THIS IS THE FIRST TAPE OF AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. HERBERT YORK IN LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA ON MARCH 12, 1988. DR. YORK THE FIRST THING I WANT TO ASK YOU IS TO JUST TELL US WHO YOU ARE AND A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE.

Well, I'm Herbert York. I became involved in nuclear issues at the tender age of 21 when I was a student at the University of California, the University of Rochester and was recruited into the Manhattan Project, recruited to go to the Radiation Laboratory at Berkley, California and then I worked both at Berkeley and at Oak Ridge on the Manhattan Project. After the war I thought that I, like everyone else, was demobilized for good but four years later the Russians shot their first atomic bomb. I got re-involved in the nuclear arms race again at that time and I have been in one way or another ever since.

I WANT YOU TO TRY TO DO JUST ANOTHER VERSION OF THIS WHERE YOU INTRODUCE YOURSELF AS A PHYSICIST AND HAVING BEEN A WEAPONS LAB DIRECTOR AND ARMS CONTROL ADVISER.

You want those also?

MAYBE JUST THOSE.

O.K., just those.

I WOULD LOVE IT IF MAYBE YOU USED THE WORDS YOU USED TO TITLE YOUR NEW BOOK THAT YOU'VE SPENT YOUR LIFE MAKING.

I'll put them in at the end.

O.K., READY?

Now, you want me to go all the way back to the beginning?

JUST TRY THIS ONE WITHOUT THE HISTORY, SAY I'M HERBERT YORK AND I-

Yeah, I'm Herbert York and--

--START OVER BECAUSE IT WAS A LITTLE CLOSE.

I'm Herbert York and I was recruited in 1952 to be the first Director of the Livermore Laboratory. While I was there, after I had been there about five years, the Sputnik went up and as a result of another concatenation of events I was recruited to work first in the White House as part of the President's Science Advisory Committee and then after being there a few months I moved over to the Defense Department where I became successively Chief Scientist of ARPA, and Director of Defense [Research and] Engineering. Shortly after Kennedy became President I returned to California and again worked primarily on things not relating to the arms race for the next few years. Then when Carter was elected, I was invited to be the chief negotiator for the United States at the Comprehensive Test Ban Negotiations and I worked on those for the last two years of the Carter Administration. The net result of it all is that I spent my entire life on the one hand making weapons, and on the other talking peace.

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO DO A ONE SENTENCE VERSION OF IT WITHOUT FOCUS SAYING I'M HERBERT YORK AND I AM OR I HAVE...

But what do you want me to put in that isn't historical?

THAT YOU'RE A PHYSICIST AND THAT YOU SPENT YOUR LIFE...MAKING WEAPONS AND THE SECOND HALF, SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

I'm Herbert York. I'm a physicist, I've spent my entire life either making weapons or talking peace.

THAT'S TERRIFIC. WE'LL HAVE TO FIND A GOOD END TO IT THOUGH. JUST MAKE THE SENTENCE END WHEN YOU DO IT.

Well, I don't know any better end than that.

NO, I MEAN THE CADENCE. IT SOUNDED LIKE YOU WERE GOING TO GO ON.

Well O.K. I'm Herbert York, I've spent the, I spent essentially the my entire professional life either making weapons or talking peace and I suppose that I'll continue that way for some time more.

HOW DID YOU FEEL AS A YOUNG MAN WORKING ON SOMETHING AS IMPORTANT AND EXCITING AS THE MANHATTAN PROJECT WITH SOME OF THE BEST PHYSICISTS OF YOUR TIME?

Well, I found the Manhattan Project very exciting and interesting and precisely because I knew it was a very important project and it did involve a number of the most important scientists of the time.

HOW OLD WERE YOU AND HOW DID YOU FEEL?

I was recruited into the project just before my 21st birthday, I stayed on at the University of Rochester for another few months and actually went to Berkeley in the Spring of 1943.

WHAT I WANT IS TO TELL ME HOW OLD YOU WERE WHEN YOU WERE RECRUITED IN THE MANHATTAN PROJECT AND THEN HOW IT FELT TO BE WORKING WITH SOME OF THE BEST PHYSICISTS AT THE TIME.

Well, didn't I just do that? I don't know what you want me to do that I haven't already done.

I'M KEEPING AN EAR TO WHAT YOU SAY IS A SPIKE (?) I COULD TAKE AND USE IN THE PROGRAM AND IT WASN'T.

O.K. I was recruited to I was at the University of Rochester as a young physics student when recruiters from the University of California at Berkley came around in the Fall of 1942 recruiting people to join the Manhattan Project. I joined the Project the following Spring, I went to Berkley and I found it to be an intensely interesting activity in an extremely memorable part of my life because the project itself was of such intrinsic importance and because the other people working on the project were among the most important scientists of the time.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU THOUGHT WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD THAT THE BOMB HAD GONE OFF OVER HIROSHIMA SUCCESSFULLY?

Well, I--when the bomb first went off over Hiroshima I heard about it that morning. I was on my way to work at the laboratory in Oak Ridge and one of my young colleagues said to me, have you heard they've just a biscuit on Japan? I don't know why he called it a biscuit. It wasn't the normal nomenclature but I of course immediately knew what he meant and and I felt, I'm sure at the time, the way I remember it now is a mixture of emotions that we had accomplished something very important. There was no doubt in my mind that the war would be over very soon, the most murderous and destructive war in history. Um, in the subsequent you know in subsequent days and moments talking about it with other with other colleagues I thought I learned that many of the my seniors who were certainly older and wiser than I felt that in the long run we had done something which would make war obsolete and there was clearly another good thing. On the other hand, we were aware, I was certainly aware that something had happened that could easily get out of control. I don't think we used the word nuclear arms race at that time but nevertheless we were aware that something that had those dimensions was going to happen and that would be you know full of dangerous importance for us as well as the rest of the world. So both in terms of what I thought immediately and in terms of what I thought in the next few days, it too was that mixture of ideas. First that we had done something extremely important and momentous and second that it was going to have con, it could easily have consequences that we wouldn't like.

I THINK THE PHONE RANG OVER A SECTION I WANT TO HEAR CLEARLY WHICH IS SOMETHING YOU DESCRIBE IN YOUR BOOK THAT WHEN YOU HEARD ABOUT THE BOMB ONE OF YOUR FIRST THOUGHTS WAS THAT PERHAPS IT WOULD MAKE WAR OBSOLETE BECAUSE IT WAS SO HORRIBLE.

Well, how do you want to do that? Just take..

JUST MAKE BACK THE STATEMENT AFTER YOU LEARNED ABOUT THE BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA ONE OF YOUR FIRST THOUGHTS WAS PERHAPS...

After I first heard about the bomb my first emotion was one of elation that we had done, we had done, that I had participated in a project whose purpose and whose result had been to end the most murderous and destructive war in history. Ah I also remember thinking at that time and hearing my seniors discuss the idea that the atomic bomb with its especially great horror and destructiveness had achieved, would make war obsolete and that was also a good thing, but we also knew and I knew that the whole thing could easily get out of hand that something we now call the nuclear arms race was going to happen. I don't think we called it that at the time but that something like that was going to happen and it would have results that would that could easily be for us and for the world as a whole.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEING SWEPT INTO THE...? YOU WERE CALLED BACK TO LAWRENCE LIVERMORE AFTER THAT. WHAT WAS IT LIKE THE ATMOSPHERE OF BEING SWEPT BACK INTO THE NEW TECHNOLOGY, NEW WEAPONS PROGRAMS THAT WERE HAPPENING AT THE TIME?

Well, it really started with the Russian atomic bomb. Shall I start with that?

SURE.

Ah, after the war I returned to Berkley, became a graduate student and in four years I earned my Ph.D. but the same year that in the Fall of that same year the Russians exploded their first atomic bomb and step by step I was drawn back into the process of being involved with American national security particularly as it involved nuclear systems. At first my job was to help the Los Alamos group with experiments they were conducting out of Enewetak in 1951. Experiments to designed to explore the basic possibilities of thermonuclear reactions. After doing that successfully in the Spring of 1952 as the program was being expanded, my involvement in it expanded and in the Summer of 1952 I became the first Director of the Lawrence--what is now the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COLD WAR WHAT DID YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES AT THE LAB CONSIDER YOUR ROLE TO BE?

Well, the Cold War was getting worse all through those years. The Soviet atomic bomb sort of reinforced the in our minds the importance of the problems. The invasion of Korea only about nine months later further reinforced our concerns. Scientists generally began to re-involve themselves in what was called defense work. Laboratories were established whose purpose was to explore the possibilities of mounting an air defense. An the nuclear program was expanded in many different dimensions. One of those dimensions was the establishment of a second laboratory at Livermore.

WHAT WAS THE ATMOSPHERE THERE? WAS THERE EXCITEMENT YOU WERE THERE AND YOU HAD THESE FACILITIES TO DO THIS INVESTIGATION?

Well, given the Cold War's background and most importantly the fact that the Korean War was at a peak at the time were establishing the Livermore we were engaged in establishing the Livermore Laboratory. All of us there thought that we were again doing something that was very important for the future security of the United States and the western world. It was made doubly interesting by the fact that it was such a challenge to go out to a new site there in the countryside east of Oakland and establish a wholly new laboratory.

WHAT WAS YOUR CONCEPTION OF THE SOVIET UNION AT THAT TIME AND OF THE COMMUNIST MENACE? DO YOU REMEMBER HAVING IMAGES OF IT?

Well, that was the that was the, those were the waning years of the Stalin era and I was aware of the various purges and other terrible things that had happened in the Soviet Union before the war there were signs of those things beginning to happen again. It was a totally closed society. There was virtually no tourism or exchange of any kind between us and them, intellectual or any other kind and it was very easy to believe the worst in a situation like that with so many other bad things happening, the Korean War, the Berlin blockade, the Soviet atomic bomb and so on.

WHAT WAS THE WORST THAT YOU COULD BELIEVE.

Well, especially given the establishment of the Sino-Soviet Bloc, it looked as if the West was faced with an enemy which declared itself to be devoted to the establishment of a of a very particular kind of regime in the world and we simply saw the West as being faced with horrors was the way people described it at the time, of people whom, the only way we could imagine coping with the threat facing us was through the application of high technology which was our strong suit and that especially meant nuclear technology but there were other things as well, rockets and so on.

YOU TOLD US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE H-BOMB STORY, WHEN THE H-BOMB WENT OFF, WHAT THE EMOTION THAT YOU FELT AT THE TIME.... WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO GET AT IS THAT YOU HAD WORKED ON THE H-BOMB AND WHEN YOU HEARD THAT IT HAD GONE OFF WHAT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IT WAS TO YOU.

Now I, because I told you two closely connected stories, one was the, one was about Teller describing how to make an H-bomb and the other was when it actually went off... When the first American H-bomb, called "Mike", was tested in Enewetak I was in my office at the Livermore Laboratory listening to signals which were being broadcast from the site, coded signals which would indicate when the bomb had actually exploded. My purpose was to know when zero time was and then to call that in to Edward Teller who was sitting at the seismograph in Berkeley ready to look and see if he could see the jolt at the right time. The zero moment came and I remember then and I remember today that I felt as though it really was one of those junctures in history, that things would never be the same again.

IN WHAT WAY WOULD THEY NEVER BE THE SAME?

The hydrogen bomb had turned out to be, as people has predicted, had predicted essentially one thousand times as powerful as the atomic bomb. It was as big, it was as big a jump above the atomic bomb as the atomic bomb had been above the chemical explosive used before that. It was a weapon of such extreme dimensions and power that it seemed evident to me at that time that its introduction into the world would have, had to have very important consequences.

DID YOU FEEL A SENSE OF SORT OF IMPENDING DOOM OF AN ARMS RACE THAT IT WOULD COME ABOUT?

Well, I had mixed feelings about it and one set of feelings was that this was a technology which we had to exploit to the best of our ability in order to keep American safe and the West safe and at the same time it was obvious to me that the Russians would soon come along with an H-bomb of their own and that again we would be faced with a greater threat to them before.

YOU SAID THAT THERE WAS A TURNING POINT FOR YOU IN THESE EARLY YEARS, I THINK WHEN YOU WERE UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE.

There were two.

YEAH, AND LET'S TAKE THE FIRST ONE OF THAT AND MAYBE YOU CAN SAY THAT WHILE YOU WERE UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING AND WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH.

You want the second one. The first one was when I went to work in the White House.

AND WHAT YEAR WAS THAT?

1957-'58.

LETS HEAR THAT.

O.K. The first turning point for me in terms of my views of the problem occurred when I went to work in the White House right after Sputnik in the end of 1957, the beginning of 1958. Prior to that time I had focused entirely on the question of military preparedness and especially its nuclear component as the essential elements of American national security policy. I soon learned after joining the President's Science Advisory Committee that no less than President Eisenhower himself felt very strongly that wasn't that couldn't possibly be the whole solution, that diplomacy, arms control negotiations had to be, were an essential element of American national security policy and I soon became persuaded after studying the problem with others that...

The first turning point in my views with respect to the nuclear arms race occurred when I joined the President's Science Advisory Committee right after Sputnik went up in October 1957. I discovered after arriving in the White House and joining that group that President Eisenhower felt that well I should go back I didn't get it in the right order. I don't think it gets better each time I do it. I think it gets worse. Ah, the first turning point in my views about the nuclear arms race occurred after I joined the President's Science Advisory Committee which was formed after Sputnik went up in October 1957. Prior to that time I had focused entirely on the on the military preparedness side of the national security questions including the nuclear elements of military preparedness. After joining that group in the White House I learned that President Eisenhower himself no less felt very strongly that military preparedness was only half the story that negotiations, arms control negotiations, diplomacy generally all were equally important and equally necessary parts of a total national security policy. And so after studying the question for a matter of some months with others on the President's Science Advisory Committee, I became a strong supporter of Eisenhower's goals in this regard which included among other things a ban on all nuclear weapons testing.

WHAT WAS THE REACTION OF YOUR COLLEAGUES AT THE LABS THAT YOU WERE TALKING NOW ABOUT ARMS CONTROL?

Well, I didn't see an awful lot of them in those days but those whom I did see had mixed views about it. I remember that some of them thought that I had really departed pretty far from my previous views were, and they had strong doubts about the good sense of my change of heart on this.

WHEN YOU START THIS I WANT YOU TO START WITH SOME OF MY COLLEAGUES AT THE LABS AND WHY THEY HAD RESERVATIONS.

Well, the trouble is that you know I really didn't have much contact with them so that its not a from my point of view thats not a good question.

O.K. WHEN DID YOU BEGIN TO FEEL THAT TECHNOLOGY WAS NOT THE ANSWER?

Well, there was a second turning point just a couple of years later. After I had been in the Pentagon for three years as a first as the Chief Scientist of ARPA and then as the Director of Defense Research and Engineering I had come to have a, I had come to have very broad knowledge of military technology generally and in particular I had spent a lot of time on the question of strategic defense, defense against bombers carrying nuclear weapons and defense against missiles delivering nuclear weapons and I came to realize that the particular systems we were working on at that time simply did not have the capability to blunt an attack in any significant way and more importantly and more generally I came to the conclusion that in fact in a nuclear era would never be possible to achieve a strategic defense against nuclear weapons and still more generally, reached the conclusion that there was no technical solution to the to the national security dilemma that we had found ourselves in.

WHY IS IT IMPOSSIBLE OR SO HARD TO THINK ABOUT DEFENSE IN A NUCLEAR AGE?

Well, one can either take a long time and work the question out in detail or you can look at it from a fairly general point of view. But generally speaking the reason that strategic defense is seems is hopeless in the nuclear era is that the only a tiny fraction of the total stockpiles which exist if delivered would cause damage and destruction and death beyond anything that history has known so far. That won't happen again for an hour. That's a talking clock.

TO ME IT'S A VERY PROFOUND THING THAT THE REALIZATION THAT YOU CAN'T...

But there isn't a short answer. You know it took me three years so how can I explain it in three minutes.

TALK ABOUT THE REALIZATION ABOUT YOU FELT WHEN YOU LOOKED AT THE PROBLEM AND THEN REALIZED OH MY GOD THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO.

During the three years that I was in the Pentagon there were many programs under way to try and achieve strategic defense, that is to try and develop air defenses which would stop Soviet bombers with nuclear weapons and to develop anti missile systems that would stop Soviet weapons being delivered by ballistic missiles which we were anticipating to come in the near future. We spent a lot of time and effort, I spent a lot of time on those questions and came to the conclusion that in the nuclear era, it simply was impossible to achieve an adequate level of defense, to achieve a defense which would really make any difference and I concluded not only that the systems we were then working on could not accomplish that result but that in fact there was probably no way of accomplishing that result that we would never be able to find a technical solution for the for the national security dilemma that we had by then found ourselves in and the basic reasons, there are a number of basic reasons that one can, that one can mention, one simply is that a that given the size of the stockpiles in the world today and as they are likely to remain for some time, only a tiny fraction of those bombs reaching their targets will produce a level of death and destruction beyond anything that history has known. Another is that the time and place of the battle is really chosen by the by the offense and the defense has to be ready at a at a moment that it can't anticipate with any precision and it has to face a defense against which, it has to face an offense against which it has never had a chance to be tested or to be practiced and when you put it all together it simply, when I put it all together in those days, and I reach the same conclusion today, it simply isn't possible to build a defense that would seriously blunt a nuclear attack.

AND HOW DID THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?

Well, what I conclude from all of that is that diplomatic methods that arms control and so on are all the more important as a, as an essential element of our national security policy but I conclude further that even they're not enough I mean military those days and I reach the same conclusion today. It simply is impossible to build defense that would seriously blunt a nuclear power on the one hand maintaining a, maintaining a stable strategic balance plus diplomacy, arms control negotiations designed to somehow take the sharp edges off the confrontation, that even combined they are not enough and that somehow we have to we have to bring we have to make sure that the political system, the world political system evolves in a direction such that before too long the use of force is no longer a, is no longer a sensible way to solve certain very difficult problems.

I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WROTE AND ARTICLE AROUND 1964 IN WHICH YOU SAID THAT INCREASE IN MILITARY POWER AND TECHNOLOGY HAD ACTUALLY DECREASED OUR NATIONAL SECURITY AND THAT TECHNOLOGY WAS NOT A SOLUTION. WHAT HAD MADE YOU FEEL THAT SO STRONGLY AND WANT TO SAY THAT PUBLICLY?

That's really, that's the same ground we've been over. I can go over it again, the my observation while I was in the Pentagon was that as time went on, as the years went by our national security became how did I say it, ( ), well as I... Well, during those years in the Pentagon I observed that as time went on our national military power became greater and greater in terms of the destruction that we could wreak on a on a on a potential enemy. On the other hand our national security was getting steadily worse in terms of the destruction that he that a potential enemy could wreak on us and which we couldn't respond to except by getting revenge. There there was no way for us to diminish the threat. We could only simply threaten retaliation so that our national security was our national military power was increasing, Our national security was decreasing and the direct, the proposals for solving this problem by creating a defense were evidently, it became evident that these proposals simply wouldn't work out, that there was no defense that would be adequate for this for handling this problem and that in fact more generally there wasn't any technical solution to this problem of our steadily decreasing national security. We had to look for solutions somewhere else, in the political realm, diplomacy, arms control, and so on.

THAT WAS QUITE A COURAGEOUS THING FOR YOU TO TAKE A STAND ON AT THE TIME GIVEN THE COMMUNITY THAT YOU HAD BEEN WORKING WITH. WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO GO PUBLIC WITH IT, TO PUBLISH ARTICLES...?

I, you know there's no good answer to that its just that I was I was I was invited to write that article, I was in touch with other people who that particular article was written by Jerry Wiesner and I and published in Scientific American, but we were invited to write the article.

YOU SUFFERED SOME CRITICISM FROM SOME MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT FOR WRITING THAT PUBLICLY AND I UNDERSTAND THAT PAUL NITZE CALLED IT OUTRAGEOUS AND DIRTY POOL. WHY WOULD HE REACT SO STRONGLY?

Well, in the particular case of Paul Nitze, I really I really don't know, I mean he simply disagreed with what we were saying. He was in the Pentagon at that time. He was I guess Deputy Secretary of Defense. I mean I don't know why he...I mean I really don't know.

WHAT VIEWS WERE YOU CONFRONTING OF PEOPLE. WHAT WAS THE OPPOSITE POINT OF VIEW THAT YOU WERE CONFRONTING?

The opposite point of view at that time was that there was a technical solution in particular in particular if we worked hard enough we could develop a useful defense, and there were programs that were major programs in both the Army and Air Force under way designed to explore those possibilities I always felt and still do, that it was legitimate to carry out a very substantial research and development program I felt then and I do now that if we really could build a strategic defense would be a good thing and that the only possible way of achieving that result of course was to carry out a research and development program designed to explore the possibilities. Its just that I was just extremely pessimistic then and still am that a useful result will come out of those programs. But I do believe its proper to explore the possibilities. Other people were more optimistic and felt that an aggressive program, talking about 1964, that an aggressive program of research and development on strategic defenses, missile defenses in particular would result in defenses which would be useful and perform some useful function on behalf of American national security. The Star Wars proposals in 1983 are the same sort of thing all over again. In both cases, 1964 and 1983, my conclusions after studying the ideas available at the time were that no there's nothing there, there's nothing there that will produce an adequate defense.

YOU WROTE IN YOUR BOOK IN 1970 THAT OVER THE LAST THIRTY YEARS WE HAVE REPEATEDLY TAKEN UNILATERAL ACTIONS THAT HAVE LEAD TO THE ACCUMULATION OF UNNECESSARILY LARGE NUMBERS OF OVERSIZED WEAPONS. DID YOU FEEL THAT THE UNITED STATES WAS PUSHING TOO FAR AHEAD WITH TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS AND THE ARMS RACE?

The the historical record is that most of the big steps in the arms race were initiated by the United States, that is the introduction of the atomic bomb in the first place, the introduction of the hydrogen bomb, the introduction of intercontinental bombers, there were of course other important steps which were taken by the Soviets the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles with they lead the way with that and but we finally very soon after in either in either of those cases, those where we took the initial steps or those where they took the initial steps and we followed soon after, we were the it was usually us with our greater industrial base that was able to exploit new ideas fastest and so that in case after case in the '50s and '60s we ended up with building large arsenals of very powerful weapons well ahead of the well ahead of the Soviets doing the same sort of thing and in that sense we lead the nuclear arms race in saying that I'm not saying that we essentially are the cause of the basic antagonism or that or that or that the arms race itself, the arms race as a whole is primarily is primarily due to us but the nature of it the rate and scale of the of the events was essentially determined primarily by us.

YOU SAID THAT BY THE END OF THE 1950S HIGH RANKING MILITARY OFFICERS AND MANY MEMBERS OF THE ARMS SERVICES COMMITTEE ARE __. WITH THE MORAL STATE OF AFFAIRS...CONTINUING FLOW OF NEW SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES LEADING TO MORE EXOTIC APPLICATIONS IN TURN FOR WHOEVER GOT THERE FIRST.

Um hm.

CAN YOU TALK MORE ABOUT WHAT THE ASSUMPTIONS WERE ( )...AND SAVE US AND GIVE US THE SUPERIOR POSITION WITH THE SOVIETS?

Well, that's what I talked about a minute ago but the there was a there was a view in the '60s and there is a view today that we can find a technological solution to...

There's always been a view among American technologists that if we just worked hard enough, we could accomplish it, we would find a technical solution to the national security dilemma and in particular we could the kind of strategic defense that would make a real difference. Uh, parallel to that view is the notion that if we just ran fast enough in the technological arms race, we could keep ahead by an adequate by an adequate measure and maintain our national security that way. Uh, that, of course, is not my view. My view is that there is no technical solution, that strategic defense has so far proven to be impossible, and that running faster will not help anything. That while on the one hand we have to maintain an adequate level of defense, we have to be certain that the strategic balance remains stable. We have to make certain that our offensive weapons are safe and survivable. We have to make sure they can penetrate any Soviet defenses. We have to do all of those things. We have to have a program designed to do those things. At the same time, that program can never provide the final solution. We've, that can only be found by pursuing diplomatic approaches, political approaches, arms control approaches.

YOU EXPRESSED SOME HORROR ABOUT THE SHEER NUMBERS OF WEAPONS THAT WE HAD BUILT IN THE EARLY '60s AND ABOUT HOW EXCESSIVE IT WAS. WHEN YOU FIRST REALIZED HOW MUCH POWER WE HAD, HOW DID YOU FEEL AT THE TIME?

Well, I didn't, you know, there wasn't anything sudden with that...the fact is that the, the numbers of weapons we have today were determined by a whole series of small actions that were taken during the late '50s,...during the late '40s and early '50s and the, for example, the, the size of the nuclear production plant was determined by a series of decisions that came out of the first, the...American response to the Soviet atomic bomb and then the Korean war. That produced a plant whose size was adequate to build a small number of nuclear weapons quickly and, of course, as the plant ran for years and years and years, it produced a very large number. The, the number of strategic bombers that we that we built in the, in the early '50s was determined...by thinking that was dominated primarily by the bomber generals of World War II. They had a picture of a, an attack on Europe in which the airplanes would be organized into wings and waves and there'd be a synergism between the size of the attack that would, between the various elements of the attack, that would enable it to overcome the defenses and so on. That's the kind... it's thinking of that sort, it's events of that sort and thinking of sort that produce the numbers of weapons that we have today. Uh, the given that they, given the power of these weapons, that in turn, means...an absolutely incredible...an extremely high level of total destructive power.

WHAT IS THE REACTION WHEN YOU GO INTO THE STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND AT OMAHA AND YOU SEE THE SIOP DISPLAYED ON THE BOARD?

When I finally had a chance in 1960 to actually be briefed on the first SIOP, that means the Single Integrated Operational Plan for using our nuclear forces I was to say the least, mightily impressed by what I heard. The, it's one thing to talk these the possibility of an attack in the abstract, it's quite another to sit there fore a couple of hours and watch these transparencies come down over the maps on the wall, one by one as the attack develops, and essentially the, the process that can be compared to strip mining the entire Soviet Union, is actually being developed and planned in front of your eyes.

YOU TALKED ABOUT THE FEELING THAT YOU GOT THE SENSE THAT, IT'S REALLY REAL?

Well, being there in that place which is the command headquarters for, for the attack, gives you a sense of reality that you don't get by just reading about it in the newspapers or talking with friends and colleagues.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

The primary purpose of nuclear weapons...one can, one can, look at the purpose of nuclear weapons in several ways. Uh in terms of the existing situation, the primary purpose of American nuclear weapons is to deter the use of nuclear weapons by anyone else including our principle adversaries, the Soviets. Uh, more generally, in a world which is anarchistic and...with chaotic relations among states, a world in which the use of force is always--the potential for the use of force is always there. Our strong suit in such situations is high technology. Other people...other states have based their military power on shear numbers. We base ours on high technology and that includes nuclear technology. So nuclear weapons are our ways of balancing large forces on the other side.

WHY DO WE NEED 25,000 NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO ACCOMPLISH THIS?

Well, the question of how many we need... The precise numbers have developed out of, analyses and situations that well, you know, I don't know how to answer a question like that.

IS THERE A FURTHER REASON FOR WHICH WE NEED THAT MANY NUCLEAR WEAPONS RATHER THAN MINIMUM DETERRENCE?

The totality of the American nuclear stockpile is not based solely on minimum deterrence. Minimum deterrence is the notion, I mean the, the meaning of the, of minimum deterrence is that well...

OKAY, WE'LL JUST GO ON. YOU HAD AN INTERESTING COMMENT YESTERDAY ABOUT WHY AMERICANS RELY ON TECHNOLOGY AND BELIEVE IN TECHNOLOGICAL?

Well, in a world in which military preparedness is an essential element of the national posture, Americans want that to be based primarily on high technology rather than on cannon fodder as, as some other societies do. We've always been like that. That is, if, if you look at casualties in past wars, you'll always find that we suffer fewer casualties than our enemies. That was true in the Spanish War, it's true in World War II, it's true in World War I. It's true in Korea, and so. We depend on technology rather than raw manpower to fight our battles. And that's what the--and that's what the American people want. It's what the people of the West want. In America in particular, the liberals don't want to draft, the conservatives don't want to pay the taxes that would be necessary for a very large conventional force. The only answer that's available to us is high technology. So the American people want a technological edge. They want a... technology edge to balance the manpower capabilities of the other side.

DO YOU THINK THAT IT'S TRUE THAT IT'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS THAT HAVE KEPT US OUT OF WAR FOR THE LAST...?

There's no way to test the proposition that deterrence has worked. It is certainly true that the leadership on both sides in Europe, for example, are truly frightened of the possibility of nuclear war, and, and do not believe that it could be won, don't want it to happen. That certainly does limit the, the possibility of adventures that, and eliminate the possibility of adventures that might otherwise have happened. To say that if there had been no nuclear weapons, there would have been war in Europe, that's, you know, that's a surmise that can't that can't be proved either way. But nuclear weapons surely have limited the...what states otherwise would have done and have caused the leadership on both sides to be much more cautious than it otherwise would have been.

SO MANY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THAT WE NEED TO HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY EDGE OR SUPERIORITY IN ORDER TO DETER THE SOVIETS. IS THERE SUCH A THING REALLY AS TECHNOLOGICALLY SUPERIORITY OR SUPERIORITY IN THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE?

Well, there's no such thing as overall tech-- superiority in the nuclear arms race, or there isn't any more. I mean at one time there may have been when we had huge numbers and they were just beginning but the in a nuclear world in which each side has 25,000 nuclear weapons, there's no prospect of superiority in any overall sense or any exploitable sense. On the other hand, you can be superior in certain details. It is possible for us to make sure that our weapons, our offensive weapons will always be able to penetrate their defensive systems. For example, and it is possible for us to build our weapons maybe in a smaller size or to achieve a higher accuracy or something like that. So it is possible to achieve technological superiority in certain details. It's not possible to achieve any kind of overall superiority in terms of something that can be usefully exploited.

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE US GOING TOWARD, WORKING FOR?

Well, I would like to see the current situation evolve in such a way that we moved away from the heavy dependence on nuclear weapons for so many purposes that we now have. In particular, I would like to see us abandon the notion of extended deterrence which means that we use nuclear weapons not only to deter the use of nuclear weapons by the other side but to deter other major acts of aggression. I'd like to see us get to minimum deterrence which is a situation in which we, the, the only purpose for maintaining nuclear weapons is to deter the use of nuclear weapons. That can be done with substantially smaller forces than we have. It can be done with forces which are not deployed cheek by jowl with their forces in Europe. It can be, it can be done in other words, with forces that are both, have, have, less total potential for violence, not much less, but less, and which, and which are more survivable, less likely to be used in a, in a crisis, by mistake and so on.

WHY ARE 50 PERCENT CUTS SO GREAT?

Well, a 50 percent cut that we're talking about today has the value of really setting us firmly on the road towards smaller forces. Previous arms control measures while they have been of value in certain particular contexts, have not really done anything to reverse, to fully reverse the momentum of the arms race. A 50 percent cut or any substantial cut would, for the first time, do that and that's why there's a, that's, that's the political potential that is...that so many us see and start talks. Uh, the it, even that however would be seen by most people as a step in a particular direction rather than as a final result rather than something which is really useful as a final result. So the...so the question is how far can one imagine going and that's more difficult to assess the because there are three other nuclear powers out there. The French, the British and the Chinese. And the French are moving up towards an arsenal of a thousand nuclear weapons and that means that the, neither the Soviets nor we are likely to agree to come down to a number that turns the French into the third superpower, so there is a, there's a limit on how far we can go...put there by the other nuclear powers. But that's...way below 50 percent of where we are today and so 50 percent we can go beyond, if we can achieve 50 percent now we can go beyond that at least by another factor of two in the years immediately following.

HOW MANY DO YOU THINK WE COULD ACTUALLY LIVE WITH IF YOU HAD YOUR WAY?

Well the number that would be necessary for minimum deterrents is somewhere between a few hundred and, and a few thousand and I don't know exactly where it lies in there. Various experts have studied the question. Some do believe it lies as low a few hundred, others believe it lies perhaps at 3,000 or something like that. Since there are now 25,000 to 30,000, we're talking about something which is one-tenth of what we have today.

YOU TALKED ABOUT WHEN YOU WERE DIRECTOR OF D.R. AND E. THAT PEOPLE WOULD COME AND TRY TO SELL PROGRAMS TO YOU. THAT YOU WERE THE ONE THAT THEY WERE SELLING TO. CAN YOU DESCRIBE A LITTLE BIT OF THAT AND THE SENSE THAT YOU HAD THAT, IN FACT, THERE WERE PEOPLE SELLING A THREAT AND THAT WAS A MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX OUT THERE THAT WAS PROFITING OFF OF IT?

When, when I was the director of Defense Research and Engineering I experienced something which, of course, I had no opportunity to experience before and that was the promoters of these, of these various ideas, the various weapons systems, the various schemes for solving our problems tech, through technical means. Uh, coming in to my office in person or, or through documentation or other means and selling and promoting and pushing their ideas. The kind of thing that Eisenhower referred to or had in mind when he mentioned the military industrial complex, in is farewell address and the scientific technological elite. Uh, as he said, we need a military-industrial complex in order to maintain an adequate level of military preparedness and we need a scientific and technological elite out there inventing these devices that are a necessary part of our total military posture. On the other hand, precisely because we do need them, we have to be especially wary that they don't somehow gather unto themselves influence that goes that goes beyond anything that's necessary. Uh, the basically what, what these groups do is they analyze the intelligence themselves, they decide what the threat is, they invent means for coping with that threat, and then they take, and then with a great deal of dedication and determination, they seek to sell those ideas to authorities. And when I was director of Defense Research and Engineering I was the person, so to speak, at the end of the line of those sales pitches who, the person who was ultimately receiving those particular sales pitches the people are, the people are quite serious and sincere about it. They believe that there is a serious threat out there that has to be met and they, they take pride in what they're doing. Their self-esteem is based on what they're doing. They really work hard on promoting their ideas and it is difficult to deal with them and that's, as I said, that's why Eisenhower in his farewell address, issued those warnings about the military-industrial complex. We need it, but if we just let them run rampant, they will exercise and kind of influence that goes far beyond anything that's in our, that's in our best interest.

WHAT IS THE REAL DANGER OF THEM HAVING TOO MUCH INFLUENCE?

Well, the danger simply is that they will oversell that their ideas, that we will, that we will build up our defenses far beyond anything that's necessary, that we'll waste a lot of money, we'll waste resources, we'll we'll adapt a point of view that is totally oriented towards weapons and military solutions.

YOU WROTE THAT THERE WAS AN UNNECESSARY OVERREACTION IN CASE AFTER CASE THAT WE HAD DUPLICATION OF PROGRAMS, THERE WAS FALSIFICATION OF INTELLIGENCE, AND SO FORTH AND THE AEROSPACE JOURNALS WERE (?). YOU SAID LET US ERR ON THE SIDE OF MILITARY SAFETY AS THE MOTTO OF THE ARMS RACE IN THE WORST CASE ANALYSIS. HOW PERNICIOUS WAS IT? TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THAT.

What did I just do?

FOR INSTANCE, IN THE BOOK YOU TALKED ABOUT HOW PEOPLE ( )...WHEN THE SOVIETS HAD THE BOMB THEY WERE TELLING US WE WERE GOING TO BE VICTIMS OF A SURPRISE ATTACK AND IN '57 ( )...AND WE BUILT ALL THESE EXTRA MISSILE PROGRAMS AND IN '70 THERE WAS THE WINDOW OF VULNERABILITY AND THE DOOMSDAY ( )...THE SOVIETS WERE GOING TO BE ABLE TO FIRST STRIKE AND YOU FELT IN EACH INSTANCE THAT PEOPLE WERE OVERSELLING THE THREAT AND PARTLY IT WAS TO INCREASE OUR DEFENSE AND INCREASE OUR SPENDING IN MILITARY PROGRAMS. I'D LIKE TO HEAR YOU GO THROUGH...?

There are many instances in our recent history in which the people who make the military-industrial complex have have I believe, oversold the nature of the threat and oversold the possible responses that we might make to it...as early as 1949 right after the first Soviet atomic bomb we had people who were seriously predicting that in a matter of just a very few years, the Soviets would have enough bombs and enough intercontinental bombers to be able to make a successful surprise attack On the united States. Uh, out of that came the notion of a bomber gap which really never developed. Uh, right over Sputnik which, of course, was a tremendous,...which was a great surprise, there was a similar kind of reaction again in which many people, the Gaither panel was one, predicted that in a very short time, the Russians would have again enough missiles with hydrogen bombs that they could deliver...on them to again be able to mount, a surprise attack that would be that we would not be able to cope with. And then again we've seen that repeatedly since. The the window of vulnerability argument which came up in the late '70s and, and, and early '80s was another such instance. Now those, that's just the top of the iceberg. All during that time and in between these particular ... extremely critical events, there are people making what are called worse case analyses designed to explore the, the most unlikely...cases in terms of both what, in terms of what the, the Russians might have and what they might do with it and what their purposes might be and calling for us to prepare for these for, for all of these worst cases. Now, it is necessary to consider what the possibilities are.

WHY DID YOU START TO FEEL AT THE END OF THE '60s THAT AMERICA WAS HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION?

Well, in reviewing the, the programs that we had initiated particularly in the '50s and to some extent in the '60s, it became evident by the end of the '60s that we had overreacted, we had created more weapons, more nuclear explosives all together, more delivery systems than we needed to answer the particular problems that were posed at the time and that I became more convinced...these reinforced my earlier views that, that we had to be putting an emphasis on, on, not on technical solutions, not on accumulating still more weapons, but on the other side of the, the, the other part of the equation. That is to say arms control diplomacy and so on... peaceful coexistence, détente were the words that we used at that time. That that's where the emphasis ought to be rather than on the accumulation of still more weapons with still more fancy characteristics. The fact that the Vietnam War was going on at, during those same years, in my case and in the case of many other people, reinforced the view that we were simply headed in the wrong direction or to put it differently, we simply weren't paying enough attention to the other elements of national security. The elements others than strictly military preparedness.

WHAT WAS THE LESSON OF VIETNAM DO YOU THINK FOR MILITARY USE OF FORCE?

Oh, I don't have anything profound to say to Vietnam.

YOU PARTICIPATED IN THESE HEARINGS AGAINST THE ABM SYSTEM AND MIRV IN 1969 AND WHAT WAS YOUR MESSAGE THAT YOU WANTED TO GET ACROSS TO CONGRESS?

Well, it was, there were really two messages... involved in my testimony in 1969 and 1970. One of them was the... messages was the regard to the particular problem at hand and that is that the...systems being proposed, the, the ABM systems then being proposed really would not do the job that people were claiming they would do. They would they could not be done they couldn't be built for the, for the money that people were proposing to spend on them and that in particular, so that those particular solutions, those particular weapon systems were not...should not, we, we should not go ahead with those in the form that was then being proposed. The more general, the more general message that I was promoting at that time is the same one I mentioned in connection with the...with when I was still in the Pentagon and that is that strategic defense simply cannot be accomplished, at least certainly not with the ideas that were then available and that indeed more generally, there isn't any technical solution to the national security dilemma that we found ourselves in.

WHEN YOU TESTIFIED ON THE MIRV ISSUE WAS THERE A SENSE THAT MIRV WAS LIKE PART OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE. IT WAS THE NEXT THING BUT IT WAS POSSIBLY VERY DANGEROUS?

Well...at that time, the '69–'70 time frame, there were two new technologies being considered by the Congress and being discussed in Congressional hearings. One was the ABM, the other was the MIRV. The MIRV, the Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles, had in fact been promoted in large part to by McNamara as a countermeasure to a possible Soviet ABM so that it the combination of the two, ABM and MIRV, provided a perfect example of the, of the measures, countermeasures, counter countermeasures, the endless race between the trying to build offenses and defenses. A race which had no, a race which had no useful end results And so it was a particularly good time to discuss those issues, a particularly fruitful time to discuss those issues. Uh, MIRV was seen by a number of people as being especially pernicious because of the way it effected, because of the way it made it possible to imagine that one silo based missile force could conduct a successful surprise attack against another silo based missile force. Now the fact that we had a triad of forces in those days...we'd had a triad for many years, meant that couldn't really happen. But because the other...even if the land based forces might be in the trouble, the other forces would be perfectly adequate for deterrence, but nonetheless it raised the issue and it made at least some people at in important positions and at high levels believe that our strategic forces were indeed in danger and led them to propose further, further actions. So the combination of ABM and MIRV provided a particularly salient ray of getting at the entire problem of overreaction, of action and reaction and overreaction that was characteristic of those days.

WHAT IS THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE?

Well I didn't invent the term technological imperative I have on occasion though borrowed it and used it. What I take it to mean is that the technological establishment, that is the sum total of the scientists, the engineers, the organizations that they're bound up in, get wound up in what they're doing do create interesting new ideas and feel compelled to carry them out to become, become quite convinced that a particular set of ideas are absolutely necessary for the national security and they do their best to promote them and sell them.

I WANT TO GET INTO THE AREA ABOUT THE RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR THAT THE REASON WE DON'T WANT TO GO ON IS THAT INCREASES THE RISK?

The reason what?

THAT WE DON'T WANT TO IS THAT THERE'S THE OPPOSITE FEAR, THE RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR. YOU TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE IDEA OF THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO DETER CONVENTION FORCES IN EUROPE AND HOW THE BATTLEFIELD COMMANDERS DON'T BELIEVE ANYONE WOULD ACTUALLY GIVE THOSE ORDERS BECAUSE OF THE RESULT AND HOW DANGEROUS THOSE TACTICAL WEAPONS ARE.

Well, I don't know how we can tell you. There's so many ways.

MY QUESTION IS, DO YOU SEE THAT THE SITUATION IN EUROPE, THE WAY WE'RE USING NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THE FRONT LINES, IS DANGEROUS?

Uh, I've been concerned for some time about the deployment of so many so-called tactical weapons or battlefield weapons in Europe. Many of them are deployed on very short range... delivery systems. They have to be deployed right up close to the, to the inter-German border as it's called. There is a danger that in the event of a war or even some kind of a local skirmish, that some of them would be overrun. There is pressure to use them early and I think that's that's... skirting unnecessarily close to danger. I would much prefer to see the, the short-range weapons eliminated altogether so that particular problem, would be...would be eliminated. The...removal of the intermediate range weapons as in the INF treaty is a good step in the right direction also but it isn't where I would have started if I had been able to control events. I would have started with the very short-range systems first.

DESCRIBE WHY WE SHOULD GET RID OF THOSE SHORT RANGE SYSTEMS.

The problem with the short-range systems is that they necessarily have to be deployed close to the, close to the potential front. They are in danger of being overrun. They are weapons, which, unless they're used early...may not have may not be very effective. So there're all kinds of pressures on using them very early and I would like to see any ...I would like to see those pressures removed because I, I don't want to see some kind of an accident converted into a nuclear war by mistake. Some kind of a, some kind of an accident which could be handled by, or some kind of an event, which could be adequately handled by conventional forces, to have such an event trans, transformed into a nuclear event that would lead we don't know where. In other words, I, to put it more generally, I would like to maintain the maximum possible fire between conventional weapons and nuclear weapons and so as a general rule, I think it's dangerous and a step in the wrong direction to use, to deploy nuclear weapons which carry out some of the,...which reproduce some of the functions of conventional weapons.

CAN YOU MAKE THAT A GENERAL STATEMENT THAT YOU DIDN'T WANT THEM DEPLOYED ON SHIPS AROUND THE WORLD?

Uh, another class of weapons that I'd like to see eliminated are the shipboard weapons ship to ship weapons which are now with our naval forces at sea. The trouble with them again is it's all too easy to use them, it's too easy to justify them. Somebody looks at the...question of, of firing a weapon from one battleship to sink another battleship, that doesn't look like the kind of cataclysm that would initiate Armageddon. I mean it looks like it could be a justifiable use of nuclear weapons and indeed it probably is considered in isolation. The trouble with, the trouble with it is it can't be considered an isolation and a use of nuclear weapons in that kind of application could in ...some kind of step by step way that can't be predicted lead to the use of nuclear weapons that would be more dangerous, unjustified, lead to Armageddon and so on.

WHY DO WE HAVE THESE NUCLEAR WEAPONS DEPLOYED IN ALL THESE FOREIGN AREAS AROUND THE WORLD. ISN'T IT TO MAKE THEM MORE USABLE?

Well, there is...there is a, these weapons are deployed in Europe and deployed on ships in order to reinforce deterrents both extended deterrents and specifically nuclear deterrents. The belief there is the, the, that by making the use of these weapons more realistic, more believable, you make, you make deterrents more credible and thereby reinforce it. There is a paradox there and I don't really see my way clearly through this paradox. That indeed you do reinforce deterrents by making the use of the weapons more credible and you reinforce deterrents by making the outcome of their use all the more horrible. That is the paradox of the, of the nuclear age and I don't see a clear way to work my way through that paradox. Uh, I do conclude though that rather than trying to figure out some, some path through this paradox that it, we'd be better off to get rid of it altogether and particularly to eliminate the weapons that are easy... are easy to use, easy to justify.

IS THERE A SENSE THAT IN ORDER TO MAKE DETERRENTS, ESPECIALLY A CONVENTIONAL WAR IN EUROPE, MORE CREDIBLE, THAT WE NEED TO CONTINUALLY BE BUILDING SYSTEMS THAT CAN PRE-EMPT AND TAKE OUT SOVIET MILITARY TARGETS BEFORE THEY TAKE OUT OURS?

Well, the, the nuclear tactics in Europe area not sure how to approach this.

DOES OUR COMMITMENT TO A NUCLEAR GUARANTEE IN EUROPE, TO THE EXTENDED DETERRENT, DOES THAT SORT OF PUT US MORE ON A HAIR TRIGGER BECAUSE THE WAY WE BACK THAT US IS BY, THE MILITARY WOULD LIKE TO BACK THAT UP, IS BY BEING ABLE TO DO A PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE?

Well, they're not talking about a pre-emptive strike, the, the idea of the nuclear weapons in Europe is that we would use them if under circumstances where, for example,...the ability to defend ourselves conventionally was failing and that rather than just simply we're just not doing well on this.

I THINK THAT AT THE ROOT OF YOUR UNHAPPINESS WITH OUR COMMITMENT TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN EUROPE IS THE SENSE THAT SORT OF ENGENDERS A NEW COMPETITION IN COUNTERFORCE WEAPONS?

No it's just that I, no, I just don't want to use them in Europe. I mean, I don't know...you're leading me somewhere where I don't go.

CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE HAIR TRIGGER, THE SENSE OF RISK WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

One of the problems we have with nuclear weapons is that under certain circumstances it's necessary to place them on a hair trigger as we sometimes say, or the equivalent, it's we, we're, we're led to design systems or to think about situations in which the launch would be, in some sense, automatic. Uh, for example, for years and years, it's been suggested that we should launch our strategic forces at home, our ballistic missiles, we should launch them when we should launch them on warning or launch them under attack and by doing so, by being able to do so, we reinforce deterrents by guaranteeing that indeed we will respond. Uh, up to that point the argument does indeed make sense. The trouble is the problem, the obvious one of, of false alarms, of the...any automatic system going wrong. And it's not just a question of whether we can make our own systems adequate to, you know, whether we can solve this problem of false alarms. Everybody in the nuclear world has to be able to solve the problem equally. It's the, the Russians, the Chinese, everyone else. So the whole notion of automatic launch, launch under attack, launch on warning has always seemed to me to be an especially dangerous notion. Fortunately, as far as I know, we've never put any substantial forces, we've never adopted that policy for any substantial part of our forces or indeed for any, for any part of them at all. But the pressure's always there. Uh, and it's been there from the very beginning, back when we first designed the first large ICBMs, the Atlas and the Titan. The--

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT DETERRENCE? IS IT WRONG, IMMORAL? SHOULD WE BE...?

Well deterrence is a fact of life. It's not a policy. It's a fact of life. The the we're scared of Soviet weapons and they're scared of ours. The the existence of large nuclear forces on each side deters the other side from taking actions which it otherwise, under certain circumstances, might take and in particular it deters the use of nuclear weapons by the other side. So deterrence is not something that somebody you know planned to have and then got, its act, its simply inherent in the present situation. Ah the destruction, that's just the mechanism through which deterrence works. The ...

CAN YOU START IT WITH MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION AS A FACT OF LIFE? I THINK THAT'S EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO GET.

O.K., Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD as it's called is not really so much a policy as it simply is a fact of life. The weapons that we have do assure the destruction of the Soviets if they were ever used and the weapons the Soviets have do indeed assure our destruction if they are ever used against us. Ah the fact of mutual assured destruction deters dangerous actions on the part of either side and that what we that's essentially what we mean by deterrence. The the maintenance of forces designed to produce assured destruction it takes two to make it mutual. We only maintain assured destruction, forces adequate for their assured destruction. The question of whether that's immoral or not is an issue that has been and I think and should and must be constantly raised. The conclusions of the American Catholic Bishops and of many and many other people who have studied this question is that it is a terrible situation as long as we are seriously trying to find some solution to it and I've come to accept that view myself that the posture of maintaining the two sided posture of maintaining mutual assured destruction is tolerable in the moral sense as long as we really are seriously trying to work trying to find some alternative to it. That's turning out not to be easy and in my belief it will really take quit a long time. So the way I prefer to look at the problem is that I the question of what we should do depends on the time scale your talking about and the best way to maintain peace in the short run is to maintain military forces which are adequate for strategic stability that means having them having enough of them and it means also eliminating those kinds which make which lead away from stability. That's the short run. In the medium run, arms control diplomacy, all of those political actions are vital parts of maintaining the peace in that they help to remove some of the sharp edges from the antagonism but even together they won't work in the long run. In the long run somehow we have to reach a state in which the use of force in which war doesn't have the role that it has today, in which the anarchistic relations between states which lead to war, have lead to war for thousands of years, have somehow been eliminated but we have to through the use of maintaining a stable strategic balance and through the use of negotiations, arms control, and other diplomatic means, we have to somehow buy the time and keep the world safe and prevent the nuclear holocaust from happening while we evolve into this better situation in which war doesn't play, war doesn't play a role.

DO YOU THINK MANKIND CAN UNLEARN THE SOCIAL INSTITUTION OF WAR AND LEARN TO COOPERATE?

Well, we have been able to build societies in which the relationships between individuals are governed by law and order and by analogy I conclude that it ought to be possible to create a political situation in which the relations between sovereign states are determined by are governed by law and order.

THAT'S A VERY IMPORTANT STATEMENT. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO SAY THAT VERY STRONGLY ( )

It's a question of tone. Beginning where?

INDIVIDUALS SOMETIMES HAVE A...

O.K. We we learn how to create societies in which individuals are free on the one hand and yet governed by law and order on the other hand. By analogy I conclude that we ought to be able to build a society of nations in which the nations are still sovereign but in which the relationships are governed by law and order and by which war is not does not play the role it has in the past... It still tails off, that's just the way I talk.

IT WAS WONDERFUL.

Hmm?

IT WAS WONDERFUL. WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET RID OF ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Well, if by magic all nuclear weapons could be removed then I would remove them. I mean, on the other hand I have to insist that it's only possible to do so by magic, and the only value in that question is to find out where a person stands, you might say on the general issue. I don't believe it's possible to get rid of nuclear weapons by magic or by any other means in the foreseeable future. The problem is to the problem to work out the means for living with them and I think that is done by maintaining on the one hand the forces which do work for strategic stability, and on the other hand pursuit of political means, negotiations, arms control and so on for making the confrontation less serious and less potentially dangerous.

THIS IS A QUESTION FOR ALL THE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO THINK WE CAN HAVE NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT. WHY IS IT THAT WE CAN'T GET RID OF ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Well, nuclear weapons--given modern technology, nuclear weapons are too easy to produce. They are not an invention made in some abstract world, and they're an invention that grew out of the of the technology of the 20th Century. It was difficult to do them in 1945 when everything was new but now it isn't difficult anymore so that as some people say you can't un-invent them. The processes that make it possible to build nuclear weapons are just essential parts of modern technology.

WHY DO YOU THINK GORBACHEV HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT DIMINISHING THE USE OF FORCE IN THE WORLD AND A STRONG INTERNATIONAL STRUCTURE AND TRYING TO REDUCE NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Well, I think Gorbachev is very is quite serious when he talks about wanting to...about new thinking about the subjects, all including the total military relationship between East and West....I think Gorbachev is quite serious when he proposes to introduce new thinking into the military and strategic relationship between the East and West. There are a lot of reasons, I don't know why he's doing it but I can but I but I suppose its partly a mixture of practicality that he sees that reducing the military burden on the Soviet economy is a necessary part of moving the Soviet economy and Soviet society forward and I think also he simply is a new generation, he represents a newer generation which is able to free itself from some of the old stereotypical thinking that got us into the current state of affairs.

I LIKED THAT POINT WHEN YOU MADE IT YESTERDAY THAT IT WAS A NEW GENERATION. COULD YOU MAKE IT SEPARATELY SAYING GORBACHEV AND A NEW GENERATION OF SOVIET THINKING?

Make what separately?

THE POINT THAT IT'S A NEW GENERATION OF THINKING SINCE THE COLD WAR.

Yeah, O.K. Gorbachev has been promoting what he calls new thinking but I think it isn't just Gorbachev. I think that there is a new generation of people in charge over there in the Soviet Union and that the new thinking is much more general. The idea to the elimination of some of the old stereotypes that have gotten us into the present circumstances. I still didn't do it right.

DO YOU WANT TO TRY AGAIN?

No, maybe you can, well I don't know. Maybe you can fix it up.

MAYBE I CAN, I DON'T KNOW. LET ME ASK YOU THIS ONE. WHAT IS THE CONFLICT ABOUT BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIET UNION?

Well, I don't know all of the, I don't know the full answer to the question of what is the conflict between us about. I look at it in a different way and that is that the evolution of the of the world political system so far has got us to a point in which we have in which there is at the highest level anarchy and chaos in the in the relations between states or to put it differently there is very little law and no law enforcement so its not just a question of what's the problem between the United States in 1980 and the Soviet Union in 1980 its the fact that the system is anarchistic and is not able to handle and is not able to handle antagonisms and problems in any in any in any straightforward way and the potential, the notion of the use of force for for handling disputes and coping with difficulties is intrinsic to the system so its not so much a question of what's the problem between the United States and the Soviet Union as it is what's wrong with the world political system.

I THINK WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, IF WE CAN PUT SOME WORDS ON IT IS THAT THE PROBLEM BETWEEN THEM IS THAT THERE ARE NOT STRUCTURES...

Well, there's very little law and there's no law enforcement.

O.K. CAN WE DO IT AGAIN I THINK IT WASN'T CONCISE?

Yeah, but I'm not sure I'm the person to be discussing this anyway, you know.

WE ALL HAVE OPINIONS.

Well, I don't look at the problem as being specific to the United States and the Soviet Union. I look at the problem as being inherent in the world political system in which there is very little law governing relations between states and no law enforcement and if it wasn't a problem between us at this time it would be a problem between two other large countries at some near-future time. So it's not something which is specific to the United States, the Soviet Union, its system, something which is inherent in the political system.

SO YOU THINK WE SHOULD BE MOVING TOWARD A STATE IN WHICH MILITARY FORCE IS USED LESS TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS?

Well, I think we have to move toward a system in which there is much more law than there now is. In which there is some kind of law enforcement and in which the use of force doesn't play such a such an important role in the relations between states and as means for solving problems.

YOU WROTE AT ONE POINT THAT WHILE THE ARMS RACE HAD BEEN MARCHED AHEAD AND TECHNOLOGY HAD BEEN SUCCESSFUL AND SO FORTH THAT YOU FELT THAT ARMS CONTROL HAD A MUCH MORE DISMAL RECORD. WHAT IS YOUR EVALUATION OF THE ARMS CONTROL?

Well, arms control has not achieved what people hoped it would. Its gone much more slowly and the results have been much more modest. On the other hand I do think that the world is better off as a result of it, that even the treaty demilitarizing Antarctica is useful in that at least that's one place we don't have to worry about. The the treaty limiting nuclear weapons tests to those to those to underground tests only has achieved some positive results, mostly in terms of poisoning the biosphere but it goes beyond that. The Non-Proliferation Treaty has contributed to the slowing spread of nuclear weapons. The SALT I treaty which prevented the the development really of a of countrywide ABM systems in the early '70s and still today eliminated one of the possible turns in the arms race spiral and all of those things in the net have been good. Its been a disappointment only in that it has not produced, it hasn't produced according to the highest hopes of the people who promoted it.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE PURPOSE OF ARMS CONTROL?

Well, there are historically a number of purposes to arms control, one of which has been to save money, the other has been to reduce the possible level of violence I see the principle value in arms control at the present time as being in the area of eliminating the most dangerous elements of the confrontation I think it pays to focus arms control not just on total numbers, although that has value but on eliminating those weapons which are the most dangerous in terms of in terms of the question of stability, the stability of the relationship.

TALK ABOUT THAT. DO YOU THINK THERE IS A REAL RISK OF INADVERTENT WAR COMING FROM PRESSURE IN TERMS OF ( )?

Well, I think the risk of nuclear war is really very low. The problem is that the dan-, that the consequences of nuclear are so very great and its when you put those two things together that you that you recognize that you have something here that really you have to worry about and do something about. I think the focus should be on the the immediate focus, the near term focus ought to be on being sure that the that the worst flash points have been removed, that the kinds of weapons that you have to use early in order to make them effective are not there that weapons that invite attack on them by being so important and being so vulnerable should be eliminated, that we should put in our strategic in other words in our strategic forces we should put the principal emphasis should be on survivability so there's not chance that a preemptive attack might work on either side and those things can be done unilaterally. They can be reinforced by arms control.

DID YOU WANT TO ADD TACTICAL WEAPONS TO THAT LIST?

Well, I sort of included it in the general...

THIS IS GOING TO BE A TIME ORIENTED QUESTION AGAIN BECAUSE IN THE EARLY '70s YOU FELT THAT THE COMPLETE TEST BAN WAS A VERY GOOD IDEA. SO WHAT I WANT TO ASK YOU IS AT THAT TIME, WAS IT BECAUSE YOU WERE FEELING FRUSTRATED WITH THE NORMAL, WHY DID YOU THINK IT WOULD BE MORE EFFECTIVE IN SLOWING THE ARMS RACE?

Well, go back, go back earlier. In the late '50s when Eisenhower was pressing for a comprehensive test ban, Eisenhower, Khrushchev were push pushing for a comprehensive test ban. I came to believe that it was a good idea because at that time the development of nuclear weapons was the determining factor in the arms race. That is what would happen would be a new kind of nuclear weapon would be introduced, people would develop strategies for governing it, tactics for using it, missile systems and airplanes for delivering it and so on. But the nuclear weapon was at the cutting edge. The development of the new nuclear weapon was at the cutting edge and so by stopping that process it seemed as though one might be able to stop the whole process. That was the late '50s. Now the late '80s, thirty years later, that's no longer the case and hasn't been true for some time. Nuclear weapons no longer plays a leading role in the course of the arms race. What happens instead is that somebody invents a new strategy or a new tactic or a new delivery system and then they ask the nuclear laboratories to develop a system to carry out that strategy or to fit that delivery system and they no longer play a leading role at all so that stopping the development of nuclear weapons, stopping nuclear weapons tests, would interfere with the modernization process but wouldn't stop it. The the the action is in other areas altogether and I believe that the high priority arms control steps that we should be taking is the elimination of those classes of weapons which If interfere with stability which may be cause problems wither in having questions about their survivability or by being weapons that have to be used very early or not at all. That's where the focus ought to be and not on the question of the modernization of the delivery systems which is what's really involved now a days in nuclear weapons testing. The the problem is exacerbated by the fact that as Jimmy Carter found pushing ahead with a comprehensive test ban actually made it more difficult to deal with these other arms control issues. So there is a synergism there that actually in practical politics makes difficulties.

I found the arms control process frustrating in one very particular sense and that is when I was whenever I've been in it as part of the apparatus for determining American policy or more particularly when I was part of the direct negotiations themselves, the frustrating part is in dealing with the home bureaucracy because it turns out to be very difficult to make to generate policy and the naysayers within the bureaucracy are able to exploit the overall complication in a way that just holds everything back. I've said that much too complicated.

YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE SCARED?

Well people who don't like it, I mean, yes. The principal, people often ask--when somebody asks me about my experience with arms control they ask, "Aren't these negotiations frustrating?" And my answer is "Yes, they are, but the primary frustrations are in dealing with the home bureaucracy rather than dealing with the Russians." All of the steps necessary for moving an arms control negotiation forward have to be first worked out in detail at home and there many conflicting points of view within the bureaucracy and so the arguments are hotter, deeper, broader among the elements within one government than they are between the two governments.

DO YOU THINK ITS REALISTIC TO THINK NOW OR IN THE LAST DECADE OR TWO THAT THE SOVIETS WOULD WANT TO INITIATE A WAR WITH THE WEST? WOULD WANT TO MARCH ACROSS EUROPE OR INITIATE A NUCLEAR ATTACK?

No, I don't think that either side is interested in--I don't think that either side is likely to initiate a war deliberately, to conquer, to take over Europe or for any other purpose of that nature. The danger is that some other kind of an event, some small event, a smaller war someplace else will somehow create a situation that festers and grows and gets out of control and ultimately lead to large-scale war that way. Most people and certainly and certainly including myself do not believe that a war between the Soviets and the United States will start for any reason that's deliberate and direct.

PAUL NITZE AND OTHER PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR A LONG TIME THAT THEY FELT THAT THE SOVIET MILITARY STRATEGY WAS THEY COULD FIGHT AND WIN A NUCLEAR WAR.

Well there have certainly been people on both sides who seem to believe that a nuclear war can be fought and won, but I don't believe that they have been--that those have been--the dominant voices on either side ever, and whether there was a time doesn't apply today.

DO YOU THINK THE COLD WAR IS ENDING?

Well, the Cold War is now more than forty years old. That's an unusual long time for a particular situation to dominate world affairs. I don't know how its going to disappear or wither away, but I expect it will.

OR HAS IT ALREADY? HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC IN THIS, PROTEST MOVEMENTS AND SO FORTH AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS, DO YOU THINK THAT'S A BAD THING OR A GOOD THING?

Well, I think the primary way for the public in the western countries to influence what goes on is through the regular political and electoral power, pro process, get the right people in there both in Congress in the White House and then throughout...and then through those means into the bureaucracy generally. Ah, that's the primary means. And the...other kinds of public action that we see can play a secondary role. But only by reinforcing the behavior that the behaviors that come out of the primary means, which is electing the people to lead us.

TALKING ABOUT...YOU THOUGHT THAT THERE WERE TWIN THREATS THAT HAD BEEN OVERSOLD?

Well, the...problem — what makes the...what makes it so difficult to work out, to...work out what to do for national security is that there--we really do face two problems too. And to put them both... to oversimplify both of them, one is the Soviet threat, and the other one is the nuclear arms race. The easy solutions to either of those problems tend to make the other one worse. And so what we have to do is find a course of action that somehow or other copes with both of those together.

DID YOU FEEL THAT THERE WAS AN IMBALANCE, THAT PEOPLE HAD EMPHASIZED ONE OVER THE OTHER?

Well, there's a large number of individuals out there who...feel, who are willing to, who...focus their attention entirely on either one of these or the other. There's one group who sees, who thinks that our course of action has to be dominated entirely by the Soviet threat. There's another group of people who think that everything we do has to be governed entirely by the... by the nuclear threat. Ah, the problem, I think, is to find a... is to find a course of action that copes adequately with both of those, and you won't do it by wishing the other one away or simply believing the other one doesn't exist. And that's true at both extremes.

YOU HAD IN ONE OF THE LAST CHAPTERS OF YOUR NEW BOOK THREE THINGS THAT YOU FELT IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE TO...THE ROUTE THAT WE SHOULD TAKE. DEFENSE IS IMPOSSIBLE IN THE NUCLEAR ERA... ETC. I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR SEPARATELY JUST NO EXPLANATION, JUST WHAT WERE THE THREE POINTS. DEFENSE WAS IMPOSSIBLE,...

Strategic defense is impossible. There is no technical solution to the dilemma posed by the to our national security dilemma. And the only... the only, I'm not doing this right. Because I have said that several times. My...my net conclusion is that strategic defense is impossible. That there is no technical solution to our national security dilemma, and that we simply must pursue political solutions if we're going to get to a safe future.

NICE. AND THEN DO THE ONE WITH THE TWO GREAT REALITIES ABOUT DETERRENTS.

The...the two crucial things that one has to bear in mind about mutual — about deterrence through mutual assured destruction is that it cannot last forever, and that it will take a long time to work our way into some other mode of relation — into some other form of relationship.

WILL WE SOMETIMES GET COMPLACENT AND ASSUME THAT BECAUSE NUCLEAR DETERRENCE HAS WORKED AND WE'VE HAD NO ACCIDENTS IN THE LAST FORTY YEARS THAT IT WILL ALWAYS BE THAT WAY?

I suppose it's possible to become...to become complacent, precisely because nuclear deterrence has worked or at least has seemed to have worked for such a long time without any accidents and to conclude that it will last forever. But I think a more careful reading of history is... convinces oneself easily that's not the case. It can't work forever.

WAS PART OF THE REASON THAT YOU STOPPED ACTIVELY WORKING ON MAKING WEAPONS THAT YOU FELT IT DISTASTEFUL TO BE...?

No, I really just grew out of it in other ways. You know, I'm not...And furthermore I really haven't stopped in the sense that I'm still a card carrying member of the... of the you know, defense establishment.

AND YOU MADE A POINT YESTERDAY ABOUT ONE OF THE REASONS WE WANT TO MOVE OUT OF IT WAS THAT IT WAS HORRIBLE THAT SO MANY PEOPLE ARE MAKING SO MANY WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

Well, I don't know how to make that at this point...Ah, yeah, I do... yes, I do say that. I did...I did say that, and I do feel that way, that I don't know how to get it in the right con...I don't know how to put the... If I was writing something I'd know just how to get it in the right context. But I'm not sure how to say it.

WELL, THREE MILLION PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY ARE WORKING IN THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY. IS THERE A BETTER PLACE FOR THEM TO BE?

Well, but I still don't think that's useful for a simple statement. It's out of context.

THEN, I WILL ASK YOU...WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE GRAVEST LESSON OF THE NUCLEAR AGE?

I think the things we've just said a few minutes ago will stand for my...for that.

SO WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR GRANDSONS?

Well, a world in which a world in which it's clear we're moving away from... the world I'd like to see for our children and for future generations is one in which it's clear we're moving away from maintaining peace through the threat of mutual assured destruction, mutual suicide, and towards a world in which the use of force is fading as a... as a means for solving problems between states.

HOW DO YOU THINK WE'LL LOOK BACK AT THIS TIME PERIOD THIRTY YEARS FROM NOW?

I suppose that thirty years from now we'll look back on it as having been a very difficult period. One in which some pretty... one in which some rather dangerous mistakes were made. But I hope that people will look back and realize that even so, we... did... we were doing our best.

AND THE REVERSE OF THAT QUESTION, IN 1945, WAS IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE PREDICTED THE WORLD WE'VE GOTTEN TO TODAY WITH PERMANENT PEACETIME MOBILIZATION OF FORCES AND BRISTLING WITH WEAPONS? IS THAT VERY SURPRISING FROM THE MINDSET, OR WAS IT ALMOST...?

Well, you know, it...what happened is different from what was expected, but in both directions.' People thought there would be more nuclear weapon states by now than there are. Many people thought there would have been another military use of nuclear weapons. So... no, we couldn't possibly foresee the world that we've got. But you know, the errors in our projections were in both ways. In some ways it's not as bad as we were projecting and in other ways it's worse. It's not as bad in that we had expected there to be more nuclear states than there now are. And many people had even expected there would have been a nuclear war along the way, a small one. On the other hand, it's worse that nobody really conceived there would be so many weapons that the... that the time in which they could all be delivered would be so short. And that the move away from human control towards automatic control would have gone as far as it is. Now we're still not there, but the fact that we're moving towards it is a bad thing. So there, it's turned out to be both better and worse than people projected in 1945.

COULD YOU TALK ABOUT THAT TIME LIMIT? I MEAN THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY WHERE NUCLEAR WEAPONS CAN DESTROY [US?] IN FIVE MINUTES, TEN MINUTES ON BOTH SIDES. TALK ABOUT THE PRESSURE OF THAT, HOW HARD IT IS TO LIVE UNDER THAT.

Well, one of the special problems of the nuclear age is that the delivery time is so... is so very short. Intercontinental weapons can perform their task in a half an hour. Weapons mounted on submarines can do it in 15 minutes and, or even less, if the submarines come in close to our shores. So that the warning time is extremely short compared to what it was... compared to what it was before the introduction of intercontinental ballistic missiles. And the short warning time compared with the enormous destruction of each, of each payload, has created problems which are unique to modern times. The at the present time we still plan to, and conduct our retaliation, through the... through the intervention of human beings. I mean the decision to retaliate will be made by the highest authorities. The problem of this, the problems created by this short time and by the possibility that the time may become even shorter at some future date, is that it will no longer...it will seem that it's no longer possible to allow human intervention, and that the only way we can maintain an adequate strength of retaliation is through somehow automating it. Now that hasn't happened, but the longterm trends lead one to worry about it. Well, I haven't handled that very well either.

THAT'S ALL RIGHT. THE FIRST PART OF IT WAS GOOD. I'M JUST GOING TO ASK YOU TO SUMMARIZE SOME OF THE MORE SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS YOU MADE. YOU KNOW THAT YOU THOUGHT WE SHOULD MOVE TO OF A FEW HUNDRED WEAPONS ON EACH SIDE. TAKE THE TACTICAL WEAPONS OFF OF THE BATTLEFIELDS AND OFF THE SHIPS AND GO TO A NON-FIRST USE POSTURE.

The the goals that I would like to see us moving toward in terms of our forces are that we would change our policy to where it's a minimum deterrence policy only, to where the total number of weapons we maintain of course, in a symmetrical...a bilateral basis for the enforcement of such a policy, for the conduct of such a policy would be reduced to somewhere between a few hundred ICBMs and a few thousand. Where battlefield weapons, tactical weapons, and naval ship-to-ship weapons and so on would all be... would all be removed. And where the...we...the...we have made maximum and optimum use of arms control treaties, of alliance policies, of negotiations to maintain the highest level of stability and the lowest level of confrontation.

I'M JUST GOING TO ASK YOU TO REDO THE BEGINNING OF THAT. WHEN YOU SAY MINIMUM DETERRENCE, I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE PUBLIC DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS. SO JUST TO SAY SO THAT WE'RE JUST DETERRING NUCLEAR WAR AND NOT OTHER USES OF FORCE.

Mmm-hmm. I would like to see us move towards a world in which our nuclear strategy is a strategy of minimum deterrence. Which means, that we maintain nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of deterring the use of nuclear weapons by others. And we don't plan to use nuclear weapons for any other purpose including deterring other kinds of aggression other than nuclear aggression. To see us move towards a policy, towards a strategic policy of minimum deterrence, which means a policy in which we maintain nuclear weapons solely for the purpose of deterring the use of nuclear weapons by anyone else, and not for other more general purposes, deterring other forms of aggression.

OK.

It's my observation that every President has concluded that the nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought. In most cases they came into office believing that, and their earliest and their first experiences with the nuclear forces under their command strongly reinforced those views. Ronald Reagan was a little slower in that. Ah, it may have taken him as much as two years to arrive at those same conclusions, but he did — but he also did. And I expect that future Presidents will do the same.

IS IT A SOBERING THOUGHT FOR THEM WHEN THEY LOOK AT WHAT THE WAR PLANS REALLY ARE?

Well, when the President actually gets to any -- when a new President actually gets a look at the war plans, and the same thing applies for a new Secretary of Defense, and a new Deputy Secretary of Defense and others it is always as... in my observation, an extremely sobering experience.

WOULD YOU SAY SOMEONE LIKE CARTER THAT ALSO HAPPENS — AND CONCLUDED THAT JIMMY CARTER STARTED OUT WITH THAT PRESUMPTION, THAT AT THE END OF THEIR TERMS THAT THEY WEREN'T QUITE ABLE TO ACHIEVE WHAT THEY HAD HOPED ONCE THEY CAME THAT REALIZATION.

Well, it speaks to the realities, yeah.

THEY COME OUT OF OFFICE THAT...

Well, that would take a lot of discussion. I mean I, you know, I can discuss that, but I... but that's the kind of thing I like to do in writing, because it's...

JUST REALLY SUMMARIZE WHAT IT MEANT TO YOU.

During the Carter Administration when I was involved in the negotiation of an anti-satellite... of a treaty that, whose purpose would have been to eliminate anti-satellite systems I had a chance to discuss the question with a man named Alexander Shchukin who was a Soviet delegate to the SALT negotiations then going on in Geneva. And I remarked to him that the development of anti-satellites by the Soviets, I mean they had a program going for quite a few years would have to be taken by us as provocative and as... calling for a similar response. And knowing that, as the Soviets must have known it, how did... how was it that they went ahead with this program anyway. And his answer to me was along the lines that many people have discussed in connection with our own situation, and that is that bright young people in the program come up with these ideas. Push them, become convinced of their importance; push them, push them, push them, and sometimes they break through the bureaucratic resistance. And that is in the... that he suggested is why they had gone ahead with the anti-satellite.

...THE MILITARY CONDITIONS ARE FIRST USED IN EUROPE AND WHETHER IT WOULD REALLY WORK?

There are many problems connected with the use of weapons for battlefield purposes, tact purposes in Europe not the least of which that, is the question of whether the political authorities would ever be really willing to a them to be used. And it's my experience that many of, many of the military, I don't know what the consensus is, but certainly many people in the military take a fairly dim view of nuclear weapons in Europe and see them as... in peace time and even in the, perhaps the early phases of actual battle as interfering with, the, the conduct of the w by conventional means. Many people are posted Europe specific, for the sole purpose of maintaining and controlling and carrying out operations with nuclear weapons. They're available for anything else. There are delivery systems which are reserved for nuclear purposes and may not be available for other purposes. You combine that with the possibility that the highest authorities may not ever agree to the release of nuclear weapons, it seems, and in fact, the political process is so complex that there's every reason to doubt that they ever would. You combine all of those factors and so there's, there are a lot of doubts within the western military, the American military, about the utility about maintaining a lot of nuclear weapons in Europe.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION TO THAT, TO MAKE THE WEAPONS MORE USABLE, LESS USABLE, TO WITHDRAW CONVENTIONAL FORCES?

Well, the--many people see the defense of Europe. The well--solution as being the maintenance of adequate conventional forces so that it simply...never becomes necessary to rely on nuclear forces for the defense of Europe.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Well, I think it's entirely possible to maintain an adequate level, an adequate conventional balance in Europe.