace before the destruction was too great but it makes a difference as to whether or not you win a war, whether you lose a war. It would make a difference whether you won a nuclear war whether you lost a nuclear war. The only thing worse than having a nuclear war would be to lose a nuclear war and clearly the Russians feel that very deeply. The Soviet military have no doubt about what their mission would be in the event of there being a war and that would be to defeat the other side. They can't imagine that there could be any other attitude toward that. So war is the most extreme form of competition that you can imagine. Therefore one wants to avoid it if possible because of this enormous destruction that is possible and with the advent of nuclear weapons. It was bad enough before the nuclear weapons if one had, as I did, lived through World War I and World War II. It's a... it's a, major war is a very dreadful thing. So if that if one can, one wants to find some way in which one reduces the tendencies toward war, those factors which might lead toward war and one wants to make the military relationship between the nations and the world to be less... have less tendency to get out of hand and get to war. But you also have to work on all the other things which might cause conflicts to become so serious that they would lead to war. So it very much I think colored, colors the attitude of this generation to look seriously for a ways and means to both maintain their liberty and their freedom but also to avoid war while one is so doing it.

WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN THE 50S THAT MADE THE POLICY OF CONTAINMENT NECESSARY?

Well the problem really arose at the end of the war, earlier than the 50S. At the end of the war the majority view in Washington was that one should try to continue the wartime alliance which brought together the British and the French and the Chinese and the Russians and ourselves to maintain that alliance into the peace and that if that couldn't be done, all kinds of bad consequence, consequences could be foreseen and it was viewed that the way in which one could then handle the affairs of the world, to rest, to put primary responsibility upon the United Nations and have the United Nations deal with the intermediate-range problems. That the major problems would be handled directly because of the major powers being in alliance. So that if there weren't a conflict between the major powers then the U.N. organization could deal with the next range of powers and we thought in particular that just as the United Kingdom had rather been the balance wheel in the power relationship between the worlds' countries in the period before World War I, that perhaps after World War II they could resume that role so that they would deal with the conflicts in Africa and Southeast Asia and the Middle East and handle those diplomatically and with the day-to-day sort of thing and that all of it could be masterminded by the United Nations. This so that's what we tried to do in 19-, at the end of the war in '45, '46. But then back to the end of 1946 it became clear that wasn't the Soviet view of the thing at all. And Mr. Stalin gave a speech in February of 1946 which I read to be a declared, a delayed declaration of war against the United States. He talked about three five-year plans and at the end of those three five-year plans the Soviet Union would be able to deal with any circumstances whatsoever and he predicted very wars arising between the countries of the capitalist world and that the Soviet Union would be drawn into those wars and that the Soviet Union should be in a position to deal with anybody and everybody thereafter. Now the, that wasn't the general interpretation of that speech but there were those who read that speech that way and I still think that's what the speech says. But then beyond that there were prob... problems arose in Iran and Azerbaijan and there the Soviets promoted a revolt by the Azerbaijanis and the Iranian government finally took up military means to put down that revolt and when the revolt was finally put down it was, it was found that there were really only 45 communist agents who had run that. So this hardly seemed to be continuing the wartime alliance in any reasonable way and of the peace. And then subsequently the problems grew and the rest of Europe and Poland, in Austria and the Russians began to take over all those countries that subsequently became satellites, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria and it looked as though this were going to spread into Germany and Austria as well so that by the end of '46 it was clear that the reliance upon the continuation of the peace-time alliance into the peace, I mean the war-time alliance into the peace, was a false hope that wasn't going to take place and soon it became clear that the United Nations in the absence of real collaboration between the Soviet Union and the principal western powers was not able to do much about it. It was a forum where one could discuss matters but the United Nations itself could do very little without, except through the support of the major nations, and if they were in disagreement it couldn't deal with the difficult problems. And then with respect to the reliance we were putting upon the British to handle the masterminding of the diplomatic situation of the rest of the world. That also became a false hope because the British were very much interested in for instance Greece and in Turkey and they told us one day that they no longer could support Greece and Turkey and that they had to pull out and that it would be up to us to do what was necessary. So here we found that all three of the assumptions on which we'd gone in to the post-war era had turned out to be excessively optimistic. So at that time Mr. Acheson and General Marshall and Mr. Truman changed their minds with respect to those three assumptions that I describe and they came to the conclusion that the world was now in a position where the United States had to carry a much greater burden, if we didn't want to see the Soviet Union take over Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, and move down into Africa and into South America and we didn't want to be isolated. If we didn't want to be isolated in the world we would have to address ourselves to all those issues and that was a considerable revolution in the, in the US view as to what it must do in the field of foreign policy.

WHAT IS THE CONFLICT TODAY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIET UNION.

Well it continues to be.

CAN WE START, THE CONFLICT... ?

Well today we continue to have competition with the Soviet Union, you know its... that competition originally arose because of the objectives which had been set by Lenin during his regime when he was in power in the Soviet Union and building on the predictions of Marx, Lenin projected a socialist world in which the entire world would be socialist. In other words that there would be no longer any classes based upon income or wealth and Marx after all said that the important factor in the world were the class divisions between the poor, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and the capitalism and that it was the tensions of the world all sprang from capitalism. One had to get rid of capitalism but if one could have a world in which there were no capitalist countries, why then peace would be possible. Universal world peace but this required a socialist world and that was, as my friend Chip Boland used to put it, this was the fig leaf of the Soviet conscience. They were entitled to do all the dreadful things that they did because of this noble ambition for a completely classless, socialist, peaceful world and therefore it was quite proper for them to do all the things they done. After all they, Mr. Gorbachev now describes those days of the collectivization of all the farmers in Russia with the loss of 20 million of them died in the enterprise and of all the other horrible things that have happened but these were justified by virtue of this vision of the future so that conflict based upon the Leninist ideology has continued all these years. Now Mr. Gorbachev is the new leader and he has a different view, he talks about different standards. He talks about perestroika, glasnost, reconstruction, revolutionary reconstruction of the Soviet Union and he talks about openness and he talks about democracy. He doesn't define what he means by the word democracy. So at least the words that Mr. Gorbachev uses are really quite different than the words that have been used by previous Soviet leaders. The question at issue is even when he uses those words, does he really mean the same thing by them that we would mean by those words and can he carry out what he's talking about. And that is still indetermined.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS MOTIVATING GORBACHEV TO TALK ABOUT TRYING TO REDUCE THE USE OF FORCE TO SETTLE CONFLICTS IN THE WORLD AND TO TRY DISARM THE WORLD AND COEXISTENCE AND SO FORTH?

To my mind the problem, the basic problem is involved in the Soviet use of the word peace. They have a word for peace in Russian. The word mir. M-I-R, but that word mir has several different meanings. It means the world, the globe as well as peace and it also means the village organization in which it was the process by which it was decided which peasant could farm which piece of land. But the way in which the Communist Party uses the word mir is a word which achieves the objectives as stated by Mr. Lenin, in other words the worldwide triumph of socialism about the world, the end of capitalism, the end of the type of democratic organizations that we now see and its quite different organization of the world. Now if, so this peace, in their vocabulary doesn't mean the same thing that it means in our vocabulary. Now it isn't quite clear, you know, exactly what is happening in the Soviet Union today. Certainly in most of the intellectuals many things seem to be changing. Back in the period of '46, '47 George Kennan and I and others hoped that over the years there would be a modification of the Soviet approach to the world but we didn't think it would come about in any right away but we hoped that within a generation or two generations it might come about. But we went through two or three generations and it didn't change very much. Now there is some possibility that it might change more. But if it does change in what direction will it change, and this is rather unforeseeable today. It's hard to be certain in which direction it will change. In the meantime it would seem to me that it is evident as to what we should do. We've had the, after all we have no territorial ambitions. The United States clearly doesn't want to have any more responsibility in the rest of the world than it has to maintain. So that I think we're in a good position to try to maintain peace in a different way than what is suggested by the Soviet use of the world peace, word peace. I think we would welcome a peace in diversity. We don't insist that others be exactly like us. Some in the Senate would like to insist upon that but the country doesn't insist upon that and certainly if your not going to create uniformity in the world, you don't want that. You want to maintain diversity, the type of diversity that each individual group in the country can have, in the world can have some chance of developing as they see fit providing they don't threaten others. So that, it seems to me we've got to continue to work at that and it isn't going to be an easy task so that we've got to maintain our own virtue. There are many things we have to do in order to revive our just virtue but then we also have to be sure we maintain our economic strength and not just economy in the form of consumption but we have to be able to save and put aside enough so that we can help other countries, can intervene when its necessary to intervene, can give economic assistance, military assistance for people who are threatened. So we can be effective in the world and that's going to take a great budgetary effort, greater sacrifice than we've seen in the past.

DO YOU THINK IF GORBACHEV IS SUCCESSFUL IN HIS REFORMS, IS THAT GOOD FOR THE UNITED STATES?

Yes, provided it is coupled with change in some of the, an economic reform, what let me start all over again. It would be good for the United States if Mr. Gorbachev were to succeed in his economic reforms. I certainly would like to see the Russian people and the other Soviet peoples in a better position than they are today but for it really to be helpful to us, there needs to be also a concurrent revolution really in the attitudes that have informed the Leninist, Marxist, Stalinist approach in the past and Mr. Gorbachev talks in the right direction about that in part but in part I believe he doesn't. In part he continues to say that this will all be within the framework of complete loyalty to the socialist ideals and by socialist he doesn't mean socialist in the way that France has a socialist party, Italians have a socialist government from time to time. He means socialist in the communist sense of the word socialist which means complete control by a single party and that what he means by it. And he's a dedicated member of the of the communist party in the Soviet Union and he believes that the communist party has to be revivified and be made an honest party but it's the party that he cares about. While we believe at least in two parties and maybe more parties and we don't think that parties ought to be that strong in any case so this is a different point of view. I believe there will be a continual problem in the relationship between ourselves and the USSR and we've got to deal with it. These problems are not going to go away completely. One has to deal with them and we... you know it would be a dreadful thing if the next generation didn't have any problems to deal with.

DO YOU THINK THERE IS A MORAL PROBLEM WITH DETERRENCE THROUGH THE MEANS OF ASSURING MUTUAL DESTRUCTION?

I don't think so at all.

CAN YOU MAKE A SENTENCE OF THAT...

As I said earlier...

DON'T START IT THAT WAY...

Earlier, I referred to the fact that what we week are two things concurrently. One of them is liberty, freedom and the other is the avoidance of war and particularly war with the Soviet Union and the question before us; how do we do these two things concurrently. It would be easy enough to avoid war, all we'd have to do is elect the leader of the Communist Party, Bolshevik President of the United States, you know, say come and tell us how to run ourselves. We don't want to do that would, we'd give up on liberty and freedom right away. So you don't want to do that. So that what you want to do is to continue to live as the kind of a country, kind of a people we are and develop and have our segments of the population who are artistic and those who are young and those who do these things and those who do others and have real diversity within our system and not have some big brother tell us exactly what to do and what to say and what to think. We certainly don't want that. So we want to do two things. One is to avoid war and the other is to maintain some right to develop as we think we can and do the best we can. Now how do you do those two things together? You don't do it by ignoring the requirements of foreign policy and national security and if you're going to have, devote yourself to national security, then you're going to be more... to make yourself secure against an invasion, secure against military aggression. And you want to make yourself secure against the threat of military aggression and in order to do that you also have to deal with allies and make it possible for them also to be able to deal with the threat of aggression and the actuality of aggression and therefore you need close relations with allies and you need military capabilities and then what is the purpose of those military capabilities. Those military capab-, the purpose of those military capabilities must be to avoid a war with the USSR, that's the prime objective there and what is the best way to do that? And the best way to do that is to deter the Soviet Union from attacking in the first place. And you deter the Soviet Union from attacking by making it evident to them that if they were to attack there would be a response and a response which would be greatly to their disadvantage and we've got to have the intelligence and the wisdom to continue to do that. We've been doing that for forty years. There has been peace, for more than forty years now since World War II, peace in the big sense, in the sense of a war between the two great powers, between the US and the USSR and we must continue to do that and that is worth an enormous effort to maintain high quality deterrence.

People are concerned about the morality of deterrence and what they argue is that the threat of massive destruction through nuclear weapons in order to deter the use of nuclear weapons is immoral, regardless of what the benefits might be. But if one--I think one has to look not just at the proper limitations on the use of means, and one could argue that the means, nuclear weapons, are excessive, but one also has to look at the consequences of certain courses of action, and if one looks at the consequences of us unilaterally saying that we will forego nuclear weapons, an- any threat to use them under any circumstances even if they're used in the most... for the most outrageous purposes by the other side, then I think one can have a pretty good guess as to what the consequences would be, that the consequences would in fact be a world dominated, at least in the short run, by that country that is prepared to use nuclear weapons or the threat of use of nuclear weapons and would use it-- those threats first against the weakest of countries, then against the stronger countries and finally against us. So that you would have given up one of your objectives and that is the prospect of living in freedom and with, in a world where others live in freedom with some prospect of diversity and choice. So I would think the consequences are clear, if you do that. Unambiguous. And I think that's therefore, a course of action which has absolutely dreadful results and that you can be reasonably clear will have absolutely dreadful results cannot be a moral course of action. And I--the steps necessary to avoid those dreadful results, you know, it can't be an immoral action. At least that's the way I look at it. I think you've got to look at what is an intelligent way of handling things and if you look at it intelligently and take into account all the various considerations, certainly it would be outrageous and immoral to use excessive force in a confrontation. Let's say you take the Cuban Missile Crisis; supposing we had just started right off and used nuclear weapons against Cuba. We had a great superiority in strategic weapons and we had great superiority in conventional weapons. You know, and we when we worked through the Cuban Missile Crisis, we did it with the principle that we wanted to get the result, we wanted to get rid of those nuclear weapons in Cuba, but we wanted to use the minimum amount of force which was necessary to accomplish that result. So if we could get it done through a blockade, through what was called the quarantine, that would be fine. If the quarantine didn't work, let's say that the Soviets persisted in shipping their nuclear missiles into Cuba and threatened to use those against us, then certainly then we would have to use an air attack in order to take out those bases and the antiaircraft guns that protected them. And if that didn't work, we would've had to invade Cuba in order des-- see to it that we got rid of those weapons. So the whole object was to use the minimum amount of force which is consonant with carrying out a proper objective, and I think that also is a good moral rule, to use the minimum amount of force which will achieve a proper objective. So what I'm trying to say is, I think there are principles that are worth following in these, in this field of international competition. Now, there aren't laws that bind countries; there isn't such a think as a international law in the sense that it is enforced by courts and with marshals, th-- what it is just a compilation of what the practice has been in the past, but it doesn't-- no sovereign nation is really bound by those laws. So the, for the world of international affairs is somewhat different than the world inside a country, and one has to deal in that, in that international world in some responsible way which accomplishes correct objectives. And you use means that are appropriate to those objectives, and not excessive means.

A FEW PEOPLE HAVE SUGGESTED THAT BECAUSE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS THERE IS NO REAL TECHNICAL SOLUTION TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY AND THAT, IN FACT, JUST WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, THAT WHAT WE NEED TO LOOK FOR ARE POLITICAL SOLUTIONS, WE NEED TO TRY TO DEVELOP IN THE WORLD A SYSTEM OF LAWS WHEREBY PEOPLE DON'T USE FORCE IN ORDER TO SETTLE A CONFLICT AND THAT WE STOP INTERVENING IN THE THIRD WORLD, TRY TO REDUCE NUCLEAR AND CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS AND LEARN TO LIVE IN PEACE ACCORDING TO RULES AND LAWS.

I would agree with that, with one important exception. That is, you can't do that unless you concurrently see to it that the "bad guys" don't overrun you with force. So you've got to defend not only yourselves but also other people in the world who are threatened by aggression, or else you can't build such a world. Now, hopefully, in time, one might get the Soviet Union to collaborate with one in this kind of an endeavor, but that's a long time period, with much evolution before that might be possible.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO TO WORK TOWARD A WORLD IN WHICH THAT WAS POSSIBLE?

Well, the first thing we've got to do is to defend ourselves and I would suggest also, see to it that our values are correct, that we develop greater virtue than, perhaps we have been developing today. But then, being a worthy nation that is relatively secure, we also have to then look to our relations with our friends and allies, and one can't lead in the world unless one takes very seriously the interests of those that one is trying to lead. Then if we can lead an alliance, 'cause we can't do all this ourselves, you know, even in NATO, 80 percent of the forces are allied forces. We've relied heavily upon our allies, and they heavily upon us and the NATO theory is a correct theory and that is one for all and all for one, in other words, an attack on one would be regarded as an attack upon all, and that spreads all our military strength as a deterrent also to that of our allies and their military strength aids our, aids deterrence for, a, an attack against us. So that we have a much better chance of weaving through these difficult years in collaboration with allies than we would if we were trying to do it alone. But then, having established a solid base in the United States, or maintained it and developed it, and a solid relationship with allies, then we'd want to deal with the Soviet Union in a way which would make it possible for them to reconsider what has been the objective of Marxist-Leninism and decide it would be better if they restricted themselves to the narrow objective of revivifying their own country and doing things that can be done within their own borders, without trying to impose their will upon others.

WHY DO WE HAVE A NUCLEAR ARMS RACE AND WHY DO WE HAVE 25,000 WEAPONS AROUND THE WORLD POINTED AT VARIOUS PLACES, ON SHIPBOARD AND ON BATTLEFIELDS AS WELL AS HERE AT HOME?

Well, I would say we don't really have a nuclear arms race. We have, we are trying to maintain our security, as I've said before, and that is important and it's not an easy-- you don't do it by falling off a log. It takes people, it takes men, it takes money, it takes time to maintain an adequate defense and to help our allies maintain an adequate defense. But you look at the amount of our gross national product that is going to defense, now during the '50s that was, well during the Korean War it was about 14 percent of our gross national product, but then during the Eisenhower administration after the Korean War was over, it was nine or ten percent. And it's now 5.7 percent. There's been a continuous decrease in the percentage of our--not continuous, but net-there's been a decrease in the percentage of our gross national product going to defense. And I think the percentage of the gross national product is the right way to measure it's the meantime, other things have been going up--so it isn't, the deficit isn't due to an expense of defense. The deficit primarily comes from the other very worthwhile things, such as Medicare, Social Security, transfer of payments of one kind or another, but it isn't allocatable, doe--it, the cause hasn't been defense. So we can afford to continue these things. It's we've got to be sure we do it.

WHY DO WE NEED TO? IS THERE SOME RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN--DO WE NEED TO KEEP AHEAD TECHNOLOGICALLY-IS THAT OUR ACE?

Well, the Soviet Union, even according to Mr. Gorbachev, spends about 20 percent of its gross national product on defense, as opposed to our 5.7, so that their effort in defense is much greater, and I wouldn't really call it defense; I would call it on military matters, it's enormous, uh. So to maintain security against this tremendous effort that the Soviets are making, you can't do it on the cheap. Therefore, I would put it not as an arms race, but as the necessary expenditures to maintain security in the fact of a very determined opponent and it is an opponent who's prepared put, or to demand of its populace enormous sacrifices.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY?

Well, American technology helps us meet some of our problems. The Soviets have got very good scientists, mathematicians, physicists; they're not backward in the field of science and technology. In some fields, we are better than the Soviet Union. In the field of computer technology, for instance, but in other fields, the Soviets are better than we. So that those who think it's just our scientific superiority that will protect us in all circumstances, I think take too narrow a view. I'm all for using those technological advantages that we have to make our task easier, and sometimes you can use advanced technology, in order to reduce costs, to simplify things, not just to make them more complicated, but you gotta work hard to get the simplification out of it and the reduction in costs. It's much easier just to spend more money and make it more complex. But these are difficult problems that many of us have worked on for years, this trying to achieve the necessary defense at the least cost, and that's not an easy task. You deal with many millions of people and so it's, I'd s... all of us in this country together work at this task and we all have our shortcomings and we don't do it perfectly.

MANY PEOPLE ASK WHY, IF OUR PURPOSE IS TO DETER A NUCLEAR WAR WITH THE SOVIETS, WHY CAN'T WE JUST HAVE A FEW HUNDRED NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON EACH SIDE? WHY DO WE NEED TO HAVE TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND ON EACH SIDE, DISPERSED AROUND THE WORLD?

Well, a lot of the problem is that you need to be sure that you have weapons which are secure and ready to be used in the event of a first strike by the other side, and we have some of our bombers, for instance, on airfields and one nuclear weapon on an airfield would take out all those bombers on that airfield, and we have submarines; when they're in port, they're all you know, in one port and one nuclear weapon would take out all those submarines. And so you have to worry about now, what would happen in the event there were a wear--a war, and the other side were to strike with surprise. After all, that's what Hitler did in World War II and what the Japanese did in World War II and to, we were surprised at Pearl Harbor. You try not to be surprised. That takes quite a bit of effort, in order to be sure that your early-warning systems are effective and that you have the best intelligence as to what might be going on. So you have to, you have to really do a lot of things to be sure that y--what remains after an initial attack would be adequate to make it totally unworthwhile for the other side to initiate a d--war at all. And you know, you don't do it with just a few weapons. Each nuclear weapon, you know it's a dreadful kind of a thing, but it most of these weapons don't have an area of effectiveness against something that is protected at more than a thousand feet or so that if you're talking about an enemy silo that you, which has a missile in it, a hard missile, you've got to get within a few hundred feet of it if you really want to destroy it. So you need d--and you have to have powerful weapons. So that if you really want to contemplate what would happen in a nuclear war which didn't rapidly turn into a wholly one-sided war to their favor, you have to have enough weapons to survive the initial strike, to be able to fight back. Now if you've, if you do have that, then it will deter, because then, clearly, if it were an extended nuclear war, the destruction on the Soviet side would be immense and they wouldn't want that. Therefore, that would be--that is what is necessary to discourage the Soviets from making such an initial attack. And it isn't just a few; you need quite a lot of them to be, to do that, to be sure that the war wouldn't quickly become one-sided.

PRESIDENT REAGAN HAS AGREED WITH SECRETARY GORBACHEV THAT A NUCLEAR WAR CAN'T BE WON AND MUST NOT BE FOUGHT. YET WE ARE PLEDGED TO THE FIRST USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO PROTECT EUROPE, IN CASE OF A CONVENTIONAL ATTACK. HOW CAN WE CONTINUE THROUGH WITH THAT PLEDGE WHEN WE HAVE ALREADY STATED THAT WE COULDN'T DO SO IN A CREDIBLE WAY?

Well the, what we're talking about is in a, is a circumstance under which the Soviet Union engages in an unprovoked attack against an ally, one of our NATO allies, and I think there can be little doubt but that the Soviet Union has very great advantages in the conventional relationship in Europe. Much of it is a geographic advantage because NATO Europe is this thin little band on the very western slope of the European, Euro-European-Asian continent. The area in Europe of the Warsaw Pact is, I think four times that of NATO Europe. And of--then there's all of the USSR on the other side of the Urals, which would, is right there, with railroad lines going from one to the other, and airfields across the whole area. So that the, there is no possibility of any European force, backed by the United States or not, of ever threatening the USSR That's a one-sided kind of relationship, where they, the, there can be no role other than the defensive role for the NATO countries, and the idea that France or Germany or the United Kingdom or Denmark or Norway would attack the USSR is absolutely a fantastic thought. You know, the Russians always talk about the fact that they're surrounded and threatened. They're not threatened at all. No one would consider attacking the Soviet Union. Y--it-it's only in the event that they would mount such an attack or threaten such an attack that there is a, against Europe, that there is a problem, and the thing that discourages them from so doing is our guarantee to the Europeans that we, as I said earlier, would consider an attack upon one as attack against all, including us. Certainly if we were threatened or attacked by the Soviet Union, we would certainly consider using nuclear weapons in our own defense, if that was the only way in which we could defend ourselves, and so that if we do take seriously the doctrine of one for all and all for one, it is appropriate to extend that doctrine to the Europeans and the Japanese and our other allies as well. And so that is, and that, we believe, does make it highly unlikely that the Soviets would, in fact, use conventional weapons in an attack on our NATO allies or against the Japanese or South Koreans or Australians.

WHAT IS THE GOAL OF ARMS CONTROL...?

The goal of arms control is, as I said earlier-

[INTERRUPTION AND RESTART]

The goal of arms control is to reduce the risk of war, particularly of war between the Soviet Union and ourselves and particularly a war involving the use of nuclear weapons. But I said it's to reduce the risk of war, because if we were to be engaged in a war with conventional weapons, there'd be a substantial risk that might escalate to a nuclear war. Therefore, we want to avoid a war, with the Soviet Union in particular and-- but concurrently, we want to a-avoid the risk of loss of our liberty, so arms control is a way in which it may be possible to reduce the risk of war and a way, a method which doesn't concurrently involve a loss of liberty for us and our allies. In order to achieve that, I think it has to be based upon both sides being prepared to settle for deterrence, so that the Soviets would be clear that we could not gain from a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union and we could not, we would have to be sure that the Soviet Union cannot gain from an attack upon us or upon our allies. And that can in part be helped by a reduction in weapons, but the reductions have to be of a particular kind. They have to be stabilizing reductions which do contribute to a reduction in the risk of war, because just reductions by itself may not do that, they might make the situation worse, in fact. And so the things that we're trying to get reductions in are particularly in ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles are very accurate and they fly long distances in a short period of time and they're very destructive against particularly the military facilities of the other side, so that the Soviets now have some 6,500 ballistic missiles, most of them are intercontinental-ballistic missiles from land bases, big missiles, great big warheads and highly accurate. So, and we have about a thousand ICBM silos and we have some command facilities and we have ports where submarines are, on bases where bombers are, but if, in an initial strike against those, against our ICBM silos and against our bomber fields and against our submarine ports, they could take out an enormous percentage, a large percentage of our forces. Therefore we have early-warning systems, which would give us warning of such an attack, that, there are all kinds of methods of attack which, with varying periods of warning and the problem of being sure that you would get enough warning is a difficult problem and it takes a lot of work to be sure that you have adequate warning systems and that you're prepared, you know, to launch quickly. Particularly bombers or ICBMs, and one doesn't want this to be a kind of a hair-trigger kind of a thing, we want, we want, one wants to be sure that this is more secure on both sides, so you have more time and less concern about it, less concern about it, less chance of an accident, much, more, less chance of something going wrong. And to work out these reductions so that they do reduce the risk to us and concurrently the risk to the Soviet Union, that one can see through how that should be done. I don't have any doubt that we understand pretty well how it should be done. The difficulty is to negotiating it out, so that the Soviets are satisfied and we're satisfied. It's a difficult negotiation, because the two sides do look at things somewhat differently, you know, and we've had a different history, a different experience, so to negotiate this in a way which is mutually-- to come to a mutually satisfactory conclusion is not an easy task. Now we've been working on this, now, since-- I personally have been working on it since 1969, with respect to getting a long-term treaty regulating, limiting the of-- strategic offensive systems of the two sides.

We started in '69, we began really thinking and working about it in '63, but the negotiations began in '69, so that's almost twenty years ago and I've been working on it, more or less, all the time, off and on during this, these twenty years. So people who say we're rushing into a START agreement I think have a peculiar idea of rushing. But as I say, it's difficult and it takes a lot of work, but one does learn and one makes progress. We had already made considerable progress by the spring of '88.

SOME PEOPLE SUGGEST THAT IF WE WERE TO CONCENTRATE ON REDUCING THE CONVENTIONAL FORCES IN EUROPE, THAT THEN WE COULD REDUCE NUCLEAR FORCES TO THE POINT WHERE WE COULD HEAD TOWARD DISARMAMENT.

I think one has to look at each one of those on its own feet and I don't think they're quite related that way. If, as I said earl--no-- let me begin again now on that paragraph. If one side has clearly superior strategic forces—

CAN YOU START OVER, IF ONE SIDE...

If one side has clearly superior nuclear forces, then the other side's conventional forces, no matter how strong they are, would not be able to stand up against it, 'cause nuclear weapons are, you know, in a hundred to a thousand-fold each more powerful than most powerful conventional forces, so that they're not an offset; they're really are for--have to be used in quite different contexts, so you can't defeat nuclear forces with conventional forces. You probably can defeat conventional forces with nuclear forces, but they are, and there's a different form of warfare. So that I think the first task is to try to work out stabilizing agreements with the nuclear forces, and if you can do that then it becomes easier, I think, to work out agreements on conventional forces, and in any case, practically, there isn't any, it's a much more difficult thing to work out a conventional limitation agreement, because this is not a negotiation just between the USSR and ourselves. In the conventional field, there are many countries involved, many countries have conventional forces. Our predominance is not in the world in conventional forces, land-based conventional forces. So that the upcoming negotiations on conventional forces are between the Warsaw Pact countries and the NATO countries and there are sixteen NATO countries and there are nine Warsaw Pact countries, including the USSR. So it's a--it will be, or is, a negotiation between twenty-five countries and negotiations between a great group of countries take longer. They're not impossible, but it's a, it's a long kind of a heartbreaking process to work out an agreement of that kind. And the preceding negotiations on conventional forces, what are called the MBFR forces, they've gone on for fourteen years with no progress. I think that the format in which these new negotiations will take place is a much more favorable format, deals with a different area with these, with different and more appropriate matters, not just personnel, not just manpower, but also tanks and artillery, bomber personnel carriers and things of that kind. But that's going to take a long time before that can really mature to being a success story.

DO YOU THINK THAT WE SHOULD BE TRYING TO WORK TOWARD A WORLD IN WHICH WE CAN GET RID OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

We should try to be working in that direction, but it is a long-term future goal, not an immediate goal. At the present time, we're, you know, if, to, this START agreement is called a 50 percent reduction agreement, but it really isn't that. They're reductions of 50 percent in certain types of things, but the, we insisted that the reductions be stabilizing reductions; so the reduction, for instance, in throw-weight, which is the best measure of the power of a missile, there the reductions will be 50 percent, but 50 percent in the Soviet throw-weight. Our throw-weight is now less than 50 percent of theirs, so those reductions will be entirely on the Soviet side. And the reductions in ballistic missiles will be to an equal end point of 4,900 on each side. The Soviet's level of ballistic missile reentry vehicles is much higher than ours today, or somewhat higher than ours today, so that we come down to equal levels. Certainly theirs are bigger and heavier, but in any case the big reductions will be the 50 percent reductions will be in their heavy reentry vehicles, while this—

THROUGHOUT YOUR CAREER YOU HAVE CONTINUOUSLY PLAYED A ROLE ON VARIOUS COMMITTEES AND SO FORTH, OF TRYING TO MAKE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AWARE OF THE THREAT THAT'S POSED BY THE SOVIET UNION. FROM THE FORTIES AND FIFTIES ON, THERE'S BEEN THE SENSE THAT THEY WERE PREPARED AND HAD THE WEAPONS FOR A SURPRISE ATTACK ON US AND SO FORTH. DO YOU THINK THAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE NEED TO BE SHAKEN UP IN ORDER TO RESPOND TO THREATS IN AN ADEQUATE WAY? VANDENBERG, I KNOW, SAID TO DEAN ACHESON AND TRUMAN THAT YOU HAVE TO SCARE THE HELL OUT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO GET SUPPORT OUT OF CONTAINMENT. IN A DEMOCRACY, IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH KEEPING ADEQUATE DEFENSE FORCES?

There is a problem and it's been true of all democracies, that this democracies are very cognizant of competing goods to those of security. They'd all like to buy a new car this has been--or else they'd like to have a very good meal, or something. So that there isn't any problem in a democracy that for other ends, other than security, being prominently considered. But what I'm talking about is a long-term willingness to address adequate resources to security and I don't think one promotes that by sudden scare campaigns. I think one does much better with the quiet explanation of what the facts are and why they're that way and why it takes a long, extended willingness to make sacrifices and to work together. We tend to emphasize so much the individual, we tend to denigrate or play down the importance of patriotism or family relationship, or to larger groups. But if we really pr-propose to not only survive in this world, but do some good in this world, we've got to work together, we've got to pay increased attention to the larger groups and to the family, to the nation and to our allies, to western culture.

IF YOU HAD A MESSAGE FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT THE YEARS AHEAD, WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING AND WHAT SHOULD BE OUR FIRST PRIORITIES, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?

It would be to work together.

CAN YOU MAKE IT A COMPLETE SENTENCE...

If I were to... Let me start over again.

PLEASE TRY TO RELATE IT TO THE ISSUE OF THE SOVIET UNION AND YOUR DEFENSE THEME. AND WHATS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY AND HOW DO WE KEEP STRONG.

As I look into the future and consider the on-going competition between the Soviet Union and the United States and the west generally, it would seem to me the first lesson that I would try to get across is, that this is a continUN problem and is one that will take the United States a long time, we have to stay the course. And what will enable us to stay the course, I think that's to understand that it isn't just the individual, that the individual needs to work closely with others, to have confidence in his fellow man, to have confidence in his family, to have confidence in the country. To preserve the virtues of patriotism and of loyalty.

CAN YOU MAKE MORE SPECIFIC WHAT YOU SEE AS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY AND WHAT WE NEED TO DO TO BE PREPARED?

I'd just like to leave it where I left it.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE THAT WE DO? PEOPLE SAY THAT WE'RE A DECLINING EMPIRE, THAT JAPAN AND GERMANY, CHINA ARE ON THE RISE... DO WE NEED TO REORIENT OUR PRIORITIES?

I thought I'd gotten at that. Certainly, we need to reorganize our--reorder our priorities from now to the future, and from me to others. That's what I was trying to say.

ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT THE DANGER OF INADVERTENT WAR IN TIME OF CRISIS?

Not really.

AS A PEOPLE, AS A COUNTRY, WHAT DO YOU FEEL WE SHOULD BE WORKING FOR?

I've done that, 'cause I've said I'd worked first for our own security, maintaining our freedom. Secondly for that of our allies—

CAN YOU MAKE THAT INTO A SENTENCE...

If I look at what I would like to see the United States do in the future, I would like to see it look upon its national security problem as a long-term problem that is not just one of today, but which will be one that goes on for a long period of time. I would like to see us be sure that we understand that it isn't just security, but that it is also we want to maintain our freedom and that's why we merit having a security policy, because we are cc--a worthwhile country and in ourselves and we have virtue and we are a standard for freedom and for liberty. But then, in order to be sure that we do maintain those things, there are two other things we must do. One is to really address our morals. We want to, I should think we would wish to be less of a now generation; we would like to look more toward the future and to our roots and to our ancestors and on forward to our grandchildren or our great-grandchildren. And I would think also we would like to broaden it to looking not just to this country, but this must be the first love, but beyond this country to our allies, to our friends around the world.

THE SOVIETS ARE TALKING RECENTLY ABOUT THE DECLINING UTILITY OF FORCE IN THE WORLD, THAT MILITARY POWER IS NOT AS EFFECTIVE ANYMORE. DO YOU SEE A CONTINUING RELATIONSHIP OF FORCE AND POWER, OR DO YOU SEE US LEARNING TO MOVE AWAY FROM THEM?

I don't believe that. I don't want to go into it, no.

I'D JUST LIKE TO KNOW, WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MILITARY FORCE AND POWER AND DIPLOMACY IN THE WORLD? DO YOU SEE THAT ENDING--THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THOSE TWO?

Many people I think have misread the results of our long negotiation for an INF treaty. They draw the lesson that this... we're getting rid of nuclear weapons. And that therefore, the main object is to get rid of nuclear weapons. Just get rid of them. Unilaterally if necessary, but get rid of them. And I think they draw entirely the wrong lesson from that. How was it that we got rid of the INF missiles? Particularly the Soviet INF missiles? We got rid of them because of the fact that we had a clear idea, and our allies had a clear idea, and we worked together in order to get rid of those Soviet missiles. The Soviets deployed those missiles beginning in 1977. And there wasn't any real reason for them to deploy them. They were there to threaten our European allies. And our European allies and we decided that in order to get rid of those, two things were necessary. One was that we, the United States, must deploy INF missiles in Germany and in other countries of Europe ourselves. And then concurrently, we should enter into negotiations with the Soviet Union to see whether one can get rid of those missiles, the Soviet SS-20 missiles. And we did that. We began that negotiation in 1981. And for a long time, the Soviets would say, said no to every single one of our main propositions in those negotiations. And in 1983, just before we were about to deploy those first missiles, then they walked out of the negotiations full of threats. Full of saying, you'll never get them down. This will be a political disaster for you. We deploy many more of these missiles. We're putting them in the middle of the Atlantic. We're putting them in Czechoslovakia. We're putting them in Eastern Germany. And then they've, turned out that all the propaganda advantages they thought they were going to get from these threats, foundered. Because the European countries stood together and they're backed by their own populace. So by virtue of our continuing to deploy these missiles, and coupled with the political support both in the United States, but primarily in Europe. The Soviets saw that they were getting nowhere by this. And finally they began to give on each one of the points we were negotiation with. And we finally got the successful negotiation, and got rid of those missiles. The point I'm trying to make is you get rid of the Soviet threat not by unilateral removal of our... You get it by having adequate power yourself. And then negotiating intelligently on the basis of that power. And that's what we've got to do in the future is to both have an adequate defense, and negotiate intelligently.