I'D LIKE YOU TO START OFF BY TELLING US WHAT YOUR ROLE WAS DURING SALT I, THROUGH NIXON...

Well, I came into nuclear affairs at the end of World War II, when I went with the Strategic Bombing Survey to Japan, and wrote the official government evaluation of the effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I didn't really get involved in arms control, however, until the mid-1950s; after some years in the Atomic Energy Commission, I moved over to the State Department in 1954, and there, of course, uh, we were engaged very actively in... negotiations for general and complete disarmament in the United Nations, uh, forum. And, uh, those of us who knew something about nuclear weapons served as advisers in developing American positions. But when those collapsed, I was given responsibility for disarmament affairs in the State Department, reporting directly to John Foster Dulles, and we developed the, uh, effort which led to the first comprehensive test-ban negotiations, beginning in 1958. After the Kennedy Administration, and the establishment of the arms-control agency, I dropped out of arms-control affairs for a few years, working mainly in NATO, and, uh, came back to them at the end of the 1960s, when I returned to the State Department, and found preparations for what became SALT talks were already under way in the State Department, with the office I took over, the lead office in the State Department.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR APPRAISAL WAS IN THE EARLY '70s?

In the early '70s, I was Deputy Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; uh, it's an independent agency, and, uh, that's a presidential appointment, though I myself am I career, uh, official; I was also the alternate chairman of the American delegation to the SALT I negotiation. I spent most of my time, however, working in Washington, rather than at the negotiations, and there I was acting director of the agency in the absence of its director, who was the principal negotiator, Gerard Smith, and I chaired the so-called Backstopping Committee, which did the day-to-day report and instructions of the delegation.

COULD YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT SMITH?

Yes. Uh, Gerard Smith, uh, I'll say Jerry because it's more natural uh, was an independently wealthy Republican...

START OVER AND JUST SAY JERRY.

Okay. Uh, Jerry Smith, uh, was an independently wealthy Republican with a belief in the importance of public service. And he was appointed as the personal assistant to one of the members of the Atomic Energy Commission in the early 1950s. He believed very strongly in the importance of every prudent step to avoid nuclear war; he was a leader in, persuading the State Department under John Foster Dulles that test-ban negotiations would be in the interest of the United States; he headed the policy planning staff in the late '50s, so that he had, in the State Department, so that he had a broad approach to foreign affairs. He was interested in the Soviet Union, and got some facility, though by no means, uh, fluency, in Russian. Uh, with all these qualifications, when, Mr. Nixon was elected and was looking for a man to head the agency, uh, Smith was a rather obvious person, both from a political and a technical competence point of view.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE JERRY'S VIEW OF WHAT ARMS CONTROL SHOULD BE?

Uh... Jerry was a person who believed that, uh, we lived in a world where we needed a strong but moderate defense posture. But he believed, as Eisenhower had come to believe early, early in his own term, that nuclear weapons had changed the... nature of war; that we had reached a situation, even in the 1950s, with the Soviet Union, where it would be irrational to initiate the use of nuclear weapons, because the damage that would be done to the United States would be something that no president could want to elect freely. If you believe that, then you need to supplement your defense program with a program of negotiations for better understanding, and relations with the Soviet Union, and if you want to stop the reciprocal arms race, then you need some agreements specifically on arms control to turn that around, and get a real stability, uh, in the nuclear relationship.

YOU MENTIONED THAT SALT WAS THE FIRST KIND OF NEGOTIATION THAT TOOOK INTO CONSIDERATION THE NATIONAL SECURITY POSTURE... CAN YOU TELL US THAT AGAIN?

Surely. Uh, I had to say, I, I need to say just in qualification that it's the first negotiation which really deals with the strategic balance between the two superpowers. I believe that the comprehensive test-ban negotiations at the end of the 1950s were equally serious in their effort to relate negotiations to verification possibilities, but even more importantly, to how the, uh, military and political relationship would be affected. Uh, uh, I can perhaps, uh, illustrate what I'm talking about by what I consider to be the exemplary way in which the Nixon administration, when it took office, went about deciding whether it wanted to pursue SALT talks, which had been prepared under President Johnson's, uh, uh, administration. They first did their own evaluation under David Packard, who was Deputy Secretary of Defense, of what the relationship between the military power of the United States and the Soviet Union was, the direction in which the military programs, and particularly the strategic programs of the two sides, was headed; uh, whether we had a real possibility, for example, of gaining a strategic superiority which would be usable militarily or politically; what choices we had; uh, when they had established what the possibilities were for real choices, and what their preference was, then they looked at the arms-control options. And in looking at the real possibilities for American military programs, they reached a formal decision which they announced in presenting their first budget, that it did not make sense for the United States to seek strategic superiority: we couldn't get it, and we'd make a more dangerous arms race if we did. Now that's the premise on which you proceed to strategic arms control.

YOU MENTIONED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN JERRY SMITH'S STYLE AND NIXON'S STYLE.

I... well... as those who knew him quickly came to realize, uh, Jerry Smith was something of a gentleman of the old school. Uh, he believed in courtesy and respect in one's dealings, uh, with other people. Uh... he was given a very rude shock in one of the National Security Council meetings, which I also attended, because of my capacity as acting director of the agency in his absence. He had been making a very forceful but powerful, uh, argument for a position which clearly was not the one, uh, which the President was inclined toward: I believe it was on the question of actually resuming and pursuing an effort to get a complete ban on anti-ballistic missile systems instead of the limit to a very low level that was actually in the treaty. He argued very strongly why that would be more in the American interest, and, uh, would have a more powerful effect on countries who might be considering nuclear weapons programs themselves, if there were a clean and, uh, decisive move to break off that part of the arms race. You could see Nixon getting more impatient as the argument went on, and he suddenly turned to Jerry and he said, "Now, that's enough, Jerry; uh, you know that that argument is all bullshit, and, uh, we just don't want to hear that anymore." And he of course, that not being the way he was accustomed to have anyone speak to him, certainly it was not his image of the way a President spoke to one of his senior advisers, he went white. He covered this in his book on the SALT negotiations, Double Talk, with a very polite, uh, series of dashes where I substituted the word "bullshit."

CAN YOU ALSO TALK ABOUT THAT PARTICULAR NSC MEETING WHERE IT STARTED TO BECOME CLEAR THAT A MIRV BAN WAS NOT IN THE OFFING?

Sure. Uh... the whole question of MIRVs, the... multiple independently targetable, uh, reentry vehicles, uh, was a very difficult one; and, uh, also one which was carefully studied, and well studied, and then very hotly debated. And in comparison to some issues, the ABM for example, uh, the emotional weight, uh, was very strong on some people, uh, the American military and their civilian experts, for example, attached a lot of importance to MIRVs. Uh, they saw MIRVs as a way in which we would penetrate a Soviet ABM system if it were ever built; we saw it as a way in which we could go on improving our forces without having to build a lot more missiles and silos and submarines and all that, those other expensive things; and then it was technically very advanced, very ingenious, just the sort of thing we thought we inherently do better than the Soviets. Now, I believe that the studies which were done showed that nevertheless it was not in the American interest to pursue MIRVs; sure, we were ahead of the Russians, but that's generally been the pattern. We develop a novel weapons system; it takes them five, seven years to catch up, start, uh, producing and deploying them; then there we both are, with higher levels of destruction on each side. Now these things have some other disadvantages, which I won't bother with. So we had this NSC meeting in which, After our studies had been completed, and when it was apparent that there was not going to be a consensus recommended to the president, the fact was that the arms-control agency and the State Department favored a ban on MIRVs as something which would make for a much more stable and safe strategic balance, the military and the civilians in the Pentagon did not want to give up MIRVs, did not see the necessity. The very distinguished general advisory committee, it's a presidentially appointed body, had done its own careful examination, with many expert people, uh, on the, uh, committee, I need only mention Harold Brown, who was later Secretary of Defense and had been the director of the Livermore Weapons Laboratory; General Norris, uh, General Lauris Norstad, so, uh, quite a distinguished and, uh, diverse group had concluded also that a MIRV ban, if it could be negotiated, was desirable. And John McCloy, the chairman of the committee, was there to report that conclusion of the advisory committee. Then the question was raised: If you did have a MIRV ban, how would you verify it? And, uh, there were answers to that question, though they were hotly disputed; but, uh, I believe it was the president himself said, "Well, in view of this, uh, sensitivity of this very key weapons system, where we have an important lead, could we really rely on any method of monitoring in verifying a MIRV ban which didn't rely just on things like following their tests, we're, shouldn't we have on-site inspection?" And immediately McCloy agreed; he said, "Yes, I think that that's not only something which would be prudent to have, but I've thought for a long time that that's an important way to test how serious the Soviets are. If they really believe in arms control, then they'll open up and, uh, accept inspectors." Now, there is some logic to that position, but, uh, I believe our technical studies had showed pretty well that monitoring tests of missiles with MIRVs would have been a good enough system, to, good enough verification method, to enable us to, uh, enter safely into a MIRV ban. And given the state of the ability on the two sides to expect the Soviet Union to accept inspection for the first time on something as sensitive as this would have been unrealistic. It was in effect a killer argument, and we never really pushed for a MIRV ban in SALT I.

CAN YOU TRY THAT AGAIN? PICK UP THE STORY WHERE YOU SAY THE GENERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE...?

Right. Uh, when the views of the General Advisory Committee were reported by its chairman, John McCloy, uh, it was clear that here was another weighty voice on the position that a MIRV ban would be in the security interests of the United States. Then the question was raised again, I believe by the President, uh, of what kind of verification we would need for that to be a prudent agreement to enter into, and indeed he put it in a rather invitational way. Uh, "Wouldn't we need, for something as sensitive as this, to have on–site inspection, to go see for ourselves." Uh, it's not really a very practical thing, 'cause there isn't much you can see unless you actually take a missile apart and see whether it's got more than one warhead in. So it had not been a solution favored by the verification experts. But on-site inspection has a very political role in American approaches to arms control; it's the test of Soviet sincerity, we say. And so when the President asked this question in a rather, uh, reflective way, John McCloy jumped on it immediately and said, "Yes, that's my view. We ought to use this as an occasion to see if they're serious; if they're serious they'll take on-site inspection, and that would remove these kinds of doubts." But it was a killer argument. We had at the outset of the SALT I negotiations, had so to speak a working premise with the Soviets, that one of the things that made the negotiations possible was the development of satellites and other means of verification, which meant you could get away from on-site inspection, rely on your cameras, your electronic interceptions, and so forth. So, it was not an argument calculated to improve chances for negotiating.

On-site inspection has been a central element of the American approach to arms control since the Baruch Plan. Uh... the Soviet Union, for years, was in essence a closed society and a closed territory, and it was reasonable to ask: How would we know if we entered into an agreement where safety for us depended on their living up to it, that they were indeed living up to it. Uh, what changed, in the late 1950s, and then in the '60s, was the development of satellites, which, uh, carried not only highly capable cameras, but electronic equipment to pick up, uh, signals of various kinds and messages, infrared devices, uh, many forms of collection of information. And for many things, uh, that sort of, uh, verification is better than on-site inspection. You can imagine how many people you would take to inspect the whole of the Soviet Union regularly, and you can fly over a large band of it, uh, in relatively few minutes with a satellite, and you can come back and cut across another angle, a different way. So it's a much more effective way. Uh, of course, with regard to MIRVs, the other consideration was that the Soviet posture has generally been, "Well, we think when you want on-site inspection, secretly you just want to prowl around and spy. But if you can persuade us that you need it, we'll consider it." And, uh, they have been ready to, say, take some on-site inspection, in cases of, uh, certain kinds of nuclear testing, and so forth. So that if we could make a case that on-site inspection was good for a MIRV ban, uh, I wouldn't have said it was impossible. But the fact is you really can't. As somebody said, the only means of inspecting a MIRV ban is a screwdriver. You have to take the nose cone off the missile, and see how many are there. And I think you can imagine how enthusiastic we'd be about reciprocity, having Soviets crawling around on our missiles taking off the nose cones and dropping who knows what in as they put 'em back on. ...too something, too much of that.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT DECISION MAKING ON THIS SALT DELEGATION?

We had a very high-level delegation for the first SALT negotiation: in addition to Jerry Smith, uh, the director of the agency, who had a long background in government service and independent political standing; uh, we had Harold Brown, who was later Secretary of Defense; Paul Nitze, who is, I think, well known; the very capable Lieutenant-General Roy Allison, uh, and others. The delegation, of course, in a negotiation like this, is not a group which are sent out, told, "We want an agreement. Bring back the best agreement you can." They're given a position from which to work, some guidelines as to what priorities are, what arguments they can and can't use; their choices, therefore, in presenting the American case, are mainly matters of tactics, but, the tough questions come when you find, as you quickly do, that the American position and the Soviet position are not mutually exclusive, but they don't match very well too. And then the question comes, Where could you see a bargain that might suit both sides, where we should perhaps begin to indicate some give? That's always controversial, because, you know, we have this image in the United States that the Soviets are just sitting there waiting for us to give, and they'll pocket anything we suggest and then stand right there and we'll get nothing from them. So the delegation has the job, not only of exploring, of making the best case for the American proposals, but of exploring the Soviets, to find out where there might be some variation, and then recommending back what might be considered as changes in the American position. They're better able to do it, 'cause you do get a kind of feel from person-to-person talks, even with those inscrutable Russians, as to what's motivating them, and where they've got an interest and where they haven't. Because the...

STOP THERE JUST A MINUTE...OKAY, YOU WERE ABOUT TO TALK ABOUT...

Uh... Because this was such a high-level delegation, you had strong-minded people; uh, while they had to work from the President's instructions, nevertheless they were all very much conscious, uh, of their own agency's position or, in the case of Harold Brown, what made technical sense. So they had some vigorous arguments as to what should be recommended for changing or standing firm on American proposals. Generally the consensus, I think, uh, emerged among all of them except Paul Nitze, who, as is well known from later history, had a somewhat more conservative approach, and was more skeptical than the others of the likelihood that the Soviets would agree to something that was in our interest. Uh, so the arguments were, uh, pretty strong; it was interesting to me that in general the, uh, representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Allison, was more inclined, uh, to side with the majority than with, uh, Paul Nitze, who was the Secretary of Defense's representative. And I think these were, uh, natural differences between the military man, who looks at a problem operationally, and, I don't mean to, in any way to denigrate, uh, Allison's vision of what was at stake; and Nitze, who looked at it in a broader political framework, from a particular perspective on US-Soviet relations. In Washington, of course, the arguments broke down much of the time much more along agency lines, uh, generally with the State Department and the arms-control agency taking, uh, an approach that there was room for more flexibility in the American position, which would gain us more than we lost; and the military agencies, uh, civilian and military components of the defense department, uh, being a little more reserved about shifting positions for the sake of compromise. I should just add that I was just going to add that of course, the agency positions are all advisory to the President. You don't take a vote, and the majority wins; the President has the one and only vote in these matters.

YOU MENTIONED A MOMENT AGO THAT ALLISON DIDN'T NECESSARILY SIDE WITH NITZE, WHO WAS MORE CONSERVATIVE. THIS GOT ALLISON IN TROUBLE.

Uh... Roy Allison was, uh, a man I came to admire as a person. He was very much a career soldier who believed in the role of the professional military, and was a man of some intellectual ability, and intellectual honesty. And during Congressional hearings, for example, he was one of the very effective witnesses, uh, in support of the position that the SALT agreement that the United States was ready to accept, and ultimately did accept, and submit to the Congress for approval, was in the American security interest. And on occasion, uh, both in public hearings and in the, uh, closed executive sessions, uh, he was under a good deal of pressure from conservative senators to say that elements of the American position were really not prudent from a military point of view. An example is, for instance, our readiness to define the limits on missiles, in terms of the number of launchers that had been built on each side. The conservative senators would say, "Well, uh, that isn't safe. If, after they fire off a missile, they'll just put another one on there. And, uh, there we'll be; we'll have taken their blow and we will hardly dare retaliate, because we know they've got just as much strength as they had before." And Roy would patiently explain that no, they don't have missiles lined up there like pennies in a slot, after you've fired a missile out of a silo, you can't just walk right up to it and drop another one in; and by the time they could do any of that, we would have destroyed that silo, or at least rendered it inoperable for a period of time, which served the military purpose. So I respected, uh, the way he defended a position, which he could defend intellectually, but which was not usually viewed as a case the military would be making themselves.

DID THAT HELP, OR DID THAT COST HIM HIS JOB?

At the end of the SALT I negotiations, there was a pretty thorough housecleaning of the SALT delegation. Jerry Smith had resigned independently, having concluded that, uh, he had served long enough in these jobs at the arms-control agency and the, uh, uh, SALT negotiations, which is a very demanding thing to have to do for six months a year, living in a hotel, very demanding in terms of time and energy. Others were quietly relieved, and Allison was one. Uh, and I think it was because it was felt he had not defended a separate military view, uh, which is irrational, because he acted under instructions, both from the President and from the JCS, but he was the fall guy, so to say. I used to say, uh, that, uh, what happened to the SALT delegation was related to the fact that there was some criticism of the agreement, in that the numbers of permitted missiles and submarines for the two sides were not equal. The reason for this was that the agreement was really in the form of a freeze, which didn't cover everything, so it didn't include our bombers, which is a very substantial part of our forces, so that as you just looked at the military posture of the two sides it was an equal balanced agreement, but not in terms of the text itself. And that was heavily criticized by Senator Jackson and others. The person who was responsible for this, more than anyone else, was Henry Kissinger, because he made, during a trip to Moscow just before the final signing, the final concessions as to how the agreement would be drawn up. Perfectly sound, but, uh, they were vulnerable as a matter of appearance. And since there had to be a certain amount of finger-pointing, you know, it was this kind of easy choice for the White House: Do you blame the delegation or do you blame Henry Kissinger? Very easy choice.

SO YOU ACTUALLY WERE THE ONE WHO WAS INSTRUCTED TO GO FIRE ALLISON...?

That was people in the arms-control agency... of course the people in the delegation, we were all Presidential appointees, uh, so the White House did that. And, uh, let's see: Nitze and Harold Brown stayed on. Uh, Brown, I think, as a concession to the scientific community; uh, Nitze because he increasingly came to be the champion for a more rigorous position. Uh, in the arms-control agency, however, uh, all of the people at the, uh, second level, in presidential or other political jobs, uh, were fired, I think with the exception of me. And I was given the job, since Jerry Smith had resigned and I was acting director of, uh, telling them that they should seek other jobs, or other assignments. Half of them were career foreign service or military people, so they simply looked for another assignment.

AND WHAT ABOUT YOU YOURSELF?

Uh, I did not find the situation very comfortable, and as soon as a new director was appointed and had taken over, I resigned.

CAN YOU SAY THAT AGAIN...?

As for me, I was asked to stay on; I was a career man, had, had political-level appointments, uh, in the Eisenhower administration, even though I was a, uh, lifetime Democrat and that was well known. Uh, uh, I was asked to stay on, both, I think, as a recognition of, uh, impartiality and for continuity. And I said I would do it, uh, depending on the desires of the new director, 'cause I thought the director and the deputy ought to be compatible. It soon became clear to me that, uh, there was not going to be somebody with whom I'd be comfortable working, and, uh, I resigned as soon as there was a new director who had taken over, and who was able to, uh, keep the agency going. As it worked out, of course, the arms-control agency became very conservative on arms control. Uh, I should add that the principal staff man in the State Department who had worked on SALT was also replaced by a rather hawkish man, and when Henry Kissinger left the White House and became Secretary of State, but still chaired the, uh, policy committee for the ongoing SALT II negotiations, he discovered to his amazement, as he complained several times, that he was no longer in the middle, where he could adjudicate between two sides — he looked around and there was nobody to the left of him; his own state department man and the arms-control agency, all were sided with the Pentagon. I told him, "You brought it on yourself, Henry."

(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

Sy Weiss. Well... Ronald Spiers was the man who was head of this political military bureau, and he was moved on; and he was replaced by Sy Weiss, who was notorious as a real hawk.

YOU MENTIONED ALSO THAT, HAD WE BEEN ABLE TO WORK OUT SOME KIND OF A MIRV AGREEMENT, THAT THE CONGRESS WOULD MOST LIKELY HAVE GONE AHEAD ON...?

We always argued among ourselves as to what the prospects of ratification of a treaty with a MIRV ban would be, in the Senate. I do not believe we could have had a MIRV ban in an executive agreement; it would have had to be a treaty, and a treaty, of course, faces an uphill road, since, uh, it requires two-thirds vote, one third can block. And, the Congress tends to be fairly conservative on matters like this; uh, I had some dealings with the Armed Services committee, though generally the Pentagon-

Uh, the, a question which... we discussed among ourselves frequently in the executive branch was how Congress would receive a MIRV ban, if it were negotiated. Uh, I believe though we have not had to face the question, since we didn't really pursue a MIRV ban, that it would have been necessary to send it to the Senate in the form of a treaty, because of the importance of that particular decision; uh, and a treaty, of course, uh, enables one third of the Senate to block approval, as we found to our cost for SALT II and other agreements. And the Congress particularly... until recent years, has been quite conservative on defense budgets. It's pretty rare for a defense program to be cut, or for major programs to be taken out of the budget. I don't think one can judge the sentiment of Congress on actually approving a measure like a MIRV ban, from the sort of thing that will be put in what are called "sense-of-Congress resolutions," which are not laws, but are just statements of good intentions and good wishes. Often congressmen will vote for those so they can report to their constituents who complain that "Oh, yes, I'm very open-minded on these things," and you will find that the resolution which Congress passed supporting a MIRV ban also called for effective inspection inside the Soviet Union and all sorts of conditions. I myself had some dealings with the Armed Services Committee, which made it clear to me that they would have been quite hostile to a MIRV ban, and at that point, Arms Serv, on, on an issue like that... the Armed Services Committee would have been more influential than the Foreign Relations Committee. And... it was partly the American mystique of technology. We tend to see ourselves as having our principal lead over the Soviet Union militarily in our technology and our industrial capability, and that's what MIRV was exploiting. And, it would have taken a lot of education to persuade two thirds of the Senate that you had to look ten years ahead, and not simply look at where we had a lead at this time. I don't know that this is the orthodox view, but I personally believe we would have had trouble with a treaty with a MIRV ban in it.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT EUROPEAN REACTIONS TO THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION COMING IN AND ANNOUNCING A POLICY OF NEGOTIATION?

It was... Europe had a mixed attitude. Uh, most Americans, I think, forget that détente began just before the Nixon-Kissinger, uh, regime; uh, it was, began under the leadership of the West German chancellor, Willy Brandt; and included negotiations, agreements, between the Germans and their old enemies, the Poles and the Russians, as well as, a treaty in which, in effect, the two parts of Germany recognized each other. And that was generally supported by Western European countries, and formally by NATO. And, just to finish with Europe in that respect, Europe has never given up on détente. We gave up on détente in the United States, really, with Jerry Ford, who announced he'd abolished the word. But the Europeans still believe in it, and practice it, for practical benefit. In that sense, the Europeans welcome the American disposition to move actively on arms control. On strategic weapons, they were more equivocal.

TAKE THAT UP AGAIN, WITH THE EUROPEAN...

When one turned from general political relations with the Soviet Union to arms control, and particularly on strategic weapons, nuclear weapons, the Europeans were more equivocal. The Europeans are very conscious that the Soviet Union face them with a very hostile posture, with considerable conventional military superiority, and with an enormous nuclear arsenal. The Europeans, therefore, in the 1960s, and in the '70s, looked to the United States to provide the nuclear weapons which not only offset the Soviet nuclear weapons, but also provided an offset to the conventional superiority of the Soviets. When the United States announced, as, uh, I said earlier, uh, following its defense review under Nixon, that we did no, we did not any longer believe we could have a meaningful strategic superiority...

START AGAIN WITHOUT REFERRING TO WHAT YOU SAID EARLIER.

Uh... at the outset of the Nixon Administration, there was a very careful review of American strategic policy and force requirements, at the end of which we concluded, Mr. Nixon concluded, and stated, in presenting his first military budget, that the United States was not seeking strategic superiority because it was not feasible, and it would be dangerous to pursue it; it would mean... destabilizing the arms race. That was a shock to the Europeans; they began to ask the familiar questions: In that situation, would the United States use its nuclear weapons if that meant they sacrificed Washington and New York to save Paris and London? And, you know, this is some, there's some common sense to that... uh, so that when we, in addition, were going to consecrate that position by a formal negotiation on the basis of parity with the Soviet Union, they were reserved, initially. We, however, consulted them regularly before we advanced our proposals, as significant developments in the negotiations came along and so forth. And by the time the treaties, uh, the SALT agreements were signed in 1972, they had full and not grudging acceptance from the members of NATO. Since then, of course, NATO has held firmly to the SALT process, as we call it; they still are urging the United States to stay with the SALT II agreement in substance, even if they're not ratified, and become very concerned whenever it appears they might, uh, be, uh, abandoned.

(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

At the end of Jerry's rather eloquent and forceful presentation as the case for a ban on ABMs, instead of...

START OVER AND SAY JERRY SMITH.

I'm sorry.... At the end of Jerry Smith's, uh, eloquent and very forceful presentation of the case for a ban on anti-ballistic missiles, instead of a, uh, limitation, it became clear that the President was impatient with hearing this case argued, which I suspect he'd already made up his mind on, and he looked around rather brusquely to Smith... and said, "Jerry, that whole argument is bullshit and you know it, and I don't think we need to hear any more of this." Uh, Jerry Smith, as anyone who knows him, uh, is well aware, is a gentleman by instinct and, uh, breeding; he just went white at that manner in which a President, he respects the Presidency, would address a senior member of his staff in front of all his peers. I thought it was interesting that Jerry recounted this incident in his book Double Talk. It shows how deeply he felt it, and how much he wanted to have his side on the record.

CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE DIFFERENCES IN THE AGREEMENTS OF THE 1950S AND THE ATTEMPTS THAT WERE MADE IN THE EARLY '70S?

I personally, uh, tend to view the whole history of arms control, uh, in something of a wave motion. We had a period in the 1950s when we engaged in arms control negotiations under the UN aegis, not with any expectation that anything would be agreed which would serve our security, but because it was politically essential for world opinion, and for peace-loving citizens in the United States to be seen to be making dramatic proposals. So we would propose elaborate schemes for general and complete disarmament, and the Soviets would then propose their scheme, and they would have some similarities and some differences, but you'd never resolve those by simple negotiation, particularly in the time of the Cold War. But, uh, beginning with the test-ban negotiations, then after the Cuban Missile Crisis, culminating in the first Nixon term, we had serious arms control, where over a dozen and a half very specific agreements, carefully thought out, to stabilize the strategic balance, eliminate some, uh, undesirable weapons systems, reduce some weapons levels, were worked out. Uh, after the disenchantment with détente, in the latter part of the 1970s, we moved into a period which is like the '50s. The leaders don't really see arms control as important for American security; they're more inclined to think, if the Russians agree to anything, it must be because it's good for them; if it's good for them, it's bad for us. So we compete with dramatic proposals, but, uh, if anybody shows signs of accepting them, uh, we can see something of this at Reykjavik, we immediately retreat very quickly.