GOING BACK, JUST BEFORE THE ADMINISTRATION COMES TO POWER, TALK -- YOU KNOW, THEY KNOW THEY'RE GOING TO GET ELECTED NOW AND THERE'S A -- TRANSITION TEAMS ARE FORMULATING POLICY. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE -- KIND OF THE OVERALL STANDS THAT THE ADMINISTRATION WANTED TO TAKE IN TERMS OF ITS STRATEGIC NUCLEAR FORCES, VIS—A-VIS, THE SOVIET UNION.

It was quite clear during the transition period that the Administration, the new Administration, the new team wanted to restore America's strength and credibility and determination. There was a feeling, widespread among all of us, including the President—elect Reagan that America had emanated a vision of weakness around the world, partially because of the Iran hostage situation, partially because our defenses had been in decline, partially because we had a SALT II treaty not many of us though was any good. And we wanted to really get on a path towards strength. I remember quite clearly meeting with the President-elect and a group under Bill Casey's sponsorship during the interim period from the election to the inauguration and having this quite clearly the message of the group.

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION, COULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE ADMINISTRATION'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION IN THAT EARLY PERIOD?

In the early period, the Administration felt don't trust them, they lie, cheat and steal on most everything around the world, that the pattern of Soviet behavior had been clear for 70 years and the pattern was one of repression at home and aggression overseas.

A LOT OF THE ADMINISTRATION FIGURES COME FROM THE COMMITTEE ON THE PRESENT DANGER. CAN YOU -- WAS THAT A SIGNIFICANT FACT? WAS THAT -- I MEAN, HOW DID THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE COME TOGETHER?

The Committee on the Present Danger came together in 1977, right about the same time as the Carter election, though it was starting to be discussed before the election and it was decided to be established regardless of who won. So, it wasn't just an outgrowth of the Carter Presidency. It was mostly Democrats, it was all hardliners and people who felt that somehow America was slipping and sliding around in foreign affairs. It was not on a determined path. It was also in part to rebut the idea that Vietnam era that a strong military leads us into danger. Our belief in the Committee on the Present Danger was that a strong military keeps us out of danger.

WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE WHO COME INTO THE ADMINISTRATION...AS IDEOLOGICALLY. I MEAN, ARE THEY ARCH CONSERVATIVES, CONSERVATIVES, DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH THAT KIND OF IDENTIFICATION?

The labels, I think, are badly misused by the press, if I may say so. There's conservatives, but there are no liberals any more. The press doesn't even call Senator Cranston or Senator Pell a liberal. There are hardliners, but there are no softliners. I've never seen anybody in the press use the term softliner to describe a Senator Tsongas or Senator Kennedy. There's ideologues that are always on the right. There are no ideologues on the left any more. I think it's a real terrible press distortion.

WOULD YOU CALL THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO COME IN WITH THE PRESIDENT, THEY CERTAINLY WEREN'T CENTRISTS WERE THEY? THEY WERE --

The group of people that came in with the President were not mushy centrists, if you're talking about centrists being kind of moderate Republicans or more conservative Democrats that are, believe all things on all sides of all issues. It was a group that decided a few years ago that America was slipping and sliding, had lost its footing, lost its bearings in foreign affairs, because it had bought on to the belief that somehow these problems were all global, somehow pollution control was more important to mankind than stemming Soviet aggression and somehow we had so much more in common with Communists than we had to disagree with them about that it's all one big wonderful world and all we needed was a hootenanny and to cross arms and to sway together singing ballads. And somehow the problems of the world would go away. We didn't believe any of that nonsense.

YOUR CONFIRMATION HEARINGS WERE ONE OF THE FIRST CONFRONTATIONS BETWEEN, I GUESS ONE OF MANY, BUT ONE OF THE MOST DRAMATIC CONFRONTATIONS BETWEEN THE ADMINISTRATION AND CONGRESS OVER YOUR CONFIRMATION. I WONDER IF YOU COULD TELL US A LITTLE BIT OF THE STORY OF THOSE CONFIRMATION HEARINGS.

Well, the...

I'M SORRY, LET ME BACK UP AND SAY, FIRST, WHEN DID YOU FIRST GET THE CALL TO TAKE THIS POSITION AND THEN, YOU KNOW, HOW DID IT WORK FROM THERE?

I got the call to take the position of Director of the Arms Control Agency on January 12th. I remember the morning very well. Nothing was happening at the UN. I was having lunch with James Chase of the Council on Foreign Relations, or breakfast, actually it was and didn't get back to the office until about 10:30 in the morning. I had signs all around the office, "Call Judge Clark," who was then National Security Advisor, "immediately, emergency." I thought either we had pulled out of the UN or we were at conflict. Nothing could evoke those kind of messages except one of those two things. It was neither of those. He started talking about the position at ACTA. I said, "Thank you very much, Judge Clark, but Gene Rostow, who was then Director of the Arms Control Agency had asked me to consider being his deputy at the beginning of the Administration and I was very happy where I was then, there, then and there at the UN." Judge Clark says, "Ken, I'm not talking to you about Deputy, I'm talking to you about Director of the Arms Control Agency." And I said, "Oh, my God." And he said, "What's wrong?" And I said, "I just don't think that it would be a easy kind of confirmation." There'd be the age factor, I was only 36. I was known to be a conservative hardliner in the Administration and before that time. And Reagan's arms control policy was controversial enough without infusing these considerations. I explained why I think, why I thought then that other choices would be better than this one and I would urge Judge Clark to consider those and talk to the President about that. Clark heard me out and he said, "I understand your personal position, but to tell you the truth that's not the question. The question is will you take the job or will you not, because the President would you like you to do it and he would like to announce it in two hours time." I said, "If that's the question, the answer is, of course, yes. But let me tell you why that shouldn't be the question." He says, "Thank you very much, it'll be announced in two hours time." And there we were.

DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A CONSERVATIVE HARDLINER? HOW WOULD YOU...

Yes, hm, hm.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

That means you, I feel, I'll speak for myself that the Soviet Union poses the greatest threat to the United States of America and to our values of any country in the world, that it poses one of the greatest threats we've ever had in our country. And that even though Gorbachev may look good and speak different words, that the policies and the direction of the Soviet Union doesn't help us at all in the world. It's diametrically opposed on most everything to what we believe in.

SO, YOU WERE NOT SURPRISED, I TAKE IT, AT THE HEARINGS, THAT YOU RAN INTO OPPOSITION? WERE YOU SURPRISED AT THE EXTENT OR HOW REALLY, YOU KNOW...

I was surprised by some of the things at the hearings. First of all, it was interesting to note that during the first day's hearing, which was quite extensive, none of the news reports from the printed media that sat there all day had the story that he doesn't know the subject very well. Zero printed media had that. That was a television report. Once it got onto television, the same people who watched the hearing all day began to write that, even though they did not write that before they were broadcast. Interesting lesson in journalism. Secondly, I did not know that the confirmation hearing would get involved with my collection of African art, with Ed Rowny's suggestions on personnel in the Arms Control Agency, with the President's attending Larry Pressler's birthday party, with all kinds of issues that were nothing short of crazy.

YOU BECAME A SYMBOL OF THE ADMINISTRATION?

Oh, it was a symbol on both sides.

DID YOU, THE PRESS REPORTS HAD YOU BEING BRIEFED EXTENSIVELY BETWEEN YOUR FIRST HEARING AND YOUR SECOND. IS THAT, CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT? IS THAT TRUE?

The briefing was not on substance. Because if anything, I made a mistake in the hearing, the mistake in the first hearing was being too substantive on these issues. I should have emoted more and had fewer substantive comments. Because none of the questions had to do with US positions in START or in INF in any of the arms control positions. They all had to do with emoting about how you, I abhor nuclear war. Now, I don't know. Maybe it's my academic training. I don't believe you can make a coherent argument that nuclear war is good for you. I think it's crazy to think that any kind of a nuclear war would be anything short of total and utter disaster. So, I thought it was a silly kind of thing to emote about. But, quite obviously, all the Senators wanted to emote about that issue and not to learn anything much about the arms control proposals. That was a misjudgment on my part. I should have canned all the substance. Done a few routines of acting on how I abhorred nuclear war in a way that I think is goofy, but any way, would have been effective, and would have been tremendous success. The Senators would have carried me off on their shoulder toward the Senate Floor for confirmation.

WELL, IN ESSENCE, YOU WERE VERY DIFFERENT DURING THE SECOND HEARING, AT LEAST, I THINK...

I emoted. I emoted. Two things happened. One, on the second hearing, I emoted about how nuclear war would be bad for me and my children and get into that schmaltz. And, secondly, Senator Tsongas realized he had no issue there, because he couldn't get that much support, he could not get a grassroots movement going about the confirmation. In fact, no one gave a hoot and a holler out there in the countryside, and, so, that it was going to flop, and, so, he might as well take retreat gracefully.

ONE OF THE OTHER ISSUES THAT CAME UP WAS THIS ARTICLE WITH KEN AULETTA, WHERE YOU DESCRIBED, OR YOU WERE QUOTED AS DESCRIBING ARMS CONTROL NEGOTIATIONS AS SHAMS. BUT I WANT TO ASK A MORE SERIOUS QUESTION ABOUT THAT, BECAUSE THERE WAS A SENSE, I THINK, IN THE FIRST TWO OR THREE YEARS IN THE ADMINISTRATION THAT THERE WAS NOT AN INTEREST IN ARMS NEGOTIATIONS OF ANY KIND, THAT THERE WAS AN INTEREST IN BUILDING UP MILITARY STRENGTH, BUT POSSIBLY BECAUSE IF A WAR DID BREAK OUT, WE'D BE ABLE TO FIGHT AND WIN IT.

First of all, I don't believe anybody in the early part of this Administration, or any Administration I've been a part of, and I've been in government for 12 years, has advocated getting in a war and winning it. If you get in a war, you better well win, that's for sure, but the idea that isn't it appealing to build up so that you can get in wars and win them, I think is a phony and a bum rap for this Administration. Secondly, we all believed that until you built up American strength, you were not going to get a good deal in arms control. And, jeez, I just rest my case on eight years of the Reagan administration. There is no way we would have gotten an INF agreement, intermediate nuclear force, to do away with an entire class weapons systems unless we had deployed those weapons systems between, from 1983 to today, no way at all. There's no way in the world that we would have a deep reductions in strategic weapons, that past Administrations had been trying, time and time again. If we hadn't had a strategic modernization program and had SDI, you ask yourself why did the Soviets turn down Carter on deep reductions, why did they turn down Ford on deep reductions, why did they turn down Nixon on deep reductions. And you come up with only two possible explanations, not that they love Ronald Reagan and want to help him, just the opposite, they shouldn't want to help him. You come up with two explanations, number one, we had a strategic modernization program going on before and during those negotiations, which none of the other three had; and number two, we had SDI that was pounding ahead, and none of those three, other three did. So, we've accomplished what the three previous Presidents did not accomplish. And I can't help but believe that our theory was absolutely right.

ONE OF THE THINGS THAT HAS CHANGED, THOUGH, IN THE ADMINISTRATION, I THINK, HAS BEEN THE RHETORIC USED TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION. I MEAN, THE HIGH POINT OR LOW POINT OR WHATEVER OF THE PRESIDENT'S RHETORIC, I GUESS, WAS THE SPEECH IN ORLANDO, FLORIDA, TO THE EVANGELICALS IN JANUARY OR FEBRUARY OF '83, WHEN HE REFERS TO THEM AS THE EVIL EMPIRE. BUT THAT LANGUAGE IS GONE NOW. HAS THE ADMINISTRATION CHANGED? HAS THE SOVIET UNION CHANGED?

Well, I don't think our, the Administration has changed one bit on its views on the Soviet Union and I hope to God, you know, no Administration ever does. I think it's a right view of the Soviet Union to have, that it is a focus of evil in the world. I'm entirely comfortable with that. The, I think there is a change in the rhetoric from, in this Administration for the good reason, good reason, that the times are different, not that the conditions of the Soviets are any different, not that they're any less threatening to Afghanistan or to the East Europeans or to the Vietnamese or to the Cambodians or the Angolans or anything else. But when Ronald Reagan took office there was a prevalent view around the world that somehow the super powers were Tweedly Dee and Tweedly Dum. Somehow there was moral equivalence. It was a wash between who the good guys were and the bad guys. I think Ronald Reagan, because of that rhetoric, so drew the line between what freedom stands for and what totalitarian stands for, that that was absolutely essential to do at that time. That, by God, there is a difference between the teachings of Jefferson and the teachings of Trotsky. There is a difference between the teaching of Descartes and Montesquieu as opposed to Hagel and Lenin. And, so, once that decision was made, it was made. I think it had an impact and it was the right thing to do at the right time.

BUT NOW NOT NECESSARY OR WHAT?

Now, it's less necessary. I wouldn't say it wouldn't become necessary again if the INF agreement, which I hope to God it doesn't, leads off into a new era of detente, a new feeling that everything's fine in the world, that somehow the super powers, Tweedly Dee and Tweedly Dum, somehow we should fall all over our capitalistic selves to give loans to the Soviet Union. All that is rubbish. And if it takes another distinction between the good guys and the bad guys to do away with that rubbish, that's worth it.

AT THE MOMENT, IT LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF THE PRESIDENT'S ORIGINAL HARDLINERS ARE LEAVING THE ADMINISTRATION AND THERE'S TALK THAT MODERATES HAVE SOMEHOW TAKEN CONTROL OF THIS ADMINISTRATION. IS THERE ANY, WHAT WOULD YOUR COMMENT BE TO THAT, THINKING THAT THIS IS GOING TO BE SEEN NOW THREE OR FOUR OR FIVE YEARS DOWN THE ROAD?

There is a fascination in arms control to look at personalities, to do a People magazine look at arms control. I'm always more interested in the substance and what comes out. If, INF, the intermediate nuclear force, we have bellied up on some of the verification provisions or bellied up on some of the other provisions, then we'll be held accountable by our contemporaries and by history. I don't believe for a moment we have done that. In START, I think we have a very good path and a clean path to do that and I think that we won't belly up in the rest of this Administration.

LET ME GO BACK TO REYKJAVIK, OR GO TO REYKJAVIK, BECAUSE THAT'LL PROBABLY BE OF THE THREE SUMMITS, OR IF THERE IS FOURTH HE SUMMIT THAT THIS PROGRAM WILL LOOK AT WILL BE REYKJAVIK. CAN YOU TELL US THE STORY OF THAT A LITTLE BIT? I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE TIME DANILOV GETS ARRESTED, THERE'S THAT, IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S, WHAT'S GOING ON WITHIN THE ADMINISTRATION THEN? HAD THEY ABANDONED HOPE FOR A SUMMIT? ARE THEY HOPING TO, HOW ANXIOUS ARE THEY FOR IT?

Well, I'll just say in my own feeling. Before Reykjavik, my own feeling was if we have a summit, we have a summit, if we don't, that's fine. I see no reason that a summit's a great advantage to the United States ever. I Constitutionally think it's unwise to have the President as chief arms control negotiator at any time. I think that puts him in a very terrible position. And since Versailles with Woodrow Wilson we have seen that that's a dangerous position. As Dean Rusk said, "It means the Court of Last Resort is in session." That's not good to do. I also think that a summit has many other down sides. Tremendous pressure on the American President because of our independent Congress and independent press, independent interest groups, where no such pressure exists on the Soviet leader from a totalitarian society. And the expectations are built up in such a way that could be very detrimental to us. I did not think it was a good idea to go into Reykjavik with the short period of time that we had between the invitation and the acceptance, some ten days or so, but the President thought it was. And I thought Reykjavik was an interesting case of the two elements of arms control. One, the very visionary side, abolishing all nuclear weapons, abolishing all ballistic missiles, abolishing this and abolishing that. That to me is visionary and in some respects very harmful. On the practical side of arms control, what do we do to get a intermediate nuclear force agreement and get at START agreement, Reykjavik was a big help in that respect. We made a tremendous accomplishment on those two. We have an INF agreement today, because of Reykjavik. START progress we have today because of Reykjavik. So, it's an interesting, the same three days in Iceland, we did what I consider harmful and Gorbachev did harm on the visionary elements of arms control. On the nuts and bolts of arms control, how you get from here to there, I think it was a very good success.

LOOKING AT IT FROM OUTSIDE, NOT BEING THERE, BUT, WE'RE READING FROM PRESS ACCOUNTS, IT WAS A REAL EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER. IT BEGINS WITHOUT VERY MANY EXPECTATIONS AS A PRE—SUMMIT AND THEN IT SUDDENLY, ENORMOUS EXPECTATIONS. AND THAT'S I THINK WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. AND THEN AT THE END ENORMOUS DISAPPOINTMENT. BOTH MEN COME OUT, EVERYBODY LOOKS JUST DEVASTATED AND THEN AS THE WEEKS GO BY THEY BEGIN PUTTING A GOOD FACE ON IT.

It was for sure that the Soviets, once we got to Reykjavik, wanted to do a lot more business in arms control than we had expected them to do. We had indications, including at very high levels in Moscow, that they wanted to do a howdy and hello to set up a summit and not much would happen at Reykjavik. That assessment was wrong. I think partially it was wrong because the Soviets decided to do more at Reykjavik than they had decided before. I think, secondly, it was wrong because there was a certain momentum to the meeting. It probably surprised the Soviet side as well as our side. Secondly, there was a certain amount of rollercoaster to it, although a lot less than the public perception. I did not believe, myself, that this idea of zeroing out this and abolishing that and eliminating the other was going to get the time of day in any serious consideration. And, so, if you're saying, well, you were so close to abolition of something or other, whatever it was, I don't believe that for a minute. In fact, I remember quite well at Reykjavik that when President Reagan at 4 o'clock in the afternoon for the final session with Gorbachev, Max Kampelman asked me what do I think the chances are that two could come to some kind of agreement and I went like this (indicating) and I said, "Goose egg." Zero. There's no way at all. On the disappointment at the end, that was unfortunate. And there was a difference between the way Reagan and even Secretary Shultz came out and said, oh, it's the end of the, a good roll and it's just terrible what happened. There's a difference between that and what a lot of us felt, which was on the nuts and bolts of arms control. We had done a very good job and moved the process for START and INF along very nicely. And I'm happy to say that that afternoon interview, or that evening, from Reykjavik that was on ABC that painted a picture of how much we had accomplished in the realistic realm of arms control and that if we were going to have arms control in the future, it was going to be on the basis of the Reykjavik formulas. And that ran, which was very different from the vibes coming out of Shultz and Reagan at the time, and that was, I think, right. And I think it was right at the time and I think it was right ever since.

SO, IT WOULD BE AN OVERSTATEMENT TO SAY THAT IF IT HAD NOT FOR THE PRESIDENT'S INSISTENCE ON MAINTAINING SDI, THAT REYKJAVIK WOULD HAVE ENDED DIFFERENTLY?

Well, I think that it might have ended differently, but that was all this visionary papers. I don't think that they were much good at anything. I think what was very good was Ronald Reagan getting involved in INF and saying, no, we're not going to accept no limits on Asia. We need to have limits on deployments in Asia. I think it was very good to have Ronald Reagan get in and say, now, let me tell you that the definition of strategic that the Soviet Union has been using for years is a wrong definition. I think it's very good for Ronald Reagan to say, on START we must have deep reductions or we're just not going to go do it. On that kind of stuff, he was terrific. On the visionary stuff it was (making noises).

TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW, HISTORIANS WRITING A BOOK ABOUT THE REAGAN YEARS, OF WHICH ONE CHAPTER IS ON MILITARY DEFENSE POLICY AND A PART OF THAT IS ON WHAT THE PRESIDENT'S MAJOR CONTRIBUTION TO STRATEGIC -- THINKING ABOUT STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS. WHAT WILL THEY SAY? WHAT WOULD YOU SAY FOR THIS ERA?

I think there will be two accomplishments for a look back on security issues in the Reagan administration. Number one is an arms control package that really does reduce nuclear weapons, that really reduce the risk of war, that really does have effective verification. In my mind, none of the three of them have ever been done in US-Soviet nuclear arms control before. Whether they come to fruition or not, he certainly set the path for making arms control all that it can be instead of the public affairs nonsense that it was before. And, secondly, that the innovation of SDI will be with us a long time. It may not be SDI as Ronald Reagan thinks of it. It may not be SDI as I think of it or as anybody thinks of it now. But I think some kind of defense in the strategic realm is here to stay and I think that will be very important.

FINAL QUESTION. A LOT OF CONCERN ON THE PART OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, WHICH YOU CAN SEE IN DIFFERENT WAYS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THIS ADMINISTRATION, I'D PUT IT THIS WAY, THE NATION IS IN FAVOR OF A MILITARY BUILD-UP, BUT VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THE LACK OF TALK BETWEEN THE SOVIET UNION AND THE UNITED STATES, SEEMS TO WANT ARMS CONTROL. NUCLEAR FREEZE ...PROBABLY REFLECTION OF THAT MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE. CONGRESSIONAL CONCERN OVER LIMITING DEFENSE BUDGETS OR TIME THEN TO TALKS, SO ON AND SO FORTH. DO YOU HAVE A COMMENT ON THAT KIND OF POPULAR PRESSURE ON AN ADMINISTRATION LIKE THIS? HOW DOES THAT WORK?

Yes, I think that arms control has been vastly oversold in the past. The main problems we have with the Soviets have nothing to do with arms control. They have to do with the aggressive Soviet behavior on the outside and repressive Soviet behavior on the inside. Arms control, I believe, can help us if handled right and can hurt us enormously if handled wrong. But if anybody goes and they say arms control is going to solve our main problems with the Soviets, I just think they're smoking something. And I think that looking back on this Administration we could have done a better job explaining the limitations of what can really be accomplished in arms control and how security really has to be advanced by our defense programs and by our tough international stance. And that's where it's at.