ONE OF THE MAJOR THRUSTS OF THIS ADMINISTRATION AT THE BEGINNING WAS TO END BASING OUR NATIONAL SECURITY ON THE DOCTRINE OF MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION. HAVE WE SUCCEEDED, HAVE WE ACHIEVED THAT?

Well, I think that will depend on whether or not we are allowed by Congress and other events to deploy a strategic defense, I think we could do it. I think we've solved the basic technical problems, although it is a huge task and it's way out on the edges of the frontier of science and technology. But I don't have any doubt that we can do it. The uncertainty stems from the question of whether or not we'll get sufficient funding or whether or not some future President may feel that it's right to give it up, or to curtail it very seriously, in response to some Soviet blandishments that we can get some kind of a Chimerical advantage by doing so.

GOING BACK PRIOR TO 1983, BEFORE THE STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE, TO THE PRESIDENT'S MODERNIZATION PROGRAM, WASN'T IT HOPED THAT THAT WOULD ACHIEVE AN END TO MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION?

No, I don't think so. I think the President has always felt that that is the only way we had then, the only way we have now, right today, of maintaining the peace in a world that, is so heavily occupied by Soviet nuclear strength that the unilateral nuclear disarmament is -- was not only terribly dangerous, but basically totally ineffective. Because it wouldn't do anything but dismantle one side's ability to deter war. So, you had to -- and still have to, to this day, maintain your peace by making it clear to an aggressor that any attack by that aggressor would come at an unacceptably high cost to him, and, so, he wouldn't make the attack. There isn't any other way because unknown to a great many American people, we don't have any defense. We don't have any other way of maintaining the peace. And if we dismantle our own nuclear strength or allow it to erode, through obsolescence or other means, then we're putting ourselves in the very dangerous situation of offering ourselves up for attack. And when we got here in 1981, we found that all three parts of the triad of the strategic offensive deterrents were getting old, getting less effective and had to be renewed. And it was our unhappy fate that we had to renew all three parts of it at once, so that this was a very expensive proposition, though it never exceeded more than thirteen percent of our total budget. We would like to have had then, and would still like to have, a better way. That is a way that doesn't rely on this idea that if you attack us, we'll destroy you and we'll both get destroyed in the process.

HAVE WE MOVED -- ASIDE FROM SDI, HAVE WE MOVED BEYOND THAT SITUATION?

Well, there really isn't any way to move beyond that situation. You can try -- and we are certainly doing that -- to maintain that offensive deterrent capability at lower levels. And you can work out mutual arrangements to do that. An INF treaty that eliminates weapons, entire weapons of a particular category, intermediate range, it's a very good step toward trying to maintain this deterrent balance at much lower levels. But it is still a deterrent balance. It still is based on the idea that we have to be strong enough so that we can always be correct in our understanding and the Soviets will be correct in their understanding that it's just too costly to attack us.

GOING BACK AGAIN TO THOSE EARLY YEARS -- I GUESS WHAT I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT IS -- WAS OUR MODERNIZATION PROGRAM GOING TO PUT US IN A POSITION WHERE WE COULD -- OR INTENDED TO PUT US IN A POSITION WHERE WE COULD NEGOTIATE MORE SUCCESSFULLY FROM A POSITION OF STRENGTH OR WERE WE REALLY TRYING TO POSITION OURSELVES, SO WE COULD, IF NECESSARY, FIGHT, WIN AND SURVIVE?

No, I don't think anybody ever thinks about winning a nuclear war. That cannot be done and that's why it must never be fought. But if you want to have that kind of situation, you have to have a degree of strength that will deter, discourage -- actually deter anybody from attacking you. And you have to make all of your plans as if they were planning to attack you and we believe that the Soviets would certainly do so if they felt that they could have a -- the military advantage, if they felt that they could win that kind of war. They know now that we are strong enough and have enough retaliatory capability so that they couldn't win that kind of war. So, I think we are at this point maintaining the offensive deterrent. It's expensive. It's risky and it isn't any kind of -- final solution. The solution is to try your best to get a defense against these nuclear missiles, this most horrible form of warfare. And if you can do that, then -- the President doesn't want to do that for any military advantage. He's offered many times to share technology and things of this kind, all of which offers have been received with the greatest scorn by the Soviets.

IT IS RISKY, BECAUSE IN THE END OUR SECURITY DEPENDS, THEN, WITHOUT THAT DEFENSIVE SHIELD ON THE GOOD WILL OF THE SOVIETS NOT TO ATTACK OR ON THE LACK OF A MAD LEADER.

Not the good will of the Soviets. It depends on their good judgment, their judgment that they can't win that kind of war. Deterrence doesn't change anybody's behavior. Deterrence puts the only kind of defense that we have at the moment right now and have had all these years. And that defense is the knowledge that if they do attack us it will mean the end of them and probably the end of the world and that is a very strong deterrent. But it is only effective if they perceive correctly that we do have that kind of retaliatory strength. So, deterrence is a matter of getting into their minds -- it isn't what will deter us, it's what will deter them and it's also a matter of maintaining that degree of strength that's necessary to do that, no more, but that degree. These are very terrible equations to have to keep casting up every month or so, and, yet, that's essentially what we've been doing all these years. Because while we work on strategic defense, we do not yet have it and that's why it's vital to work on it. The Soviets are working on it. And then it would be really a dangerous world if they got it first.

I'M GOING TO GET TO STRATEGIC DEFENSE, BUT I HAVE ONE MORE QUESTION. I GUESS THE FEAR IS THAT MANY OF US REMEMBER A TIME WHEN THERE WAS A MADMAN RULING A POWERFUL COUNTRY, WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN WILLING TO BRING THE WORLD DOWN.

Yes, that is still always a possibility. We have a madman like that in Iran. Fortunately, he's not that well—equipped. But that is always a possibility. But, again, that's why the actual strength has to be there, the retaliatory strength, not just the perception of it, but the actual strength. And that is something that we have had to maintain, something we had to regain when we got here in 1981, because it was eroding. It isn't just a matter of the number of nuclear warheads or anything of that kind, it's their survivability, their capability, whether -- how effective they are, how accurate they are. All of these factors that have to go into these equations. And they do need to be cast up every -- virtually every day. You can't ever be very wrong in this kind of a calculation.

LET ME TURN TO SDI MORE. PRESS REPORTS AT THE TIME SUGGESTED THAT YOU KNEW ONLY A SHORT TIME PRIOR HO THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH ON MARCH 3RD, 1983, OF HIS INTENTION TO ANNOUNCE A STRATEGIC DEFENSE IMITATIVE. I WONDER IF YOU COULD RECALL THAT?

No, that's not correct. I've known for some time -- have known for some time -- well for many years -- that the President's desire to try to reduce, perhaps, hopefully, ultimately, to get away from reliance on nuclear weapons for -- as our only method of defense. But he also recognized in a very clear headed and accurate way that we didn't have any substitute and, so, we did have to regain the strategic triad and regain its effectiveness. But he always wanted something better. He always expressed that. And we've had many -- we had meetings with the Joint Chiefs and with others and the President had meetings with people who were very strong supports of the concept of strategic defense. And I was particularly pleased that he chose that specific time, because I was in Europe, just completing attendance at NATO meeting -- and at those meetings the discussions always revolve around the effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent, and that's in the nuclear planning groups. And they're always based on the assumption—had been until that time -- that there is not other way. That's the conventional wisdom. And it was important, I think, for everyone to realize how this President was perfectly willing to question the conventional wisdom and do something about it, if he thought it wasn't all that wise.

SO, I -- WHAT I THINK I HEAR YOU SAYING IS, THEN, IS HE INTENDED TO INITIATE THIS AT SOME POINT DURING HIS ADMINISTRATION, FROM THE TIME HE TOOK OFFICE.

Well, I think as soon as he had some kind of feeling or some kind of reassurance that this was technically feasible, then the idea became increasingly irresistible to him. He certainly wasn't going to put all of our eggs, so to speak, in that basket. He certainly wasn't going to call for this if he felt that technically that it could not, indeed, be done, as many people up to that time kept telling him. But many other people kept telling him that it was possible, it was feasible, and, he was very well aware of the fact that we had totally stopped work on this after 1973, I think it was, in response to what I've always felt was a very misguided and wrong approach. That's the ABM Treaty in which people voluntarily -- countries voluntarily eschew defense on the theory that it's terrible destabilizing if you're able to defend yourself, that you're only safe if you're completely vulnerable, a theory that I've never been able to accept or describe as anything other than curious. The President, I think, has felt very much the same way. And -- but what he was waiting for, what we all needed was some kind of reasonable assurance, not that it definitely could be done, but that it was feasible and feasible enough to examine. And in our system, you can't examine or study any of these things quietly. You have to get appropriations. You have to have a policy announcement. You have to talk about it publicly, which is fine. The Soviets, on the other hand, have been working on it seventeen to eighteen years without telling anybody about it.

WAS THERE -- AT THE TIME THE SPEECH CAME OUT, POLITICALLY THE NUCLEAR FREEZE MOVEMENT WAS AT A HIGH POINT THAT WAS BEING DEBATED IN THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE. THERE WAS SOME PROBLEM WITH DEFENSE EXPENDITURES GETTING PASSED. THE SPEECH CERTAINLY DEFLECTED A LOT OF THAT. DO YOU THINK THERE WERE POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS?

No. We were getting all the money we needed at that time and getting it quite easily. And the nuclear freeze movement was a movement, but it wasn't anything that -- whatever induced the President to change policies.

WHAT WAS THE REACTION AMONGST THE-- INSIDE THE PENTAGON TO THE SDI—

Well, people who had been schooled and brought up only in the conventional wisdom were startled. But I think they soon got over that and many people who like the idea were very enthusiastic and work began almost immediately. And I made an organizational management decision to concentrate all of the funding we had available for research and related fields and all of the authority into one office reporting directly to me so that we could emphasize the priority of importance that was attached to it by the President and by me. And that office has worked very effectively and very successfully. Part of the measure of their success is the degree of criticism they encountered.

AT THIS POINT, TOWARD THE END OF THE ADMINISTRATION, HOW FAR FORWARD HAS SDI GONE?

Oh, very far. Very much farther than any of us even thought or hoped in 1983. And we are now in a situation where we could, given sufficient continued funding from the Congress -- we could deploy first phases of a system, oh, I think, by the end of 1994. A lot of people think that it's right on the shelf. That you can just go in a store and buy it. You can't do that. But we have made great progress. And I think, though I am admittedly a California optimist, I think we've demonstrated that it –- definitely that it can be done. It takes money, not a very very large amount, not much more than, perhaps, two percent of the defense budget at the outside. But for the development -- the research and the determination as to which are the better ways to do it, we will probably use three or four methods of actual destruction and we will probably deploy that in the interest of survivability. But it can be done, and it is enormously important to the world to do it. It's the most hopeful concept that's been offered, I think, in at least forty to forty-five years, since the end of the war.

THERE WAS, AS I RECALL--THERE WAS A FAIR AMOUNT OF MONEY IN THE INITIAL DEFENSE BUDGET, '81-'82, FOR ABM AND ASAT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. DID SDI CHANGE FINANCIAL PRIORITIES SIGNIFICANTLY OR JUST BRING IT ALL TOGETHER INTO ONE?

Well, two things. They brought it all together by my own direction, because it seemed to be much better to have a single office directly reporting to the Secretary pursue this. And that gave a very considerable amount of in a sense -- additional support, because it eliminated the -- any duplication or any overlap. A number of people were working on various small, sort of aspects, of this. Bear in mind that we made -- we were ready to deploy a rather crude sort of system in the early 1970s, ground based, not terribly effective. But people were working on that and after that work was suspended after the ABM treaty or cancelled, there was still research efforts to see generally what could be done along that line. But we also increased resources very substantially in addition to consolidating. And the two things together, I think, have -- together with the great skills we have as a country and the -- and work out at the advanced edge of technology -- have produced progress that was -- far exceeds anything that we thought we could do. And with the funding that we would need in the remaining years, before 1994 -- I'm sure we could deploy by then. But again you can't do it all at once. It'll be a phase thing, probably would phase in over seven -- eight years, but vital to do it.

TELL US WHAT THE EARLY DEPLOYMENT, IF IT WENT FORWARD, WOULD DO, STRICTLY FROM A NATIONAL SECURITY PERSPECTIVE.

Well, it would do a number of things. First of all, it would be able to give us reliable assurance that we could destroy a certainly number of Soviet incoming missiles before they got in the atmosphere of the earth and I hope with non-nuclear means. And that we could do that -- and that would add to the strength of our deterrent capability, still back on the old offensive deterrent idea, because it would detract from, subtract from the Soviet's confidence that they could put in a crippling first strike. If they knew perhaps a third of their total warheads could be destroyed by the systems we were deploying, they would have very increasing, very real, very proper doubts as to whether they could have a crippling first strike and, therefore, would be more likely to be deterred than anything else. So, initially, that would have the effect of adding to that deterrent question in their mind, which is the way in which you maintain that now. And to that extent, it would aid the -- what we might call the offensive or traditional deterrent. It would also be the first leg of a system on which we would build. Because one of the rules I put down is that we shouldn't deploy anything that isn't a first leg, that isn't something that would be an integral part of the whole. So, it would advance us considerably farther toward the goal of real defense.

Well, you asked whether or not we could -- ultimately we could render the nuclear weapons obsolete. When and if it is apparent to the Soviets that their missiles cannot get through, that there is a thoroughly reliable defensive system and if they get somewhat similar kind of system, on which they've been working a long time, and it made very real progress one way or another, if they could get such a system, they would be, I think, just quite -- it would be quite reasonable to assume that nobody would use an ineffective system. And that is basically the President's hope. You ask in a sense of what the effect of all this is on deterrence and all, the deterrence is the blocking or preventing a war and there are all different ways of doing it. So, you could say that strategic defense is perhaps the ultimate deterrent. The main thing is that you want to have a situation in which an aggressive power with an offensive agenda, such as the Soviet Union, with a mission or a goal that leads them to believe that they can should conquer the world and dominate the world, you need to have some very powerful forces to prevent their trying to carry that out, particularly when you look at the difference between the societies and governments and know how easy it is for them to add offensive military resources or, indeed, resources of any kind. We have these enormous, long, difficult debates that go on for years and years and years as to whether or not we should replace a missile that originally deployed in the 1960s and that obviously needs replaced or a bomber system that we deployed in the late '50s that obviously needs replacement. We debate these things for years and when we finally decide, we decide part, way or half way in order to compromise and do a third of what we need or things of that kind. The Soviets don't do that they-- three or four people sit down and once they are in agreement or if just one or two of them are in agreement, they go ahead and do it and that gives them a military advantage. It doesn't give them any other kind of advantage. It's not a system we want to emulate. But it gives them a military advantage, and we do have to have that in mind, because that enables them to put us in a situation where we always have to be, well as I've said, casting up these equations of deterrence. We always have to be sure we have enough and it's very difficult to get enough in our kinds of systems, since military expenditures, for any purpose, are basically very unpopular.

YOU KNOW, CRITICS ARE MUCH MORE SKEPTICAL OF SHIELD THAN YOURSELF, BUT WHAT I'M TRYING TO ASK IS HOW EFFECTIVE CAN THAT SHIELD --

Well, we want it to be effective. We understand that an ineffective, leaky shield is perhaps a slight increase in deterrence, but it isn't going to be anything that will accomplish what the President wants. And I have every reason to believe and every confidence: that it will be a thoroughly reliable shield. It will be a system, or really a series of systems, three or four different kinds of systems, that can enable us to spot the launch of a Soviet missile, distinguish and discriminate between a real or a decoy and track and aim and destroy--launch the destroying force to get that missile before it gets into the earth's atmosphere while it's still on the rise or still in the boost phase or when it's in its separation phase or even some additional insurance in its terminal phase. But this is the kind of a system we're working on and when I say that we're making great progress, and I'm confident we can have a system deployed, it's that kind of system I'm talking about not a system that's 50 percent or anything of that sort.

COULD IT EVER BE IMPENETRABLE?

Well, I think it can be, yes, I think it can indeed be impenetrable. This isn't to say it's going to end war, but it is to say that you can, I think, ultimately make a Soviet offensive missile attack at the strategic range or at the intermediate range ineffective.

SHOULD THE DEMOCRATS GET ELECTED, A DEMOCRAT BECOME PRESIDENT IN THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION, WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN TO SDI?

Well, I hope that he would have the same regard for the nation's security and the same desire to present a more hopeful way of keeping the peace, a better way of keeping the peace and that he would call for and receive strategic defense funding.

FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW, WHEN HISTORIANS WRITE ABOUT THIS PERIOD, THE REAGAN YEARS, AND THEY SEEK TO CHARACTERIZE WHAT HAPPENED IN THE AREA OF STRATEGIC DEFENSE, WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY'LL SAY WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT -- ?

Well, I think if they're going to -- if you're limiting it just to strategic defense, I would—they would say the obvious, and that it is that it took one man, the President, to be willing to challenge the conventional wisdom and not mind the derision and the scorn and the opposition and all the rest and fight it through to the point where he gave the country the -- and the world this very hopeful concept of being able to destroy these missiles and to move to a system that it designed to destroy weapons and not people. I think the President would like to be remembered for that and I think that if his successors are as forthright and as constant and politically courageous as he is, that can be done.

WHAT I MEAN TO SAY WAS NATIONAL SECURITY, BUT THINK YOUR ANSWER WOULD BE THE SAME, WOULDN'T IT? THAT THE LARGEST CONTRIBUTION THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS MADE TO NATIONAL SECURITY -- ?

Well, I think you have several contributions to national security we've made. Long before the President announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, we were beginning to regain the kind of strength that we have now. That is to say, an effective deterrent based on the only kinds of systems that are in existence now and that is the triad of strategic defenses and that -- we've done that. We have done that at great political and financial cost, had to be done and it has been done. It's been done really in the teeth of a tradition, a policy, a history that never has allowed military expenditures to have any kind of an increase for more than a year and a half to two years in peacetime. I have to say I think we've done it very well. There's a lot of criticism about every single bolt on the B-1 and all of that, but the plane not only flies, it flies extremely well. The people who fly it think it's the best the bomber plane in the world -- to accomplish its mission of getting all the way through to the Soviet Union. They also share the feeling that I have that they very much hope and believe that because we have it we'll never have to use it. But that's been a great contribution to the nation's security. The improvement in morale over the -- of the forces, the success of the all volunteer program that has given us not just the weapons and the weapons systems and the technology, but the people, which are by far the most important part of any defense. And, of course, the work on strategic defense. So, I think all of these are major contributions which this Administration has made at a time when they were critically needed in 1981 through now and that is, I think, a very happy legacy for anybody to inherit.

ONE FINAL QUESTION, WHAT, IF ANY REASON-- WHAT IS THE ROLE OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE SOVIET UNION IN TERMS OF NATIONAL SECURITY?

Well, I think it's an important of it. I think that it enables us, as I've said earlier, to maintain deterrence at much lower levels. And that's a very valuable thing. You always worry about the Soviet Union as a nation with a very long record of cheating on agreements and of defining truth and honesty in terms of what is their national interest at the given moment. So, you have to worry about that, you have to get a lot more than a handshake or a piece of paper. You have to have effective verification. Probably the system and a society such as, the Soviet Union that is not an open society, where they can allow out and print only what they want to have printed -- there is no actual verification that can be a total, absolute, complete guarantee. But the verification measures that we've insisted on and are about to obtain, after a tremendous struggle, demonstrates how much the Soviets want this pact and demonstrates also, I think, that you can have -- far mare effective verification than we've ever had in the past. But the only reason we're able to get this is because we're vastly stronger now than we were in 1981 when the precise proposal -- same proposal in every way -- was made to the Soviets and they treated it with utmost scorn and derision, as did a great many people in this country. They said it was so extreme that it showed the President didn't really want arms control at all. Now, we're just about to get this kind of agreement and the only thing that's changed is our military strength.