WHEN HE WAS AT CIA, WAS THERE ANY CONCERN ABOUT THREAT TO SILOS?

Oh yes, oh yes. It was a long time problem. You will recall that when he was Secretary of Defense, Mel Laird emphasized the threat of the SS-9. Perhaps overstated it somewhat in that those were not MIRVs multiple independently targeted re-entry bodies. But it was plain, I think, in those early years that there was the potentiality out there. Now when I was Director of Central Intelligence I noted this explosion of R and D activity by the Soviets that came after the signing of the treaty and the agreement in Moscow in May of 1972. And once that had taken place we had this explosion of R and D activity and the beginning of the deployment of these new large throw weight missiles. And from that point on it was obvious that we were going to be in some trouble. As DCI, I briefed the NSC on this subject. And I indicated what the consequences were for the United States of the very large throw weight that was embodied in the prospective Soviet missile force with improved targeting and guidance. And then I had a comparison of the red and the blue. Dr. Kissinger was quite restless about that at the time because he felt that, that the DCI should only examine the red and not engage in a net assessment of the red and the blue. But it was plain that we had the potential for difficulty at that time.

WAS PRESIDENT NIXON THERE FOR THE BRIEFING?

Oh yes indeed. President Nixon was very interested in these subjects. In fact he encouraged me to spread the word around on Capitol Hill of the direction in which the Soviets were going in order to reinforce the American position at that and some future dates.

ASKS HIM TO REPHRASE ANSWER—WAS THERE A SENSE HIS MESSAGE WAS GETTING THROUGH TO NIXON, INCLUDING WHAT HIS CONCERNS WERE WITH THE SOVIETS?

Well the important thing to recognize is that the Soviets had delayed that spurt of R and D activity until after the signing of the treaty and agreement. Now the President, Mr. Nixon, was not astonished by this development because he always though that the Soviets would behave in what he described as a cold-blooded manner. And this seemed to be in their interest. It did not come as a great shock or a disappointment to him that the effect of détente was not to lead to a diminution in Soviet efforts in arms development. But the prospect of a, of a Soviet expansion of their counterforce capabilities that was embodied in the throw weight that they had had in the old force, with the new technologies that they were introducing into the new force made it clear that the United States should react so as to balance Soviet capabilities. We did not want to be caught at a disadvantage in counterforce since the United States has the responsibility for providing protection not only for ourselves and the Canadians here in North America, but for our European allies as well.

WHAT WAS THE NATURE OF THE THREAT?

Well I think that we had, I had thought at the time that the problem was going to be that follow on to the SS-9 which was a large throw weight missile. It turned out as we watched the development of the SS-19 by the Soviets that that had transcended what had previously been referred to as a light or small or medium missile. That this was going to have the throw weight essentially of the, of the missile that we later laid down as the MX. For that reason limiting the Soviets began to go beyond the problem of the, controlling the SS-9 follow on. It meant virtually the entirety of the Soviet ICBM force which prospectively was going to be substantial throw weight missiles by American standards.

COULD THEY HAVE LAUNCHED A FIRST STRIKE WITH A FORCE LIKE THAT?

I think that from the first there was some tendency on the part of some to exaggerate the likelihood of that. And of course during the 19, later 1970s that began to develop into almost a theology. It is important for defense analysts and for the defense secretary, carefully to examine hypothetical exchanges between the two sides in order to see the degree of vulnerability of his own side relative to the vulnerabilities as it were that he might exploit on the other side. That is all appropriate in terms of examination. But what happened in the later '70s was that many people inclined, I think, to be alarmists, began to move from those hypothetical examinations of the force structure, in order to discover one's own vulnerabilities. To the suggestion that there was some substantial probability that the Soviets were going to strike the United States. The Soviets historically have had prudent leadership and that would be a most imprudent act in the first place. The United States of course has gone through Pearl Harbor and one may say that the United States has a Pearl Harbor complex, and that was reflected in some of the statements of that period. But the likelihood of a bolt from the blue always struck me as minimal.

WHY WAS HE CONCERNED ABOUT DEVELOPMENT OF A COUNTERFORCE CAPABILITY ON THEIR PART?

Oh I think that the most important aspect of... there are two aspects of it. The most important aspect was the question of perception. To the extent that the Soviet strategic forces appear to be substantially stronger than the American, and the Soviets appear to be at least hypothetically in the position to initiate an attack because of their advantages in counterforce, and the Americans are perceived not to have that capability, that the ability of the United States to provide extended deterrence, protection for its allies, is eroded and perhaps substantially eroded. We do not want to run the risk of the erosion of that confidence in America's ability to protect her allies. Now the second point is perhaps even more critical. The United States and her allies, since 19-, since 1940s when we had dismantled our conventional establishment, and explicitly since the Eisenhower years, has depended upon nuclear retaliation as a way of deterring Soviet adventurism against Western Europe, including massive conventional attacks. Therefore the United States must on behalf of the alliance have the force posture. That it can initiate, initiate, a nuclear response in response to Warsaw Pact or Soviet aggression. Unless we have that capability, and are perceived to have that capability, the effectiveness of deterrence is eroded.

WHAT CAPABILITY IS NECESSARY? THEY DISCUSS ANSWERS WHERE DID CONCEPT COME FROM?

I had been the director of strategic studies at the RAND Corporation during the 1960s, before I came to Washington, and at that time I was immensely concerned at the expansion of Soviet nuclear capabilities, the development of a Soviet counter deterrent, and the implications that that had for the NATO alliance, for U.S. strategy in relation to protecting Western Europe. And the, the doctrine and the force posture, or the hoped for force posture, both evolved from that prior concern. Now you may remember that in the 1960s that the, Secretary McNamara took the view that the strategic forces of the United States existed for the protection of North America. And that his defense reports each year before they went final, would always say that we can deter attack on North America. This went over to the Department of State and it came back with a little asterisk and the... protect the United States and its allies. But... the purpose it seems to me of US strategic forces since we provide the deterrent for the allies must be to protect all of the territories of the NATO allies. And therefor it was necessary to relink in a logical fashion US strategic forces with Western Europe. That basically is the purpose of and the origins of the so-called Schlesinger doctrine. Now what we see is that because of the weaknesses of the Alliance in relation to the Soviets and, and Warsaw Pact forces on the conventional ground, that, and a weakness that probably has historically been exaggerated but certainly was there in quantitative terms. That we have always depended in the Alliance ultimately on the sanction of initiating the use of nuclear weapons. If one is to do so, one must have a doctrine that it logically leads to such linkage. The prior doctrine, introduced by Mr. McNamara of massive...of a successor to massive retaliation, mutually assured destruction, did not accomplish that purpose. What that advertised was that there would be destruction of both sides. And quite logically as well as in the eyes of our Europeans, the United States was not likely to, to follow a strategy that would inevitably result in the destruction of the United States. Therefore we had to be able to employ nuclear weapons against a hypothetical Soviet attack in such a way that would not lead logically to the destruction of American cities. And therefore it must avoid logically the destruction of Soviet cities which would inevitably set off such a Soviet response.

HOW DID HE DEAL WITH SOVIETS SEEING THIS AS OUR PREPARING FOR A FIRST STRIKE?

Well there are two aspects of the, of the, of the... two possible developments of the doctrine. One of them was counterforce, but only one. Counterforce provided you with the opportunity of going after a range of targets in the Soviet Union and indeed we might, if we wished, we might if we wished. We might, if we wished, go after them. But that might indeed have the kind of reaction on the Soviet part that you specify. We were not in a position to do that. The Soviets were tearing ahead, developing their own counterforce capabilities, with the SS-18, and the SS-19. And we were lagging far behind. Because we had these small throw weight missiles that had been introduced into the force by Secretary McNamara, precisely because they did not threaten the Soviets with American counterforce capability. So we were more limited. Now that was the reason that we introduced the MX into the deliberations. To tell the Soviet Union that we were prepared to match them in counterforce. The thing to understand is that the Schlesinger doctrine does not depend upon the... the use of nuclear capabilities for counterforce purposes. It depended upon selection of targets in the Soviet Union, whether they were counterforce or not, such that the Soviets would believe that the United States would be prepared to initiate such an attack. This was the so-called selective targeting, and that was much closer to the heart of the doctrine than was counterforce.

DID WE DECIDE TO GO AHEAD WITH MX BECAUSE IT WAS USEFUL TO MATCH WHAT THE SOVIETS WERE DOING? OR, AS A BARGAINING CHIP TO DEFLECT THEM AWAY FROM THAT, INTO A DIFFERENT POSTURE?

It was both. I, indeed at the time that I made the announcement, I think that it was in late 1973. I stated, we are going to go ahead with the MX. We are...we didn't have the name at the time, needless to say, we are going to go ahead with the development of a larger throw weight missile. And that the purpose of this will be to match Soviet counter force capabilities, if need be. That there are advantages to both sides in avoiding the development of counterforce capabilities and if the Soviets in their transition from the SS-9 generation, SS-13 generation, to the follow on generation, were prepared to pull down the throw weight that the United States would not deploy the MX. In other words, the hope was that it was a sufficiently powerful bargaining element that it would persuade the Soviets not to forge ahead with counterforce capabilities. On the other hand, if they did so, the United States ought not to be in a position in which it failed to match the Soviets.

IN 1973 PERIOD, WHAT DID AIR FORCE SEE THE MX PROVIDING FOR THEM?

Well I believe, I'm sure that the Air Force as a service will, and should, had plans, hopes for the development for larger throw weight missiles, particularly as the intelligence began to reveal that the Soviets themselves were moving rapidly in that direction. And that the Air Force would want additional capability for counterforce purposes. Going after Soviet military targets was something that the Air Force wished to do and had included in its... it wasn't the Air Force that made these decisions but it was an arm of the Air Force as it were, Strategic Air Command. But it would wish to go after those targets and as the Soviets had more silos and they were hardened, they would believe that in order effectively to destroy them that they needed more yield and they needed greater accuracy. In other words, they needed greater counterforce. But the Air Force was not at that time at least particularly interested in the restraints on targeting that were embodied in the doctrine.

AND BASING MODE BECAME IMPORTANT

Well that was anticipated. I think I said so in the summer of '73, that if the Soviets proceeded in the direction which they seemed to be going in, as one looks at this pattern of tests and the initial deployments of these new missiles, that it might ultimately require us to go to a different basing mode. It was for that reason that both sides would benefit from avoiding substantial expansion of counterforce capabilities.

IN THE EARLY DAYS, WAS A SURVIVABLE BASING MODE A KEY PART OF WHAT THE MISSILE MIGHT BE OR ADDED ON LATER?

Let me make that very clear. A invulnerable or a basing mode of low vulnerability is always desirable. It was not essential. It seemed to me in the 1980s, during the arguments over the MX, that the emphasis was placed upon the wrong issue and notably by the Administration. The Administration put all of its emphasis in the 1980 campaign on achieving silo invulnerability, or closing the window of vulnerability as the catchword was during the campaign. The purpose of the MX was not to achieve invulnerability in basing. That was desirable, but the purpose was to provide for the Soviet Union an indication that the United States, if it initiated, if it initiated... could go after the Soviet forces. And that the United States continued to be interested in arms control and was prepared to cap or reduce any counterforce capabilities, so that both sides would avoid having these kinds of capabilities. But that the United States itself was not going to allow the Soviet Union unilaterally to develop those capabilities. Now when one puts one's emphasis upon silo invulnerability, one is asking for trouble because the basing modes that we then had could not guarantee, could not come close to guaranteeing invulnerability and therefore the Congress might be anticipated to question whether it wanted to invest the funds.

IN THE MID-70S WHEN TALK SWITCHED HEAVILY INTO BASING ISSUE, DID HE SUSPECT PEOPLE WERE MIS-PERCEIVING THE ROLE OF THE MISSILE?

It certainly was a mis-perception from my standpoint. The important thing was to create uncertainties on the part of the Soviets about what America could do. The... in the later 1970s the Administration, the Carter Administration imposed an apparent requirement of an invulnerable basing mode that led to racetrack and so forth. All of which was desirable because less vulnerability is more desirable than greater vulnerability. But it was not essential to, in my judgment, to bring about the deployment of the MX. The MX was there to match the Soviets or to persuade them seriously to bargain.

DID THINGS GO AS YOU HOPED FOR BOTH THE MISSILE AND YOUR TARGETING DOCTRINE AFTER YOU LEFT OFFICE?

Well I think that they went along quite well, in fact surprisingly well. As you may remember, Jimmy Carter spent a fair amount of time during the campaign in 1976 criticizing the doctrine. He did not criticize it by name or really was he well versed in the doctrine. But during the, his period in office, he gradually came to see that the United States had to maintain a deterrent that was sufficiently sophisticated to provide extended deterrence for Western Europe. And indeed when I left office he gave me the National Security Medal and said that I had been right about defense matters. That was a gradual evolution for Mr. Carter. I think that there may have been too much triumph as it were in the way we were going because you may remember the "newsdom," if that was the phrase that was used during the Carter years, that was adopted with regard to strategic matters. That newsdom talked about targeting command control of the Soviet Union. My view is that that is not only an, an objective of U.S. targeting doctrine, it undermines the very purposes for which we have these doctrines and for which we provide the capabilities and the war plans in the event that they are needed. The reason for that is that the Soviet Union can destroy the United States, the United States can destroy the Soviet Union. In order to preserve restraint on both sides in a hypothetical engagement, we must maintain communication with the Soviet leaders. And to target Soviet leadership, to target Soviet command and control, is to my mind ill advised and undermines the purposes of the doctrine which is to impose restraint and to achieve one's objectives of preserving the Western world with a minimum of destruction. If one targets the leadership one forfeits the possibility of communication and once the leadership is gone, the war plans on the other side are likely to be automated and result in a much higher level, vastly higher level of destruction in the West.

ASKS FOR SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF MX MISSILE IN EVENT OF OUR NEEDING TO USE IT.

Well. I don't want to talk, talk about specific examples. The reason that the United States, the United States and her allies maintain an array of forces is to impose upon the Soviet leaders, military and civilian, a degree of uncertainty as to what the United States or what the Western response would be in the event that they launched a massive attack against Western Europe. And in this re... in this regard we want to have a variety of potential responses. Some of them would be... involve only, only very limited use of weapons close to the forward edge of the battle area. Another set of responses might involve plucking out of targets in Eastern Europe. Another set of responses might be to remove selective targets in the Soviet Union such as early warning systems, putting out Soviet eyes as it were. But those are very limited and discrete targets. And finally, there is the possibility of going after a large segment of their counterforce capabilities, of their ICBM capabilities. It was the role of the MX in effect to provide the embodiment of the capacity to fulfill that last assignment. But we do not want the Soviets to know or think that they know what we might do under those circumstances. We should have a variety of alternatives. And what the MX did was to enrich the alternatives that we had. At the same time as improving the perception of the balance between the two sides.

DID REAGAN MAKE A MISTAKE IN CANCELLING THE CARTER DEPLOYMENT SYSTEM?

Oh it was a very serious I think political mistake. It's a, it's a tendency of...

ASKS HIS REACTION TO MPS CANCELLATION

I think that it was a serious political mistake. The Administration, a new Administration can have its own judgments with regard to deficiencies of the plans of their predecessors. But if the Admin, the new Administration had thought it through, it would have realized that the effect of, of cancelling and pouring as it were boiling water over the plans of its predecessor resulted in an endangering of the MX production and production line itself. And that seemed to me to be ill-advised. What it should have done was to say, "We have our reservations about the Carter deployment scheme. However, at this time we are prepared to go ahead with it. We may make modifications later on and call upon the Congress to support that modification scheme. It would have been very hard under those circumstances for the Democrats on Capitol Hill to repudiate the program that had been put forth by President Carter. Instead it pushed it aside, demanded as I mentioned earlier, that we have essentially an invulnerable basing mode, and put forward dense pack with quite inadequate preparation of the Congress. Now dense pack may have its technical virtues, but it is counter intuitive. The belief that you provide lower vulnerability by bringing all of your missiles together when in the past the notion had been that you provided reduced vulnerability by dispersing them was a difficult transition. And that is the kind of thing that one must brief the appropriate people on Capitol Hill, indeed there should be careful press briefings and the, the like before it is exploded on the public and on the Congress. This thing was announced one day without any prior preparation and as a result elicited a great deal of ridicule to put it mildly. These things have to be thought out very carefully in advance. The...the way that the Administration proceeded by destroying the Carter plan was to burn the house down before there was an alternative. That does not seem to be wise in terms of getting this done. On the other hand, all new Administrations tend to do something of this sort.

WHAT WAS HIS ROLE IN SCOWCROFT COMMISSION?

Brent asked a number of us, Harold Brown, myself, Mel Laird I think, I can't remember precisely who was involved, to serve as senior counselors. Now since this was subject close and dear to my heart, I worked industriously with Gen. Scowcroft and his, and particularly with those members of the Scowcroft Commission who were industriously engaged in the production of the document.

WAS IT A USEFUL EXERCISE?

I thought it was an enormously useful exercise. And I wished that its, its utility had been longer preserved. When it was produced almost everybody endorsed it. The Administration endorsed it. And what we saw later on was the, a breaking up of the various groups into the pos, into the positions that they had held before the Scowcroft report. What the Scowcroft report did, quite simply, was to try and bind together all parties in a compromise based upon pursuit of arms control, the obtaining of Democratic support by pursuing the Midgetman, and the production of the MX for the standard reasons. And what happened was that this was embraced initially but after a while some of the, the Democrats asserted that the Administration was not pursuing arms control vigorously and backed away from its support of the MX. Various conservative on Capitol Hill who were never enamored of the Midgetman backed away from its support. And as a result, the compromise that could have provided us with an indication of where we should be going with regard to the development of strategic forces, ultimately fell apart. But it went in the right direction and it should have been longer preserved.

BUT FROM IT CAME THE FIRST DEPLOYMENT OF MX

Yes. Indeed.

THAT MUST BE SOMETHING THAT GLADDENS YOU?

Yes... and no. I think that it was important to get that production line started up because of its impact on Soviet perceptions, particularly after a whole range of U.S. Presidents had called for production of the MX. On the other hand the Congress rebelled very quickly and imposed a cap of 50 MXs to be deployed and I think that in light of the billions of dollars of research and development funding, the billion dollars of start up costs, to start production, that if we wind up with the deployment of only 50 missiles, that the augmentation of our capability is far less than the resources that will have been expended. So I have mixed feelings about that. I should note that I found it odd that the Reagan Administration reduced the Carter goal from 200 MXs to 100 MXs in the name of strengthening our nuclear deterrent and I was, with the Scowcroft Commission, I long advocated that we should go back to the original goal of 200 MXs and I think the final phrase was something along the lines of to deploy at least 100 MXs.

WAS MIDGETMAN A PRICE TO PAY TO GET THE MX, OR DO YOU SEE VIRTUES IN THE WEAPON?

It's too strong to say that it's the price that we had to pay. There was a large of it, and in my judgment there should not have been the stress in the report on the deployment of Midgetman. I thought that we needed a vigorous R and D program in the Midgetman area, but it was too soon to say that that was something on which we should spend the funds to deploy. I think that subsequently events have justified the need for R and D expenditures for the Midgetman but I wanted a vigorous R and D program. I did not want to go to a promise of deployment. That last part was, I think, the price that we had to pay to bring in some of the liberals on Capitol Hill who were, would only vote for the MX under those circumstances.

WHERE WILL WE GO?

Well let me, let me add something to the question of the Midgetman. The reasons that there was such a premium placed upon large throw weight missiles was that the 1972 agreement limited the number of silos. And when one limits the number of silos, one establishes a premium to put as many RVs, a missile with maximum throw weight in each one of those silos. We are now heading down the road to something that probably we should have done earlier, which is to limit the number of RVs, bombs, weapons, that can be deployed, irrespective of the basing mode. That switches the emphasis from maximizing the number of RVs in a limited number of silos, to protecting aim points, and in that role, there is a much greater premium on something like the Midgetman.

WHERE WILL WE GO IN FIVE YEARS?

Well I think that it is premature to make a final judgment. It depends upon the evolution of the START discussions which have proceeded to a point but as yet we do not know whether there will be a culmination of these discussions. If indeed there is a limitation and perhaps a severe limitation placed upon the number of ballistic missile RVs, that is warheads, then the case for the MX, for the Midget-man will have been strengthened. The irony is that the support for the Midgetman seems to be diminishing at the moment that the logical case for it has been strengthened. And the downward pressure on the Defense budget means that there will be a reluctance to expend the very heavy funds in R and... further R and D on Midgetman, the start-up costs for production, the very high O and M costs, operations, operational costs that will be associated with that kind of weapons system. And that budgetary pressures may lead us to neglect the Midgetman and to deploy more MXs with all of the vulnerabilities associated with a minimum number of aim points for the Soviets to attack.

YOU WANTED TO FILL IN THE STUDIES THAT WERE DONE... THE IMPACT AND WHAT YOU SAW THE BENEFIT WOULD BE OF HAVING MORE ELABORATE PLANS AVAILABLE FOR TARGETING?

The... A point that must be borne in mind is that although the MX and the augmentation of our strategic forces came at the same time as the change in doctrine, that they are independent of the doctrine. We wanted the change in doctrine as a way of relinking U.S. strategic forces to the security of Western Europe, irrespective of what happened with regard to the augmentation of those forces. In other words, the sizing of the forces and the targeting doctrine were to a large extent independent. Some have thought of the MX as synonymous with the change in doctrine. One should bear in mind that it is not and that we needed the change of doctrine, even if we did little to augment our forces.

WHEN DOCTRINE WAS CHANGED WE DID NOT HAVE THE HARDWARE TO AIM SO EXACTLY. . .

We certainly, we certainly did not have the hardware at the time of the change of doctrine, seriously to contemplate a major counterforce strike against Soviet ICBMs. We had the hardware around to make selective strikes against the Soviet Union and thereby to make credible the American threat to respond to a massive Soviet attack against Western Europe. We had immediately the capacity to strike selective, but we did not have the capacity to strike in a counterforce manner. But the former was sufficient to bring about a change in doctrine.

HIS SUCCESSOR AS CIA WAS CRITIC OF COUNTERFORCE. AND HE HAD TO DEAL WITH RELUCTANT CONGRESS. DOES HE FEEL THERE IS A REFUSAL TO ACCEPT REALITY? THAT THE U.S. JUST HAS A PROBLEM IN MATCHING THE USSR?

Well in the first place I think that on the philosophical level, we should understand that there is no advantage to pursuing counterforce for its own sake. That if we can avoid it, we should. But we cannot allow the Soviets, unilaterally, to have an asymmetrical advantage over the United States, particularly because we are more dependent upon nuclear deterrence than they are, and they must see that the United States has matching forces, in my judgment. With regard to Bill Colby, it is not the function of the Director of Central Intelligence to prescribe the U.S. force posture. Bill tended, even in office, to be a proponent of minimal deterrence, and since leaving office he has become a critic...

I WAS TALKING ABOUT STANSFIELD TURNER. I MISSED ONE...

You missed three, actually.

WANTS HIM TO RESPOND TO ARGUMENT THAT THEY FEEL IT'S DANGEROUS TO HAVE MIRVS POISED IN SILOS, THAT IT'S DESTABILIZING, LEADS US TO MAKE HAIR TRIGGER DECISIONS.

Well I think that you have if you look at this in historical terms or in philosophical terms, you see you have the fears of the left and the fears of the right sort of matching each other. On the part of the American conservatives, they fear the Soviet bolt from the blue, that some bright morning the Soviets in a wave of imprudence, are going to decide to launch an attack against the United States without any strategic crisis occurring in advance. I think that that is most unlikely. On the other hand and perhaps at least in my judgment even more serious consequences flow from the belief on the part of the, of those on the left who argue that deploying our forces will result in a degree of instability likely to lead to war. The fact of the matter is that the balance between the two powers has been and will continue to be very stable. The stability between the two powers is, I think, one of the reasons that we should continue to be optimistic about the future. Now if you look at the force structure, just as the right ignored the existence of the submarine forces, of the bomber forces, of the complexity of attack and hypothesized a Soviet bolt from the blue against our ICBM, so the left when it talks about the instabilities of the multi headed missiles, ignores the fact that a sophistication of the forces on both sides, which provide the stability to the arms balance. And you have exaggerations that I think lead to a misinterpretation of the problem. One of the most happy aspects about the Scowcroft Commission report is that it underscored the complexity of an attack against elements of the U.S. deterrent and how the various elements of the U.S. deterrent, the submarines, the bombers, the ICBM, and so on, tended to reinforce each other, increase the difficulty of the Soviet planning process. If you do as some do, as some former high level officials do and look simply at the ICBM exchange, you are exaggerating the risks, either of a Soviet attack for the one party, or alternatively of mutual instability for those on the other side of the political spectrum.

HAS HE ACHIEVED HIS GOAL OF BEING ABLE TO THREATEN AN ATTACK THAT WOULD NOT CALL FORTH AN IMMEDIATE ESCALATION?

Oh, of course. The Soviets understand that the United States can initiate under great provocation, the presumed provocation of an all-out assault against Western Europe, in such a way that avoids Soviet cities, avoids destroying Soviet population. And it places upon the Soviet leadership the burden of responding to that in a way that precludes the destruction of Soviet cities. So they must respond with restraint. If they see that we have that capability, the Soviets will continue to be deterred in the future as they have been, we believe, for the last forty years. One must understand that since the late '40s and early '50s the United States has discouraged its allies from acquiring nuclear weapons. And has urged upon them, them, the belief that the sophisticated nuclear deterrent provided by the United States can provide greater deterrence for its allies in Western Europe and in Japan than can the proliferation of small nuclear capabilities. And we are today pledged through the NATO alliance and in our agreements with the Japanese, to hold an umbrella over our principal allies.