Interviewer: OK, THE FIRST QUESTION IS...WHAT WERE THE REASONS IN YOUR OPINION FOR THE FAILURE OF THE BARUCH PLAN? WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE PLAN?
Trofimenko: My opinion is that the failure of the plan was made...or the plan failed because it was to establish the United States monopoly on atomic weaponry.
Trofimenko: That's my balance or opinion, and the weighted opinion, because I've studied the subject.
Trofimenko: So under the...under the pretext on making an international control over the atomic energy, actually the Baruch Plan was aimed at denying to all other states, equal status with the United States who would somehow keep the monopoly on the nuclear weapons.
Trofimenko: Though in some unforeseeable or very distant future, United States allegedly was prepared to relinquish atomic weapons, but the United States documents show that when the five people who were heading the American Armed Forces of that time were polled what to do with the nuclear weapons they actually all answered in the essence that we couldn't get rid of them, that we have to keep them.
Trofimenko: And the fact is that among all those five people I remember I was -- one was Dwight Eisenhower, the other was I guess Admiral Nimitz, there were some others where the memory fails me.
Trofimenko: But even now when publishing this documents of the...of the query that the Acheson-Lilienthal Commission who dealt with this plan put to these five generals and admirals, they dared to print only two of them in 30 years hence that situation.
Trofimenko: So, and those answers of I think Eisenhower and Nimitz were in a way equivocal, you see, but we have to do something but we have to keep the atomic weapons.
Trofimenko: Probably those three that were not published were absolutely resolute about not going anywhere with arms control.
Trofimenko: And that was, you see, that was the feeling.
Trofimenko: And we have this gut feeling that was the essence of the plan.
Trofimenko: And after reading the American documents published with a 30 years gap and we sort of, we were confirmed in our feeling that was a trick or a trap, into which the Soviet Union ought to be lured.
Trofimenko: By the way there was in these documents, there was an inter...there is an interesting correspondence between one of the experts and the diplo -- or between Mr. Bourne and I think the American ambassador in Moscow.
Trofimenko: And somebody said that you know, that the United States should go along with the Baruch Plan even if the Soviet Union would not join it.
Trofimenko: And Mr. Bourne who was then a consultant of the State Department said without the Soviet Union the plan is not needed you see, because the main thing is to enroll the Soviet Union into the plan and so to sort of to have it without any nuclear weaponry.
Interviewer: WAS THERE ANYBODY IN THE SOVIET LEADERSHIP AT THE TIME, THAT CONSIDERED THE PLAN SERIOUSLY, THAT WANTED TO NEGOTIATE A DIFFERENT PLAN, A VERSION OF THE PLAN? IN SOME WAYS WHAT I'M TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WAS THERE ANY OTHER IDEAS THAT AT THE TIME COULD HAVE BROUGHT US AWAY FROM THE OPENING OF THE RACE?
Trofimenko: You see, there was an alternative Soviet plan in the United Nations at that time, which really required total recognition of nuclear weaponry, and was in a way more simple than the Baruch Plan, but was more direct in that all the countries should relinquish possession of atomic weaponry.
Trofimenko: But that plan didn't suit the...didn't suit the United States.
Trofimenko: Because I say that because under the guise of the international control, United States wanted to monopolize control over there, to make the United States and even not only in energy, but even the sources of this energy, the uranium and other fissionable mines around the world.
Trofimenko: So when the Soviet Union proposed straight-forward banning on nuclear weapons, it seemed too simple for the United States authorities of that time to go along with.
Interviewer: LET'S GO A LITTLE BIT -- WHAT WERE SOME OF THE MAIN -- I THINK THAT THE BARUCH PLAN WAS THE LAST SALVO OF THE ALLIANCE.
Interviewer: MAYBE NOT.
Interviewer: I THINK YOU SUSPECT IT WASN'T.
Interviewer: BUT WHAT WERE THE MAIN POINT OF CONTENTION FROM THE SOVIET POINT OF VIEW, OR HOW DID IT VIEW THE POINT OF CONTENTION BETWEEN THE SOVIET UNION AND THE UNITED STATES THEN RIGHT AFTER THE WAR?
Trofimenko: The...
Trofimenko: in the context of Baruch Plan or on a wider subject?
Interviewer: IN THE POLITICAL -- IN ANY KIND OF POLITICAL SPHERE, BUT WITH A, MAYBE WITH A VIEW THAT THE CONTEXT IS THAT OF NUCLEAR ARMS AND DISARMAMENT.
Trofimenko: You see, the problem was that the United States was the only country that went out of the second world war prosperous, you see.
Trofimenko: Which increased its economic might and which acquired the so called absolute weapon.
Trofimenko: So it possessed as one American woman researcher said, it followed...it possessed sort of the ultimate means of destruction and it possessed the power of the reconstruction, the big wealth that it would you know spread to other countries and buy them into subservience in a way.
Trofimenko: And the main thing was that the United States wanted to -- it's our point of view -- wanted to establish the United States world hegemony, pax Americana.
Trofimenko: Because you see, they had so mighty economic strength and so mighty military strength, they wanted you know, to upgrade their aims to the level of new weapons that they had.
Trofimenko: And they aim...
Trofimenko: aims also, foreign policy aims and foreign policy goals ought to be equal so-called to this absolute weapon, and so the foreign policy goals also ought to become absolute.
Trofimenko: The absolutely is...the...it is said in one American document that defines the American strategy for the '40s and '50s, that no other nation ought to, or might unleash a war against the will of the United States.
Trofimenko: And then when I read this document, it struck me, you see, like lightning.
Trofimenko: Not against the United States, but against the will of the United States, that is United States ought to be sole arbitrator in the world who would do what.
Trofimenko: And the only obstacle for such a world hegemony for the United States world is the Soviet Union.
Interviewer: OK, WHAT WAS THE SOVIET UNION POLICY AT THE TIME? WHAT WERE THEIR CONCERNS? WHAT DID THEY WANT TO ACHIEVE?
Trofimenko: Soviet Union, first of all, the main Soviet concern was to rehabilitate its economy which was devastated by the German invasion, by the Hitler's invasion.
Trofimenko: That's first thing.
Trofimenko: Then the Soviet Union wanted had to have a consolidated security.
Trofimenko: I mean the Soviet Union had a lawful national interest.
Trofimenko: The Soviet Union, the Soviet people spilled a lot of blood in defeating fascism, and they didn't...they didn't want to return to the situation where the Soviet Union would be surrounded with a...with a ring of hostile states.
Trofimenko: So the Soviet Union wanted to consolidate its security by means of establishing, you know, the situation in Europe which would not be threatening to the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: And but the Soviet Union mmm, as its leaders envisioned at the time, hoped that this could be done in cooperation with the wartime allies, first of all with the United States and Great Britain and France.
Trofimenko: You see --
Interviewer: WHY DIDN'T IT WORK?
Trofimenko: First of all you see there are many subjects.
Trofimenko: First of all you know, the change of leaders in the United States, you see.
Trofimenko: Instead of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who with all his shortcomings you see, was a great statesman, came Mr. Truman, who said, you see, who said the classic formula, you see, if we see that the Germans are winning we ought to help Russians.
Trofimenko: If we see the Russians are winning we ought to help Germans and let them kill each other as many as possible.
Trofimenko: I am not trying to incriminate Mr. Truman, but that was the philosophy and this philosophy actually is present in the United States ruling elite up to this time, up to the present time.
Trofimenko: Because you see, if we ought to divide and rule in Europe, we ought to have a division in Europe, division in NATO, we have to play this balance of power politics, you see to pit Western Europe against Eastern Europe, to pit you know, China against the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: China's up against the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: Actually, and be the super arbitrator of the whole mmm events.
Trofimenko: So that was the philosophy of Mr. Truman that you should you know, somehow put the Soviet Union toward or take the Soviet Union toward.
Trofimenko: You should show the force of the America is number one nation, it ought to dictate the framework of post-war arrangements, the post-war, and to hell with the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: It was one of the, actually main country which contributed to the defeat of German fascism.
Trofimenko: We want to finish to push the communism back you see...to it's pre-war frontiers.
Trofimenko: And that was the start of the Cold War actually.
Interviewer: TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THE SOVIET POLICY AT THE TIME AFFECTED BY THE...BY THE AMERICAN NUCLEAR MONOPOLY? IS THERE AT LEAST SOME CONTRADICTION THERE?
Trofimenko: No, but the Soviet policy at that time was affected by American nuclear monopoly that United States were trying to use this monopoly politically to pressure the Soviet Union in accepting one-sided American solutions.
Trofimenko: That of course, brought the natural resentment on the part of the Soviet Union who is a great power, a great power contributed very much to wartime victory.
Trofimenko: So the line was the Soviet foreign policy line became two-pronged, on the first, on one prong we had to acquire nuclear weapons, if we were not succeeding in banning it on equitable terms, which we didn't succeed because Baruch Plan as I say was a trap or a trick or whatever it is.
Trofimenko: And on the second time we have to...we have to acquire nuclear weapons, first of all in order to equalize with the United States.
Trofimenko: And then on the second force shall we say of foreign policy, we have to do whatever it was necessary to stabilize the situation in Europe, to somehow to...realize the fruits or the results of the war.
Trofimenko: To establish the to realize the aims for which the Soviet Union fought in the second war and its security and in the process of American pressure whether it be economic or psychological or military, to ward off to the extent that was possible, that pressure.
Interviewer: WHAT WERE THE CONFLICTING VIEWS ABOUT GERMANY BETWEEN THE SOVIET UNION AND THE UNITED STATES?
Trofimenko: The problem, you see: First of all, there was agreement among the...
Trofimenko: heads of states, about the necessity to de-militarize and de-Nazify Germany, and the process has been started -- you know that Germany was split into various zones; and the first months, you see, it worked...
Trofimenko: rather well.
Trofimenko: But then, you see, the...
Trofimenko: western powers started to create a, actually, separate state in the western part of Germany.
Trofimenko: And paradoxical as it may sound, you see, the Soviet Union was continued to be much longer the...
Trofimenko: proponent of the unified Germany, than the western powers.
Trofimenko: We, we still were fighting for a unified Germany, for not splitting it among several states, and so on so forth.
Trofimenko: But the...
Trofimenko: there was this thing that the...
Trofimenko: those reparations that had to come from western part of Germany, were sort of stopped, that the western powers started to make their own currency in the western zones, and so on, so that Germany was actually split; and then that was the beginning of a confrontation between the...
Trofimenko: western powers and the Soviet Union, on the matter what to do, what to do with Germany.
Trofimenko: And while paying lip service to the German unity, the western powers wanted only united Germany in such a case that it would be dragged into some sort of a...
Trofimenko: western bloc, while the Soviet Union was fighting for a united neutral Germany to the, to, in the first years after the, after the end of the war.
Interviewer: WHY WASN'T THE INTEREST OF THE SOVIET UNION SERVED BY A DIVIDED GERMANY?
Trofimenko: You see...
Trofimenko: Finally, finally, so we accepted the de facto division of Germany; now there are two states existing in Germany; but, first of all they wanted to stick to the, to the wartime decision and the, to the wartime decisions of the leaders of the great powers, said that Germany ought to be unified, but it too to be made peaceful, and made neutral; but when we saw that in the western part of Germany, there were upsurge of rebuilding of military potential, that there was an idea to use Germany western part of Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and maybe as a spearhead against the Soviet Union, then we had second thoughts on finally, you see both sides were satisfied that there were two German states created.
Trofimenko: But they I say, initially it was unilateral actions of western powers that, first of all the United States and Great Britain, that actually made the first steps to split Germany into two parts, and put the blame on the Soviet Union.
Interviewer: TELL ME ABOUT THE BERLIN CRISIS.
Interviewer: HOW DOES ONE UNDERSTAND IT FROM A SOVIET POINT OF VIEW?
Trofimenko: I don't think I...
Trofimenko: just on an impromptu basis I could remember all the nuances of the Berlin, of the Berlin crisis, but I understand that it was on the part of the, on the western powers sort of a test of will, with the United States, of just browsing to, through my book and remember that Mr. Forrestal, who was the....
Trofimenko: first Secretary of Defense of the United States, and that was a, a quotation from David Lilienthal, diaries, who used to be a head of the American atomic, Atomic Energy Commission, who wrote that Mr. Forrestal was strongly pushing the President to use atomic weapons in the, with regard to Berlin.
Trofimenko: So, that was the trial of strength; the western powers...
Trofimenko: were trying, in the first, really, first very strong demonstration of the threat of atomic force vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, were trying to make the Soviet Union yield to western demands and to accept all the arrangements that were deemed necessary by the western powers in central Europe.
Trofimenko: And since we didn't yield, ...after some sort of a...
Trofimenko: blockade and a, and a, airlift and so on, you have to accommodate, and so...
Trofimenko: Berlin crisis actually makes two things: first of all, that's the first thing of confrontation, and the second thing, in the how the confrontation can be resolved.
Trofimenko: And, by the way, the interesting thing that you see, that even during this Berlin crisis, they are traffickers on both parts.
Trofimenko: You see, somehow worked in preparation during the acute crisis, in order not to make, you see, collisions in the air so, you see...
Trofimenko: this example shows you, how even in confrontation, the parties may have to observe some rules of the game, so to say, in order not to really confront; because as far as I understand it, western powers made this, made this, especially the United States, made this trial of strength, but they were not prepared to go to the, actually to war with the Soviet Union at that time in central Europe, which was simply the...
Trofimenko: crazy idea, despite, you know, the atomic bomb, because they knew that if the atomic bombs would be brought, would be dropped on the Soviet Union -- the few that the United States had -then the western Europe would be occupied by the Soviet forces, who would be trying, you see, to sort of, to clear the...
Trofimenko: danger.
Trofimenko: And then the, all this whole thing would be counterproductive.
Trofimenko: So....
Trofimenko: at that time, we actually, we neutralized the American threat of nuclear weapons, by our own land power, in order to somehow to survive and to make, not to allow...
Trofimenko: the western powers to replay the results of the second world war, because the essence of the situation in Europe for 30 years, that by hook and by crook, western powers were trying to squeeze from the Soviet Union by military pressure, by atomic blackmail and so, the thing that they couldn't squeeze or the thing that they...
Trofimenko: actually to change the results of the war in Europe, you see, to make, to correct it, in western favor, and this didn't work.
Trofimenko: And this didn't work.
Trofimenko: And then it was a dead end, and after that was Helsinki Agreement, was Helsinki final act, and so on, and finalization that, all right, we agree that the situation could not be changed and then we start anew; but for 30 years there was trial-and-error and attempt to change the situation.
Interviewer: TELL ME MORE ABOUT SOVIET POINT OF VIEW OF EQUALIZING U.S.
Interviewer: NUCLEAR WEAPONS WITH SOVIET CONVENTIONAL MAN POWER?
Trofimenko: It was not actually equalization, but the thing is that, you know...
Trofimenko: a lot of military strategy belongs to the psychological thing, you know, that there was a threat from the position of strength of the United States, which were trying to impose upon the Soviet Union its solutions, whether it consul-, concerned Europe, or, whether it concerned the Middle East or Asia, whatever it is.
Trofimenko: But the fact is that United States were of course unwilling, or unwilling to, go to the actual war with the Soviet Union; we know about the dozens of plans that existed at that time and now are public property, so to say, declassified, about war with the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: There was Dropshot, Gunpowder, ABC, 101, and many other, you see, coded names.
Trofimenko: The actual, the first plan, for war with the Soviet Union was made out...
Trofimenko: six months after the end of the war and the, and the Eisenhower staff and the American forces that were occupying Germany.
Trofimenko: But the fact is that, there was always this thing, you see: all right, we will start a war, and what will be, what will be the result? -- there was a, there will be result with some devastation of the Soviet Union, but...
Trofimenko: the American bridgehead...
Trofimenko: in western Europe will be liquidated.
Trofimenko: So, in a way, at that time, this kind of possibility was always a, a, a, a holding factor on American decision to sort of to roll back the Soviet Union in a way, in really military way.
Trofimenko: And there was always some consideration that, "Let us wait for five more years; we implement one more plan of military buildup and then we would succeed finally to make a trial of strength with the Soviet Union," and this kind of psychology persists up to this day, this day, and this SDI is one of the last implementation on this very psychology, "Let's build this final thing, and then they could be, would be able to push the Soviet Union..."
Interviewer: THAT'S NUMBER 13 OR 12.
Trofimenko: Oh, but I mean, I am always trying to sort of to...
Trofimenko: continue it, in the mentality.
Trofimenko: .
Interviewer: TELL ME...
Interviewer: TELL ME ABOUT ...
Interviewer: TELL ME HOW DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT THE SOVIET NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND TELL ME HOW YOU FELT ABOUT IT, PERSONALLY.
Trofimenko: You see, the, I don't think at that time I was really, very much keen about this thing! And you see, in my mind, something is mixed up because I've done a lot of research after that, you see; but I guess, you see, the feeling was, we made it, we made it, you know; we now we feel ourselves better; we could talk to the Americans on a more equal footing; that was the, that was the feeling after it was, at, after it was officially announced, officially announced.
Trofimenko: Of course, we didn't know about this American, you see, announcement; we didn't read foreign newspapers at the time; but we announced that the Soviet Union has solved the secret of atomic weaponry; and that it now could do whatever it whatever the United States could do with atomic energy; and so, that was the feeling, you see, of somehow, of really great relief, that this kind of a blackmail would no longer be possible.
Trofimenko: It, it was a feeling of a, of a, of a...
Trofimenko: normal rank-and-file person, and a young boy.
Trofimenko: Due, of course, speaking in a more...
Trofimenko: in a more sophisticated way, the fact that one probed the...
Trofimenko: secret of atomic weapon doesn't mean that one immediately possesses...
Trofimenko: the United States still kept a lot of big lead vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, but the moral...
Trofimenko: knowledge, or satisfaction, that we've made it, you see gave....
Trofimenko: the energy to the, to the people that there would not be....
Trofimenko: that much, you see, looking to the United States for...
Trofimenko: and they could be more independent in their foreign policy, and in, especially in their home pursuits.
Interviewer: HOW WAS THE POLICY OF CONTAINMENT -- THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE -- VIEWED BY THE SOVIET UNION?
Trofimenko: Well, the policy of containment was viewed as a, actually as an attack on [the part of] the United States; it's this trying to, if not push around the Soviet Union, then at least trying to do whatever is possible, maybe short of direct military intervention, to push the Soviet Union into subservience, you see, to impose on the Soviet Union various American's designs, vary- American rules, the American wishes in the United Nations, when the United States had a sort of a mechanical majority and so on and so forth.
Trofimenko: The policy of containment was actually the policy of attack on the Soviet Union, and the interesting fact, you know, that the policy of containment was later changed...
Trofimenko: when the Republicans came to power, into the policy of liberation, and roll-back of the Soviet Union -- that was Dulles's policy.
Trofimenko: But the paradox is that, when the United States Dulles and Eisenhower spoke about liberation, rollback, it was more lip service, because at that time, there was no possibility of rolling back, while during the containment was milder in formulation, it was more severe, more aggressive in actual operation, because, at that time, United States was using its atomic monopoly to the maximum, in order to blackmail the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: When Dulles came, he actually, he compensated in, you know, in this very aggressive phraseology, that he could make in practice.
Trofimenko: So that's a paradoxical thing, you see, the formulations of the doctrine become more aggressive, though the possibilities for implementing it are curtailed.
Interviewer: TELL ME ABOUT THE MARSHALL PLAN, AND WHY DIDN'T THE SOVIET UNION JOIN IT?
Trofimenko: You know, the Marshall Plan --, it is very difficult.
Trofimenko: It's probably, it's a very interesting story, maybe some economists or some people who are dealing more...
Trofimenko: in detail with this stage of American policy would tell you better; but I guess the Marshall Plan was finally viewed, in the Soviet Union, as a, as a plan to supplement, you see, atomic blackm-, blackmail with well, atomic blackmail with economic pressure.
Trofimenko: You know, we understood that we were very much devastated, and Americans while promising to give us something, you know, for they would require some sort of political concessions, to make tremendous concessions, especially what regarded the other socialist countries emerging in Europe; and that was the idea that we shouldn't, you see, buy this economic aid, whatever it might be, for those concessions that might be political concessions, or concessions in the field of security that might be, that might be required from the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: You know, the decision was not straightforward; we thought about it for a long time, but, of course, the Marshall Plan and the...
Trofimenko: Lend-Lease, were different things.
Trofimenko: Lend-Lease were really, United States were giving us generous aid, in order to crush the enemy, which was as much as the United States' enemy as the Soviet enemy.
Trofimenko: In in Marshall Plan, the thing was different; the Marshall Plan was to help restore the American...
Trofimenko: bridgehead or the capitalist one, let's say, in western Europe, in order to continue this...
Trofimenko: playing on the balance of power politics, as regards to Western Europe, as regards to the socialist countries, first the Soviet Union in the first place.
Trofimenko: It was the, actually the offer of some money for the, on political conditions.
Trofimenko: Which is the usual practice of the United States up till this time.
Interviewer: HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE KIND OF FEAR, AND I THINK IT WAS GENUINE, THAT THE SOVIET BOMB PRODUCED?
Trofimenko: You see, it's really difficult for me to speak, to speak about the...
Trofimenko: to speak about the Americans, somehow I didn't, I didn't, the Soviet bomb produced...
Interviewer: THERE WAS, FOR EXAMPLE, A DISCUSSION ON WHETHER UNITED STATES SHOULD CONTINUE INTO DEVELOPING A THERMONUCLEAR BOMB.
Trofimenko: You see, the problem is if one puts it in a more philosophical context, the problem that United States were threatening the, in the, in the first years after the second world war, the first stage of the world...
Trofimenko: American nuclear strategy, the United States was threatening the Soviet Union, not because the Soviet Union wanted to attack the United States.
Trofimenko: It has no possibility, it had no planes, no atomic weapons, and it simply couldn't...
Trofimenko: bring its military forces to the Americans, so the threat was, to the Soviet Union, was, that the Soviet Union and the, in the, in the, so-called, you know, in a twisted idea of American, a twisted thinking of American leaders, was that anyone who was doing whatever it is anti-American, you see, striving for national liberation, striving for independence from Britain, from France, or...
Trofimenko: it was all the design of Moscow, the lawless hand of Moscow.
Trofimenko: So in the first place, you see, the American nuclear weapon was designed, not to ward off the attack on the United States or threat of the attack on the United States, but to make the Soviet Union, so to say, behave.
Trofimenko: Not only the Soviet Union, but all the, all the progressive forces around the world.
Trofimenko: So...
Trofimenko: as I said, you know, the problem was that the Soviet Union was threatened, not because you see it was a threat to the United States, but because the United States considered the Soviet Union or Moscow hand is behind all the turmoil, all the...
Trofimenko: all the unpleasant things that go in...going around the world.
Trofimenko: And you see and the source of the strategy of the mass retaliation which was announced by the Eisenhower Administration was one hearing you know, in the in the American Senate when General [Rudimeyer] a very well known American general said that I would...in any country, in any...
Trofimenko: in any crisis I would not bother ourselves to go into this crisis.
Trofimenko: I would go right to the main perpetrator, to the Kremlin, you know.
Trofimenko: And at the Kremlin I would sort of put the ultimatum, stop this thing or stop that thing, because that was the mentality.
Trofimenko: So this was the situation at the time where the United States possessed the monopoly nuclear weapon.
Trofimenko: When the Soviet Union emerges another nuclear power, first of all they have to do some soul scratching and say whether it's possible and necessary you see, to threaten the Soviet Union with this kind of a...
Trofimenko: a retaliation for every accordance in the world, because the Soviet Union could make it make itself could retaliate.
Trofimenko: So first of all the scope of American threat was a little by little curtailed, because they have to behave more cautiously.
Trofimenko: And that's one thing, that was the first stage, but then -- But it was still you see, not that much realized.
Trofimenko: All right, so you can -- here's a couple of weapons, all right, they could bring one weapon, or two weapons or three weapons so the United St...
Trofimenko: so not that's not that awful you see, in view of the American preponderance.
Trofimenko: But even the -- at this period, already some far-thinking people in the United States already understood you see, like General, even among the military, like General Maxwell Taylor that the time would come, you see, but the Soviet Union was really -- that who they -- a very crashing blow against the United States.
Trofimenko: And that feeling and that knowledge while it was spread it sort of really probably brought some fear to the United States people because for the first time United States became invulnerable.
Trofimenko: There were no barriers of two oceans.
Interviewer: YOU SAID INVULNERABLE.
Interviewer: YOU WANTED TO--
Trofimenko: Well, the first time.
Trofimenko: Sorry.
Trofimenko: For the first time the United States became vulnerable, and there was no barrier of two oceans which for 150 years made the United States in fortress America.
Trofimenko: And then I...it's really difficult for me to judge to what extent you see the...
Trofimenko: United States people were scared with the Soviet threat.
Trofimenko: But of course, I would say this, you see as a scholar, I know, that I don't think the Americans immediately feared this Soviet threat and so on.
Trofimenko: There was no -- not much fear.
Trofimenko: But they started to fear the Soviet Union only after this so called Soviet threat was made the subject of speculation.
Trofimenko: You see, when it was constantly rubbed in to the United States population that you know, this Soviet...
Trofimenko: there is a Soviet Union, there is this red menace that could drop bombs that could attack this United States and so on, when it was started to be the subject of political speculation and the subject of political speculation the Soviet Union was not because the Washington leaders fear the Soviet attack on the United States, but because it was necessary for them to squeeze industry money from the people in order to get ahead of the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: All right, they couldn't sustain their atomic monopoly.
Trofimenko: They would make a jump to thermonuclear weapons, then would be ahead.
Trofimenko: Then when the Soviet Union equalize in thermonuclear weapons they would be ahead in something else and something else and something else.
Trofimenko: And for them to be ahead they have to build up.
Trofimenko: And to build up you have to need a Soviet menace.
Trofimenko: You see, why I'm -- as a...
Trofimenko: as a scholar.
Interviewer: THERE ARE SOME EVENTS WHICH I WANTED TO COVER.
Interviewer: THE FIRST ONE IS KOREA.
Interviewer: KOREA BECAME SORT OF RALLYING CRY IN AMERICAN CONSCIOUSNESS.
Interviewer: IT BECAME VERY IMPORTANT.
Interviewer: WHAT DOES KOREA MEAN TO THE SOVIETS?
Trofimenko: The Korea meant to the Soviets that to the Soviets, you see that United States or their South Korean puppets wanted to change the status quo that existed, that was recognized, and the status quo was -- they attempted to change the status quo and actually to roll back socialism not from this European direction but from Asian direction.
Trofimenko: And finally United States have to -- or I know that in the United States it's called the United Nation's forces, but it was actually United States' forces in conjunction with South Korean forces.
Trofimenko: They have to acquiesce in military standstill, and actually to confirm the status quo in Korea.
Trofimenko: Because it was absolutely unpopular, a war, and actually President Eisenhower made it, made it...made himself to the White House on the promise of stopping the hostilities ending the war in Korea.
Trofimenko: So the...in Korea, you see, as American generals evaluated this thing you see, their third-rate forces, I mean the forces of the socialist states which were not using their prime force, the Soviet Union, they beat our first-rate force.
Trofimenko: That's American participation.
Trofimenko: So this sort of actually a draw, was not a draw.
Trofimenko: Was in a way the defeat of the United States.
Interviewer: HOW WAS IT SEEN IN THE SOVIET UNION?
Trofimenko: See, in the Soviet Union it was of course the Soviet Union was from the very beginning was trying to work hard, you know, to stop this whole bloodshed, because we didn't consider this trial of strength was necessary.
Trofimenko: That we were trying to call United States to reason and to...actually to conclude the armistice on the...on the conditions status quo ante.
Trofimenko: But it took some time, it took some developments in our country and in your country, in order to somehow to come to this conclusion.
Interviewer: SO THE SOVIET HISTORY IS THAT THE WAR WAS STARTED BY SOUTHERN KOREA?
Trofimenko: The Soviet position is that war was started by South Korea.
Trofimenko: But you know, whoever was made the first fire...fired first, the fact was that the United States was building up military forces over South...
Trofimenko: southern Korea, that the...
Trofimenko: before that beginning of the war Mr. Dulles went to South Korea and actually tried -- with some sort of pep talks before Korean military.
Trofimenko: So the problem was that the United States were trying from the Asian direction what they didn't succeed from the western direction.
Trofimenko: That was the general idea.
Trofimenko: I know that they are a lot of...a lot of talk or a lot of writings in the United States that the Mr. Acheson didn't enter South Korea in it defense perimeter.
Trofimenko: And because of the you see the socialist countries was trying to increase their own sphere of domain and so on.
Trofimenko: But that's I think a lot of nonsense.
Trofimenko: The problem is that was the same trial of strength from the eastern part when which also were going on the western direction, vis-a-vis the socialist countries and vis-a-vis the so-called Soviet Sino-Soviet monolith that the United States were trying to somehow to shake.
Interviewer: TELL ME, WAS THERE A...
Interviewer: ANY KIND OF DISCUSSION AMONG IN THE SOVIET SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY WHICH WAS ANALOGOUS TO THE DISCUSSION IN THE AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC POLITICAL COMMUNITY ABOUT GOING TO THE SUPER OR NOT GOING TO THE SUPER?
Trofimenko: No, you see this kind of super ammunition, super bomb, you know, I'm not that part of a scientific community, I guess.
Trofimenko: There was some discussion within the, really the natural scientists, whether it's possible or not.
Trofimenko: But since United States announced that they were going to acquire this super bomb, then I think it was without any doubt the our sole....
Trofimenko: sole decision might be not to let the United States be superior in this thing and to develop this super-bomb on our own, which we did, and did even a little bit earlier than the Americans.
Trofimenko: But in our country you see this kind of a decision would not be made through the you see, public debate.
Trofimenko: But I'm sure no public debate in the United States on the same...on the same thing.
Trofimenko: If it was a mil...
Trofimenko: military or political military decision of high authorities that they have to upgrade their military potential by means of going to -- there were some objections in the...
Trofimenko: in the United States scientific community on the grounds that it's not workable and some other or moral grounds like Mr. Oppenheimer.
Trofimenko: But I guess there were also some discussion within our community, but we have it was not our decision.
Trofimenko: The decision was made for us in Washington.
Trofimenko: United States are going ahead, we are trying again to be superior, we have to deny their superiority and we have to develop the...
Trofimenko: this weapon.
Interviewer: LET ME JUMP...SO WE MIGHT COME BACK TO EISENHOWER.
Interviewer: MAYBE NOT.
Interviewer: LET'S CONTINUE THAT.
Interviewer: THERE SORT OF A -- BY THAT TIME, I'M TALKING AFTER THE THERMONUCLEAR WEAPONS COMING TO BE AND SO ON, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE CHANGING OF SOVIET THINKING ABOUT THE UTILITY OF THE WEAPONS? AND I THINK AT THAT TIME ONE STILL TALKED ABOUT UTILITY.
Interviewer: I THINK THEY TALKED ABOUT IT EVEN ON THE WEST AND I THINK THEY TALK ABOUT IN THE EAST.
Interviewer: THERE WAS SOME EVOLUTION OF STRATEGY THAT UTILITY WAS THOUGHT TO BE IMPORTANT, I UNDERSTAND.
Trofimenko: But you see, I think it was the Soviet Union who first thought...sort of a...where it first dawned on the general public and scholars and so that the...
Trofimenko: you know, the destruct -- the destructive power of the nuclear weapons, especially the thermonuclear weapons is such that you couldn't actually use it for obtaining any coherent, any reasonable political aid.
Trofimenko: You know, with the classic Klausowitzian formula was the "War is a continuation of the politics," you see.
Trofimenko: But with the atomic war, you actually don't continue politics.
Trofimenko: You come into the just simply sheer destruction, and that was the idea which we started to think about.
Trofimenko: And I guess the Soviet Union was the first to make the attempt to break out of this...
Trofimenko: of this continuous you see circles of arms race.
Trofimenko: And during the Eisenhower period we proposed to the United -- to the United States to conclude the fact of peace.
Trofimenko: During in...the Eisenhower period we made it concrete steps, somehow to elevate the situation.
Trofimenko: One of them was actually the Soviet calculation with the Eisenhower idea weapons for peace.
Trofimenko: Now we were equal.
Trofimenko: We were understanding that it is good to pool some common efforts of United States so we can...
Trofimenko: other countries for developing the peaceful atom, and we actually created the atomic -- international atomic nuclear agency which actually made some -- or showed another avenue for, not only for competition in deadly weapons, but in cooperation in channeling the atomic energy peacefully into the peaceful development and into the atomic power stations, and other peaceful uses of the atom.
Trofimenko: So that on the other hand you see, we were trying to develop détente with the United States.
Trofimenko: The 1950s the end of the 1950s, were the sole attempt at détente.
Trofimenko: We had a meeting in Geneva, and then we had a meeting at Camp David, and we were trying really to somehow to make accommodation with the United States, on the basis of understanding the...
Trofimenko: that this crazy arms race leads nowhere.
Interviewer: THERE WAS A DÉTENTE SUGGESTION OF OPEN SKIES.
Interviewer: DO YOU REMEMBER?
Trofimenko: Yes, yes, I remember.
Interviewer: CAN YOU TALK TO ME, WHAT WAS THE SOVIET OPINION ABOUT IT?
Trofimenko: I can, you see, not to go very deep...
Trofimenko: very deeply into the subject, I would say that when satellites appeared, open skies idea was de facto realized.
Trofimenko: Now we are observing the United States territory and the United States is observing our own territory and for the purposes of arms control it is good.
Trofimenko: So the idea was generally not bad, but at that time, again as it was proposed by the United States it was again somehow that the United States was in better position for covering the whole of the Soviet territory and the Soviet Union would have to cover only part of the United States territory, and there was some other you see -- Again, hidden you see things.
Trofimenko: But when both countries acquired the same technology for mutual observance, it became and I would I would even say that one of the concessions of the Soviet Union was the de facto acceptance of this open skies open skies because now there are open skies, from this point of view in observing all the military activities in both countries.
Interviewer: THE...
Interviewer: IN FACT THE PERIOD JUST PRIOR TO THE SATELLITES, WAS THE, I THINK IN AMERICA A PERIOD OF A LARGE MILITARY BUILD-UP.
Interviewer: AND AT LEAST PARTIALLY I BELIEVE IT WAS SUSTAINED BY LACK OF KNOWLEDGE.
Trofimenko: It was a...
Trofimenko: partially yes.
Trofimenko: I would maybe a little this, but generally speaking whatever the knowledge was there was always this formula of greater than expected threat.
Trofimenko: Whatever you know about the Soviet military preparations you always try to multiple it by a factor of two or three you know, as a possibility of the Soviet threat.
Trofimenko: And on this basis to take up money from the taxpayer, you see, for the American so-called reply, though the American reply was actually never a reply, because the United States were always leading in development of a means of hardware.
Trofimenko: We were always trying to stay ahead you know.
Trofimenko: Actually the Soviet Union leveled out with the United States somewhere in the mid-'70s, finally.
Trofimenko: But before that the United States were leading, were well ahead, but nevertheless the moment they were ahead they were trying to think what the Soviet Union might answer it, and the next step what the United States might answer the answer of the Soviet Union in order to be two steps ahead.
Trofimenko: That is the situation.
Interviewer: YOU KNOW, SOMEBODY WAS CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY FITTING INTO THIS KIND OF INCLINATION.
Trofimenko: The tensions were...
Trofimenko: the tensions were heating...
Trofimenko: were feeling --
Interviewer: I'M THINKING FOR EXAMPLE OF KHRUSHCHEV'S STATEMENTS AT DIFFERENT LOCATIONS.
Interviewer: CAN YOU EXPLAIN THIS?
Trofimenko: Khrushchev made a lot of peaceful statements.
Trofimenko: Actually the whole theme of Khrushchev was let's...let's be friends, you see.
Trofimenko: Khrushchev was the first prime minister who came to the United States on a friendly mission, you know.
Trofimenko: And one misfortunate sort of slip of time which was misconstrued, you see, the declaration of we will bury you or something which was played up in the United States as a Soviet threat, though what Khrushchev meant that we will, sort of overtake you socially, we will...
Trofimenko: we will show that your system is outmoded system and our system is a forward system.
Trofimenko: Our system is more progressive.
Trofimenko: That was what was meant by Khrushchev.
Trofimenko: It was overplayed to show the Soviet military threat and so on and so forth though now in the hindsight when you ask most people say, all the people in the United States they would say, Khrushchev is generally trying for a better relations with the United States.
Interviewer: LET'S, YOU KNOW, BUT HE SAID, MISSILES WOULD FLY.
Trofimenko: Hmmm?
Interviewer: HE ALSO SAID, MISSILES WOULD FLY.
Interviewer: MISSILES WOULD FLY.
Trofimenko: What, did Khrushchev said actually you know, that you will, you are expecting it from the door and you will -- it will fly from your window.
Trofimenko: And that was the idea.
Trofimenko: But that was...
Trofimenko: Comrade Khrushchev was trying you know, somehow also to say that the United States is not in...
Trofimenko: is not invulnerable.
Trofimenko: That the Soviet Union has the means you see of retaliation.
Trofimenko: We have to when the...
Trofimenko: Khrushchev was operating in the...
Trofimenko: in the environment when the United States still had a very big lead vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, to be quite frank you know.
Trofimenko: So he had to say something you see maybe something to say that we are not that far behind the United States and so on in order to somehow to cool some hotheads in the United States.
Interviewer: TO WHAT EXTENT WAS SOVIET MILITARY STRATEGY AND NUCLEAR STRATEGY CHANGED BY OR AFFECTED BY THE SINO-SOVIET SPLIT? WHAT DID IT MEAN TO THE REST OF THE WORLD?
Trofimenko: You know, the fact is that we have to take into account that the Chinese government started to conduct a...
Trofimenko: hostile policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and of course this is a tremendously important change from the strategic point of view.
Trofimenko: So the Soviet Union had to sort of to think accordingly.
Trofimenko: You know, we have to, at that time to increase it's military forces on the far east and so on and so forth.
Trofimenko: So of course the stage is overcome now, but nevertheless we have to take into account the potential of China, we have to understand that the United States we are again trying to play on this balance of forces and actually that at one time going almost into alignment with China and so on.
Trofimenko: So that is a...
Trofimenko: that is a situation which have to be taken into account, you see.
Trofimenko: We have to take into account even the much smaller forces or threats to the Soviet Union like say the Iran in the period there was Shah.
Trofimenko: Of course one would say, why are you afraid over a Shah? We are not afraid over the Shah, but nevertheless if the Iranian monarchy had some military forces, had some addressed American planes which they couldn't even use now against the Iraqi but were only usable with the American hand vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: So when the Americans are saying to us, why you having such a big army and we have a small army, the geo-strategic situation is different.
Trofimenko: The geo-strategic situation is different.
Trofimenko: We have to cope from the threats from any direction.
Trofimenko: It's not necessary that the countries around us want to declare war, but they're concrete military potentials, you see.
Trofimenko: And they...we are all then telling, you see, the United States what would you do if instead of Mexico you have a country with the potential of China.
Trofimenko: Whatever the...
Trofimenko: whatever the current policy of that country was.
Trofimenko: So that changed the strategic thinking.
Trofimenko: But I think one of the strategic changes is which you downplayed you see, and which is constantly being -- we are being amused.
Trofimenko: The fact is that you see that when the Soviet, no the current talk or the current how you say, the current saying is that -- No, the Soviet, the Soviet threat to the...
Trofimenko: to the Western Europe increases from year to year.
Trofimenko: And I am saying, you see, one time when the Soviet Union was really great power with tremendous military forces and Western Europe was lying in urines...
Trofimenko: in ruins it was one thing.
Trofimenko: And the second thing is, the present situation with Western Europe but is having its own military mm, industry, is having gigantic army.
Trofimenko: And it's having it's own nuclear weapons.
Trofimenko: And the Soviet Union has to split its attention between Western Europe and the threat from the east and to keep one third of its army in the east.
Trofimenko: And they say, how come then the threat to the Western Europe increased? It diminished actually in the...
Trofimenko: in the logical terms, not increased.
Trofimenko: But we are always hearing this talk this that it only increasing.
Trofimenko: Though strategically it's quite a different way.
Interviewer: TELL ME ABOUT HOW DID...
Interviewer: HOW -- IT'S SORT OF A MILITARY QUESTION BUT I THINK IT HAS A POLITICAL IMPLICATION, AND THAT'S WHAT...
Interviewer: AT THE TIME WHEN THE SOVIET UNION LACKED THE MEANS OF DELIVERY TO WHAT EXTENT WAS OR CAN YOU THINK ABOUT CASES IN WHICH POLICY WERE AFFECTED BY THE AMERICAN NUCLEAR PRESENCE? OTHER THAN SORT OF ONE -- I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S A QUESTION, YOU PROBABLY CANNOT ANSWER VERY WELL.
Interviewer: BUT I'M THINKING ABOUT ON THOSE OCCASION LIKE BERLIN IN WHICH BOMBERS WERE FLOWN TO EUROPE.
Interviewer: NOBODY KNOWS WHETHER THEY WERE ARMED OR NOT, YOU KNOW, IT'S SOMETHING -- I'M LOOKING FOR SOME EVIDENCE WHETHER THERE WAS UTILITY TO IT IN BERLIN.
Trofimenko: You see, there is...that's a perennial question.
Trofimenko: The Americans often say and what did you, what actually what did they do with our atomic monopoly.
Trofimenko: We couldn't use it.
Trofimenko: It was used very well you see.
Trofimenko: You know atomic, I couldn't give you instance by instance but the atomic monopoly and the positions of strength of the United States was used to the extent that the United States actually supplemented all the former colonial powers in their...
Trofimenko: in their colonies, not because of the United States uses military weapons, but because United States regiments were with European powers actually allowed them to go into those colonies, with their capital, with their with their management, with everything, and be...and create a neo-colonial, as we say, empire.
Trofimenko: And this Soviet Union at that time was not even able you see to help the people struggling for its liberation, and with economic help, with military aid.
Trofimenko: Because we were not that strong, you see.
Trofimenko: And the Americans could care less what we saying at that time on certain issues because they were thinking that they were are six feet tall or whatever you say.
Trofimenko: So the American nuclear monopoly was utilized to the extent that the United States managed in the...ah, large parts of the non-socialist world to create actually a "pax Americana" condition.
Trofimenko: To...
Trofimenko: to create the American empire.
Trofimenko: That was the situation.
Trofimenko: Of course United States even behind with its preponderance never lacked that sufficient strength in order to wipe out the Soviet Union and its satellites.
Trofimenko: That was...
Trofimenko: that was the limit to which the United States, but otherwise it would impose all these decisions or...
Trofimenko: it could block all the decisions that were in the...
Trofimenko: in the interest of a compromise and so on and so forth.
Trofimenko: And each time United States actually saw a...
Trofimenko: went to some steps towards the Soviet Union, only the situation when they were understanding the United States preponderance is on the wane, is on the wane.
Trofimenko: Because when President Eisenhower who understood or was told by the Gaither Reports and so on, and later Kennedy used some of it, that the American military preponderance, nuclear preponderance would be disappearing, and let's fix it now, let's...
Trofimenko: let's make some fixture from the positions of now than five years hence, they made this steps trying to impose on the Soviet Union from the...from the position of time.
Trofimenko: Even the...
Trofimenko: even the, you see the meeting in Geneva in 1955, which was actually a full meeting between equals.
Trofimenko: The United States after that meeting were trying to utilize it in order to pressure the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: So the problem is that whenever the United States felt itself preponderant, they...
Trofimenko: made a lot of things that they wouldn't get away with if they were equal.
Trofimenko: And if they -- if they were a country among the international players and not the country that the United States used to think of itself, for about quarter of a century after the end of the second world war.
Trofimenko: So in every instance, whether it be some solution in the Middle East, whether it be some European problem, or whether it be some problem away site United States could behave itself unrestrainedly or think they could behave themselves unrestrainedly because of the very big preponderance.
Trofimenko: That's how the United States mm, United States force was translated into politics.
Trofimenko: And it only was necessary for American weakening during the Vietnam War, and then rethinking the whole concept of military force for a...
Trofimenko: Mr. Kissinger to say that you can't trans...
Trofimenko: translate the nuclear power into political influence.
Trofimenko: It was, it...
Trofimenko: you...
Trofimenko: United States ought to be educated you know, and to understand, maybe on the...
Trofimenko: where there was no equal force on the other side, where there was no parity, the United States feel un...
Trofimenko: felt unrestrained.
Trofimenko: When there is a lot of weapons in the world and on both sides, then you have to of necessity be more constrained in your behavior.
Trofimenko: More...
Trofimenko: more choosing and more thinking well the other guy's interests.
Interviewer: TELL ME HOW THE SOVIET UNION VIEWED EISENHOWER IN TERMS OF HIS, BOTH HIS ATTITUDES ON SOVIET UNION HIMSELF AND HIS PROPENSITY TO FOR WEAPONRY AND SUCH?
Trofimenko: You know, I couldn't tell you how the Soviet Union -- really I could tell you my personal view of Eisenhower.
Trofimenko: You know, Eisenhower was not a bad American President.
Trofimenko: You know, he was popular, he was...
Trofimenko: he was kind, you know, he was considerate you know.
Trofimenko: He was I would even say even as a general he was restraining upon the military to a certain extent.
Trofimenko: You see, to...
Trofimenko: not for nothing that Eisenhower was the first American President to come to some sort of a détente to the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: He...
Trofimenko: with the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: You...
Trofimenko: Eisenhower was not very much enchanted by nuclear power I would say.
Trofimenko: He himself was still thinking in traditional terms of conventional power.
Trofimenko: I remember I was struck by one saying of the Eisenhower in the press conference when he said you see, they didn't let me go to the atomic test site, you see.
Trofimenko: And I guess because they didn't want that they -- the sight of this terrible explosion you see would influence Eisenhower's thinking in a peaceful way.
Trofimenko: That was one slip of tongue shall we say, "they" didn't let me go.
Trofimenko: Who they? Is impossible to say.
Trofimenko: But he was a kind man.
Trofimenko: But he was not so operator of the American foreign policy.
Trofimenko: There were dollars, there were much more aggressive forces around Eisenhower.
Trofimenko: There were also you see all this at the beginning where it was McCarthy, repop of this anti-communist hysteria which actually even in this kind of a climate you see when a reasonable person starts to behave in a not reasonable way.
Trofimenko: So why would even say it took you see some courage for Eisenhower, you see to do what he did, you see to stop the war in Korea, to come to some sort of a...
Trofimenko: accommodation with the Soviet Union and to start to proceed from this from this, to find some grounds for cooperation like in the...in the peaceful uses of atomic energy.
Trofimenko: So too it related, you see, as I say, he is not the sole operator.
Trofimenko: There is a military pressure, there are some other pressures and so on.
Trofimenko: But the..
Trofimenko: man was more or less reasonable.
Trofimenko: One could do business with him if he worked personally for Eisenhower.
Trofimenko: And not for his surrounding.
Interviewer: TELL ME AGAIN THE...
Interviewer: TELL ME ABOUT THE FIRST TIME YOU HEARD ABOUT THE SPUTNIK, AND AGAIN A KIND OF A PERSONAL STATEMENT AND THE IMPLICATION OF IT IN STRATEGIC TERMS.
Trofimenko: You see, but the Sputnik was somehow you see, very big amount of the population was not considered to be in strategic terms, you know.
Trofimenko: It, first of all it was simply the proudness for the achievement of the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: When will we get to see even we have all the time in the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: We have some admiration before the American know-how, before the American technique, we could do, as you see that we are the same thing as Americans, you see.
Trofimenko: We also have cars and so on.
Trofimenko: But somehow in our soul we think you know that United States could do better, you know.
Trofimenko: And for the first time, when the Soviet man thought you see, we are -- could do whatever the Americans could do, was in the time of Sputnik, or we've done better, you see.
Trofimenko: Americans are still on the ground, and we are in the space.
Trofimenko: You know it is...
Trofimenko: it was tremendous psychological -- I don't know how joy, because we've done it not with anybody else, but with Americans who were -- were you know secretly always envying for this technical progress.
Trofimenko: And now we are American, actually you know.
Trofimenko: That was...
Trofimenko: that was tremendous impression you know.
Trofimenko: I remember you see, my kids were exciting it was the second phase when Gagarin was over already flying, there was some childish re...
Trofimenko: rhymes like something like "Flying and flying is missile around the world, and on this missile there is a...
Trofimenko: Comrade Gagarin, is just a common Russian folk", you know? And that is...
Trofimenko: that was the joy of achievement.
Trofimenko: That actually when we first thought that we leveled up with the United States was the time of Sputnik.
Trofimenko: After that, you see, all this leveling up was already in the minds of more -- of professionals, you see.
Trofimenko: All these tiny bits of pieces, a change of balance, what so on.
Trofimenko: But for the country at large to feel itself on an equal footing with American technically was the launching of Sputnik.
Interviewer: WHAT WERE THE STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS AND HOW WERE THEY UNDERSTOOD TO YOUR PEOPLE?
Trofimenko: Well, the strategic implications was that you know, it's now we could reach the United States literally with the atomic weapons.
Trofimenko: And that changed everything you see.
Trofimenko: Maybe Khrushchev was trying to utilize this in advance so to say, but nevertheless the actual fact was that now we are starting to be on a par with the United States, on a par with the United -- military.
Trofimenko: That we somehow made the tremendous step in securing or in insuring our own security.
Trofimenko: That was...that was the...
Trofimenko: main implication.
Interviewer: LET'S GO THROUGH THE AMERICAN...
Interviewer: TO THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION.
Interviewer: LET'S TALK ABOUT MCNAMARA.
Interviewer: IN 1962, I THINK WHEN MCNAMARA CAME INTO THAT ADMINISTRATION, HE CAME INTO A STRATEGY OF MASSIVE RETALIATION.
Interviewer: AND THAT SEEMED TO BE I GUESS BY KENNEDY TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE AND THEN SO ON.
Interviewer: YOU KNOW, I DON'T KNOW, AGAIN, IT'S POSSIBLE THAT THIS KIND OF INFORMATION IS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE SOVIET UNION, BUT ONE ALMOST SUSPECTS THAT SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAS TO TAKE PLACE EVERYWHERE.
Interviewer: THAT WHEN A PRESIDENT OR A PARTY CHAIRMAN COMES TO POWER AND HE ASKS WHAT CAN WE DO AND SOMEBODY SAYS, WE CAN BLOW THE WORLD APART, HE SAYS, WELL CAN YOU GIVE ME ANOTHER OPTION? AND IT'S THIS KIND OF THINKING TO THE EXTENT THAT IT EXISTED IN THE SOVIET UNION AT A TIME WHEN IT STARTED TO EXIST IN AMERICA THAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT.
Trofimenko: You see the...United States switch from massive retaliation to flexible response was actually a recognition of the changed strategic situation.
Trofimenko: That was actually direct result of the Sputnik to me, more in a nutshell.
Trofimenko: Because united States leaders understood and it was actually what Kennedy and McNamara did they define what has already been mm, brewing up in scientific community and in military circles, that you...
Trofimenko: it is useless you see, to threaten the Soviet Union or a smaller country with nuclear weaponry, for a...
Trofimenko: for every kind of encounter.
Trofimenko: That you have to step back from a nuclear weaponry.
Trofimenko: You have to treat it more cautiously you see, and arriving at a head I would say that the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the final you see, element which mmm, increased the awareness or the...
Trofimenko: increased the attraction of the American leaders to the strategy of flexible response.
Trofimenko: But it started gradually, that you have...
Trofimenko: the balance of power has changed, that you actually you maybe you still could threaten, but you couldn't actually mm, wage meaningful atomic war against the Soviet Union.
Trofimenko: You can't have this direct big war, so we have to be cautious even in the local conflicts and other types of conflicts would not escalate to direct military And you have to devise some strategy which would leave you the option of using nuclear weapons as a last resort, when really you are do or die, you see, when the whole fate of the country is threatened.
Trofimenko: Otherwise you have to be more restrained, that was the...
Trofimenko: that was the essence of the United States change.
Interviewer: WAS THERE SOME KIND OF SOVIET COUNTERPOINT TO THE KIND OF FLEXIBLE-RESPONSE THINKING THAT WAS GOING ON?
Trofimenko: Yes, I think so; you see, maybe we will we've done it with some lag.
Trofimenko: But we gradually...
Interviewer: CAN YOU TALK WITH FULL SENTENCES?
Trofimenko: Yes, I, I would say that there was the same consideration, analogous considerations, were going into the Soviet strategic thinking, you know, and gradually, we also came to understand that we have to, you know, we have to rely, first of all, on the...
Trofimenko: atomic weapons, or to enhance the significance of atomic weapons, because it was our only means of defense against the American threat and American pressure, you see.
Trofimenko: We have to say that we could utilize this nuclear weapon and we could deliver them to the United States, territory of the United States, would make an aggressions against the Soviet Union -- we are always saying that we would never be initiator of this thing.
Trofimenko: But gradually we...
Trofimenko: come to the same thing, you see, and now, you know, I don't want to run ahead but we are now...
Trofimenko: not only now, but even in the...
Trofimenko: in 1962 we made some suggestions about the abolition of nuclear weapons and making curtailing drastically the conventional forces of the main powers, and so on so forth.
Trofimenko: So, that was the general trend, I would say, it was not only....
Trofimenko: unique to the United States, but for the United States it was specific, in the sense that from the idea of American total preponderance, and absolute free...
Trofimenko: freedom of hands, United States came to come to understanding they had, they had to cope with the opposing force, to cope in a way that to behave more restrainedly in international area, arena, and to, somehow to accommodate with another power and not only to try to put it into the corner, you see.
Interviewer: IN A SPEECH MCNAMARA SUGGESTED A PRINCIPLE OF TARGETING.
Interviewer: COUNTERFORCE TARGETING VERSUS TARGETING CITIES.
Interviewer: AND THERE WAS A NOTION THAT ONE CAN DEVELOP "RULES OF THE GAME."
Trofimenko: You see, the problem is that I could talk on this subject for about, you know, several days, on that.
Trofimenko: And I don't know how to, when you are talking to some person who really tried to learn this subject -- very difficult to put it in a very short term.
Trofimenko: But the fact is that the suggestion of a -- it is not possible, first of all, to make the rules of the game, in a, in a, in a nuclear exchange, because, in a nuclear exchange, you impose the rules of the game -- you couldn't agree in advance.
Trofimenko: You could agree in advance about banning nuclear weapons, about not using nuclear weapons, but how to use them, you couldn't agree, because the losing side would never follow some rules that it agreed before, and you see; of course you could, you could you could....
Trofimenko: liquidate some of the weapons and so on, so, the rules of the game, it was a, a, a pure mythology.
Trofimenko: When Mr. McNamara was starting to say, "Let's not strike cities, but strike only forces," he was, naturally, trying to utilize, to maximize, the American advantage vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, because at that time, American nuclear weaponry was that advanced that you could so make this differentiation.
Trofimenko: The Soviet nuclear weaponry was not that advanced, you see.
Trofimenko: So at every stage, American suggestion to play by some rules, you know, is not real, because we first of all, we don't know how the United States would play, in a real predicament.
Trofimenko: And, then, every suggestion how to play is the suggestion that if the other side followed these American rules, then the American would win, because they would get big preponderance, you know? But the main...
Interviewer: OKAY.
Interviewer: GO AHEAD.
Trofimenko: The main contribution, to the strategic theory, made by McNamara -- or you want to...?
Interviewer: WHAT ABOUT HIS NOTIONS OF ASSURED DESTRUCTION? DID THAT BECOME SORT OF A COIN IN SOVIET THINKING?
Trofimenko: You see, it was accepted, by the Soviet Union, gradually, it was accepted.
Interviewer: FULL SENTENCES.
Trofimenko: This notion of assured destruction was accepted by the Soviet Union -- but the story is not very simple, you know...
Trofimenko: As I say, the greatest contribution of the McNamara, was the development of this notion of a second strike, second strike, that United States shouldn't strike first, but should...
Trofimenko: somehow weather the strike of the opponent, and then, in the retaliation could make a crushing blow against the opponent.
Trofimenko: And this second-strike possibility is the best precaution against the United States being attacked.
Trofimenko: So, the United States actually, if one believes Mr. McNamara, renounced the first use of atomic weapons, in 1961, or 1962.
Trofimenko: Renounced, because United States accepted the policy of the second strike.
Trofimenko: Now.
Trofimenko: There are many questions with this kind of thing, and I will...
Trofimenko: I'll come to them.
Trofimenko: I, my big, well, the biggest question is, why, if according to Mr. McNamara, United States had the notion of the retaliation and the second strike, in 1962, why it is necessary for Mr. McNamara and some of his like-minded colleagues, 20 years hence, to clearly very energetic struggle for the United States to renounce first use of nuclear weapons? Because, according to my reading of Mr. McNamara, United States made this announcing about 20 years before.
Trofimenko: But it was...
Interviewer: I THINK THE QUESTION OF THE FIRST STRIKE HAS TO DO, IN AMERICAN THINKING, HAS TO DO WITH EUROPE.
Trofimenko: See, it's, it's Europe, not Europe, but the fact is that, you know, the, what I was going to say, that when the United States billed us, or said us, with its...
Trofimenko: notion of second strike, they understood that the Soviet Union was, would not be capable of the Soviet strike if the United States struck first.
Trofimenko: And, in this way...
Trofimenko: later, it was formulated in the so-to-say MAD formula -mutual assured destruction.
Trofimenko: You could...
Trofimenko: kill the other country in a retaliatory strike, and the Soviet Union could kill the United States in a retaliatory strike, and this mutual assured destruction is, actually guarantees this balance of fear, guarantees that there would be no first strike.
Trofimenko: That was the one, the concept of...
Trofimenko: the war upon the basis of Mr. McNamara saying.
Trofimenko: So I bet you, and I bet every listener, to find me any quotation from the bet American secretaries of defense, who ever said about this mutual assured destruction.
Trofimenko: Theoreticians, yes, they said.
Trofimenko: Politicians, they said.
Trofimenko: But secretary of defense, and especially the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs, they always said about assured destruction, of the Soviet Union by the United States! Never mutual.
Trofimenko: Mutual was a sort of supplementary.
Trofimenko: That's my reading.
Trofimenko: But the problem is that when they said about mutual, there was no mutuality.
Trofimenko: The Soviet Union was always lagging behind.
Trofimenko: And the moment we came to mutuality, the moment we leveled up with the United States, in actual capabilities if we would be struck first, to strike second, an acceptable blow, was mid-70s.
Trofimenko: And the moment we acquired this possibility, all the American interests, all this you see, I don't know how, miles of thousands of miles of words, that have been written about the benefit of the mutual assured destruction, all the stones of literature about the goodness of mutual...
Trofimenko: in a moment they were disappeared, because, when mutual assured destruction really became mutual, United States, ruling elite became not interested.
Trofimenko: The, the treaty that fixed this idea of mutual de-, mutual assured destruction, was SALT II.
Trofimenko: And it was not ratified by the, by the leaders who came to the forefront of the American political...
Trofimenko: arena -- I mean the Republicans.
Trofimenko: Mainly because it was fiction, the possibility of mutual assured destruction.
Trofimenko: The United States got not interested, that's all.
Interviewer: YOU HAD PROBLEMS WITH IT?
Trofimenko: No, but you see you should, you can't...
Interviewer: I UNDERSTAND, I KNOW.
Interviewer: BY THE WAY, SPECIFICALLY, I THINK MCNAMARA WAS ANTICIPATING MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION.
Interviewer: AND I THINK HE SPOKE TO IT.
Trofimenko: No, but McNamara said it in a direct way, "we could strike" the -- he, in his book, he has written it, in his book, not as a Secretary of Defense.
Interviewer: I THINK IT WAS SECRETARY OF DEFENSE.
Interviewer: HE ANTICIPATED, AND I THINK THERE IS A STATEMENT OF HIS IN THE CONGRESS.
Trofimenko: Not...
Trofimenko: about extending it, I have some doubts.
Interviewer: BUT DID IT DEVELOP ANY DISCUSSION HERE? DID PEOPLE CONSIDER IT?
Trofimenko: You see, the thing is that it developed in the United States not as a future possibility, but actually as a, as a, as a thing that is...
Trofimenko: one could implement in a year or two or three, or something like that.
Trofimenko: Over here, you know, we, actually we...
Trofimenko: somehow detest the very notion of the balance of fear.
Trofimenko: We, somehow detest the very notion of preserving peace through the threat of killing another guy, you see.
Trofimenko: And there was this somehow issue, this moral apprehension about discussing the thing in this term; we always said, "Let's, let's do away with mutual threats, with mutual assured destruction, let's, let's base our policy on something else." But a natural fact, you see, because of the lack, because of the lack of progress in disarmament, because of the lack of some better formula, we finally acquiesced in this formula, without saying very much about it.
Trofimenko: But we acquiesce in formula of mutual assured destruction as a starting point, from which to go down and down and in both country nuclear arms levels and so on so forth, through treaties, through SALT process and so on so forth.
Trofimenko: We acquiesce in this.
Interviewer: ARE YOU SAYING THAT YOU REALIZE IT'S NOT A DESIRABLE CONDITION, BUT A CONDITION NEVERTHELESS?
Trofimenko: Exactly...
Trofimenko: Because you couldn't find a better formula for the time being, because of the, of the great...
Trofimenko: mass of nuclear weaponry that's concentrated on both sides; and before they really do some drastic steps unto their curtailment, we have at least to have a parity, have a balance, you see.
Trofimenko: So mutuality, even in mutual perishing, you see, is better than one-sidedness, I mean, from the point of the stability, though of course it's horrible thing to achieve a balance or a peace through the, you know, this two scorpions in the bottle...
Trofimenko: analogy.
Trofimenko: But there it was, that was a fact.
Trofimenko: We accepted it, and then we started to seek from some formal, how to come from this mutual assured...
Trofimenko: destruction equation, to some sort mutual assured survival, you see, and we find it in the past leading to containment of nuclear arms, to final liquidation, while some in the United States think that the road to this is going to, through the creation of some sort of a ultimate defense, you see, that's our paths diverge, they wish that, what they want the defense, build their defense, but nevertheless it's a military part, while we are advocating the part that will do away with military openly, but, of course, on every stage of containment preserving this equality.
Trofimenko: But I would say, you see, you ask me, I don't know, maybe I am running ahead, you are I generally, you see, admire Mr. McNamara; he was one of the best...
Trofimenko: secretaries of defense, he was very thoughtful, he was knowledgeable and so on, but, what I am...
Trofimenko: trying sometimes to tell to my students is that Mr. McNamara, you know, came through a lot of agonizing thinking about this whole thing.
Trofimenko: And my point was that when he was saying something in 1962, I couldn't accept everything what he said in 1962, for a, really, for a...
Trofimenko: for a real thing.
Trofimenko: There was a lot of thing, of sort of a, disinformation, addressed to the other people.
Trofimenko: There was a cover-up of American preponderance, there was this...
Trofimenko: a, a superficial, or, a rhetorical equality behind which there was no equality and there was American preponderance and McNamara was saying that whatever happens we would always be four to one vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, for instance a nuclear war hit.
Trofimenko: But after 20 years of going through this whole thing, McNamara was became an, another man, another man.
Trofimenko: It was not only his deeper military thing, I would say that when he touched, you see, the misery, the awful, you see, awful state of populations in third-world countries, when he was president of the World Bank, he had a lot of soul-searching to do, and then he probably thought, you see -- that's my image of Mr. McNamara -- how are we squandering all this money, all these, all these dollars, all these billions of dollars, you see, while the people, you see, are sustaining themselves, you see, all right on a few dollars, on the, on the, on the price of American movie theater ticket, for a month, the whole family, in some countries, you see; and then, he really started to think that something ought to be done, in the way of very active search for a really stabilizing situation in Soviet-American balance, and then he came really to this idea of renouncing first strike, then he really came to this ideas of finding some sort of a, other compromises and other steps in order to decrease the level of mutual fear, and the, decreased the level of the armaments on which is balance of mutual fear, and to supplement it with something else.
Trofimenko: The, the, I would say that someone could write a tremendously good biography on Mr. McNamara as a person who is absolutely, you know, rational calculator, calculating, you see, McNamara was half-man, half ABM, you know.
Trofimenko: He came like this, and, like the...
Trofimenko: human side of McNamara is suppressing the ABM side of...
Trofimenko: his brain, you see, and involving more and more human considerations into his thinking, and then he comes, really on a proponent of a realistic strategy, of a strategy of accommodation, of cooperation, of doing everything to control the arms race and to do away with the, with the...
Trofimenko: nuclear arms.
Trofimenko: That's...
Trofimenko: my image of Mr. McNamara.
Interviewer: IN THE GLASSBORO SUMMIT, PROPOSALS WERE MADE BY MR.
Interviewer: MCNAMARA.
Interviewer: AND INITIALLY, IT WAS REJECTED.
Interviewer: CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE THINKING?
Trofimenko: I could explain, you see, because our whole mentality, our whole mentality, is based on defense, on defense.
Trofimenko: For a thousand...
Trofimenko: years, we were trying, we were brought up, we were...
Trofimenko: virtually accepting this notion of defense, that de-, that defense is good, as a peaceful country, as a country who was constantly invaded, we thought that defense was our main reply, you see, we are not ourselves aggressive, we are not going to subjugate some other countries or to make war with the United States, western Europe, but, we shall to have a legal defense, and this defensive mentality -- and when you speak with American specialists, not only Russian, American specialists, on the Soviet military thinking, they will also, the Soviet military think, always stress the defense over offense.
Trofimenko: Defense over offense.
Trofimenko: And, and in this way, you know, McNamara was trying to reverse and to say that defensive weapons are bad.
Trofimenko: But actually, in a nuclear age, there is no difference, no such drastic differences between defense and offense, like it was in the, in the pre-atomic era.
Trofimenko: And we, rather quickly, rather quickly, it took us not very many...
Trofimenko: not big time, you see, in a, in a year or two, or even less, you know, we were thinking that really, yes, if we have to stop the arms race, first of all, maybe we have to stabilize the balance on this mutual assured destruction thing, that on the mutual vulnerability, and after that to seek ways to, in, to, increase this vulnerability, not through some sort of a adding or keeping the offensive balance, but somehow doing away with nuclear weaponry.
Trofimenko: So, I would say we have been educated, and I'm, my only regret is that some of the American politicians are not educated, the same thing, the same, in the same way.
Interviewer: I'M NOT SURE BECAUSE I HEARD THE BEEPS BEFORE YOU I THINK.
Interviewer: AND JUST TO RECOUNT THE REACTION TO THE GLASSBORO SPEECH, IN THE SENSE OF THE NOTION, TO WHAT EXTENT THE DEFENSE IS A RUSSIAN?
Trofimenko: Defense, we are...
Trofimenko: we are a defense-minded people you see.
Trofimenko: For a long time we've been defense minded.
Trofimenko: Not only the Soviet people, but the Russian people.
Trofimenko: So for us, you see, building up of defense is nothing, is normal thing.
Trofimenko: And probably we have been educated by McNamara.
Trofimenko: We have been educated that to show that in the nuclear age the difference between offense and defense actually ceases to exist.
Trofimenko: And actually defense might in a way be one of the strongest offenses, you see, because of this transcontinental distances and because the tremendous destruction potential of the weapons.
Trofimenko: And we were educated, and we started to think really in a...
Trofimenko: in a...
Trofimenko: in a quite a new way, and in the way that you -- it's futile you see to continue the time or the age-old race or millennium old race of defense versus offense.
Trofimenko: You have to oh, take out some new paths, in enhancing your own security and that is embodied now in our new proposals of liquidating nuclear weaponry towards the end of the century.
Trofimenko: But actually we've started to be educated at that time, and the result of it was an anti-ballistic missile nuclear treaty.
Interviewer: COMING JUST BRIEFLY BACK TO THAT NOTION OF MAD.
Interviewer: WOULD YOU SAY THAT BESIDES THE ABHORRENCE OF THE NOTION OF MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION WOULD YOU GO AS FAR AS SAYING THAT SOVIETS THINKING IS MAYBE A DESIRABLE CONDITION? OR A KIND OF INVALUABLE CONDITION?
Trofimenko: No.
Trofimenko: We are absolutely against the notion that it's desirable condition.
Trofimenko: We only consider it's a natural condition as of this moment because of the...this arms race of the 40 years before that.
Trofimenko: We came to the situation that we really have a situation of parity, and by parity one each side guarantees that the other side would not make aggression because the other side is capable of making a devastating retaliation.
Trofimenko: But as a commander, Gorbachev said during the 27th Congress, "If parity is good for the time being, but if it would proceed on the arms race part, that even the notion of parity and even this notion of mutual assured destruction would not be enough to assure the survival of both nations and of the race." Because of the more automation, more computerization, more possibility of some decision made out of the human context, you see.
Trofimenko: Then, even because parity on this level that keeps the balance and keeps peace you see.
Trofimenko: Parity on one...or one or more...or one more or two more advanced levels would create some crazy situation when you see, when there would be weapons in outer space and the...
Trofimenko: in order to activate them you have to reprogram them, and you actually you are would be, just a spectator -- a spectator and not a decision maker.
Trofimenko: That is why we never subscribe to the notion of mutual assured destruction as a desirable stage.
Trofimenko: We only accepted it of necessity as an initial stage from which to build down or to go down to some stage where we could assure the security of both nations.
Trofimenko: Not through the equality of mutual threat.
Trofimenko: But through some sort of a common security, to some advances in cooperation, in other -- in maybe in destruction of nuclear weapons.
Trofimenko: In equalizing other means of weaponry.
Trofimenko: In building some avenues for not going -- if nuclear weaponry building is forbidden then one could go to some other avenues of weapons building.
Trofimenko: Which we are considered one of the dangerous parts of the present structure -- defense initiative.
Trofimenko: Because it's increasing the search for new weapons of destruction.
Trofimenko: And from this to go to some sort of an arrangement which we would grow for, because nobody could...
Trofimenko: if I would say, that if somebody could present now this brilliant idea of how to live without nuclear weapons immediately a lot of people would grasp at it.
Trofimenko: But we have to grow to that.
Trofimenko: We have to gradually to find parts guarded by this mutual assured destruction situation, but in order to do away with mutual assured destruction situations, to do away with the, almost 100 percent reliance on weaponry, especially nuclear weapons as a guardian of your own peace, we have to make peace based on something better than the nuclear explosives or the instant coming to readiness in our world war, or instant performance.
Interviewer: FOLLOWING THAT, HOW WOULD YOU FIND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOVIET AND AMERICAN THINKING IN THINKING ABOUT DETERRENCE? THE TERM.
Interviewer: T UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS NO GOOD TRANSLATION AND THAT THERE IS NO, THERE IS NO CLEAR COUNTERPOINT IN SOVIET THINKING TO THE CONCEPT OF DETERRENCE.
Trofimenko: I...
Trofimenko: I would tell you, the difference in deterrence.
Trofimenko: Americans, whatever is said or written about deterrence in the United States, up till now, United States, not general public.
Trofimenko: I don't know what the general public thinks.
Trofimenko: But the United States military leaders, and military thinkers and strategists, always understood deterrence as one-sided American preponderance.
Trofimenko: As you deter the other guy from action against American interests, from the position of American superiority, that's the American understanding of deterrence, which is still persisting and the SDI is the logical product of that understanding of deterrence.
Trofimenko: So whatever is written about deterrence there are thousands of interpretations and definitions of deterrence.
Trofimenko: Soviet thinking of deterrence, was actually what McNamara initially suggested.
Trofimenko: That deterrence is an equality in capabilities.
Trofimenko: And then, deterrence for the Soviet Union was always mutual deterrence.
Trofimenko: Though we even...
Trofimenko: when even when we left mutuality, but we thought of deterrence as...
Trofimenko: deterrence as equality.
Trofimenko: And we never thought, by all the means, by the American experience, by the impossibility to...
Trofimenko: really to make it too much deaths, vis-a-vis the other guy in acquiring one-sided superiority.
Trofimenko: We never strove to this understanding of deterrence as the...
Trofimenko: or to the material capabilities of deterrence as Americans think.
Trofimenko: But it's Soviet superiority vis-a-vis America.
Trofimenko: It's futile.
Trofimenko: That's why we -- when we achieve parity, when we achieve mutuality we stop.
Trofimenko: But the difference once again, I don't know how forcefully I want to underscore it, that whatever deterrence is being advocated, whatever deterrence is being described to American scientifically territory, deterrence for the United States is always a preponderance, and until the American powers that be would come to understanding of deterrence as a sort of parity with the Soviet Union, as a common security and so on, until then they would race against the Soviet Union against the whole world in order to assure this absolute security with the United States, one-sided security.
Trofimenko: Security from the positions of strength and not security by mutual contract, by mutual agreement, this is the situation.
Trofimenko: And I would stress it again and again.
Interviewer: YOU KNOW, THE...
Interviewer: SOME OF THE PROBLEM IN TERMS OF UNDERSTANDING IT AND UNDERSTANDING IT FROM BOTH SIDES IS THAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN LET'S SAY AMERICAN THEORETICAL, SCHOLARLY AND POLITICAL THINKING.
Interviewer: AND WE KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT AMERICAN MILITARY THINKING.
Interviewer: AND CLEARLY I THINK IN AMERICA AND ONE ALMOST SUSPECTS BY DEFINITION IN THE SOVIET UNION WE PUT THE MILITARY IN A KIND OF A STRANGE POSITION.
Interviewer: ON THE ONE HAND WE TELL THEM, THE POLITICIANS TELL THEM THAT NUCLEAR WAR CANNOT BE FOUGHT, CANNOT BE WON.
Interviewer: ON THE OTHER HAND THERE IS A CLEAR EXPECTATION THAT IF DETERRENCE FAILS, IF THERE IS A WAR, THAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO MEET.
Interviewer: HOW DO YOU RESOLVE THIS KIND OF PREDICAMENT?
Trofimenko: You first of all have to come to the understanding that there is no possibility to win the nuclear war.
Trofimenko: When you come to this understanding, then there will be different approaches, but until the...
Trofimenko: until the time that you'll be thinking that it's possible to win a global nuclear war there will always be a thinking about deterrence from this kind of a position of superiority.
Trofimenko: We relinquish this thinking.
Trofimenko: We think that nuclear war is -- cannot be won.
Trofimenko: President Reagan is saying the same thing.
Trofimenko: Nuclear war cannot be won.
Trofimenko: But he is doing everything in order to make the United States, to achieve a victory in a nuclear war, or to prevail in a nuclear war, as is being written in American documents of the day.
Trofimenko: So the moment the...when you think that a nuclear war could be won, and you could actually wage nuclear war, then you are in the grips of this matter and for the rest...
Trofimenko: Until the end that when the arms race is actually not controlled by you.
Interviewer: YOU SEE, YOU ARE ASSUMING THAT WE OUGHT TO TRUST SOVIET STATEMENT AND NOT TRUST AMERICAN STATEMENT, AND MAYBE YOU ARE RIGHT.
Trofimenko: No, no, I'm not assuming, I am not a...
Trofimenko: I am not a person --
Interviewer: WHAT GIVES US...WHAT GIVES AN AMERICAN VIEW OF THIS KIND OF PROGRAM? WHY...SHOULD THE THERE BE DIFFERENCES IN STATEMENTS MADE BY REAGAN THAN MADE BY GORBACHEV?
Trofimenko: We shouldn't...
Trofimenko: we shouldn't.
Trofimenko: We shouldn't.
Interviewer: NO, I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH THE CURRENT SITUATION.
Interviewer: BUT IN EXACTLY THE NOTION OF BELIEVING OR YOU KNOW, BELIEVING THAT THIS WAR IS UNWINNABLE, HOW...
Interviewer: BECAUSE I'M NOT SURE THAT...THAT'S WHAT IS COMMUNICATED IN EFFECT.
Trofimenko: But you see, but you -- generally speaking, I and a lot of other people who are dealing with this are...
Trofimenko: it's..
Trofimenko: it's not necessary to do something in words, you see, because words can be different, you see, and words can be very tricky, as I said.
Trofimenko: In 1962, we were assured almost a mutuality with the with the United States though there was not mutuality.
Trofimenko: But the problem is that you have to be -- you have to implement, you have to proceed either from one or two premises.
Trofimenko: Either you proceed from a premises that the nuclear war is winnable and you ought to do whatever it's necessary to win and to create a situation to win it, even, so called deterrence fails.
Trofimenko: All you are presenting from the understanding that nuclear war is not winnable.
Trofimenko: That it would be the end of humanity and at least the end of two civilizations, Soviet and American.
Trofimenko: Then you are -- have to proceed along different parts.
Trofimenko: Whatever are the parts, they ought not to be military.
Trofimenko: They ought to be non-military, they ought to decrease the military factor in international relations and increase all other components of international relations.
Trofimenko: And to make your security not through your own efforts, you see because this war fighting idea and the winnability of nuclear war proceeds also from the notion that you could in the current world, in the current present world you could on your own make your security in one...
Trofimenko: at one level by your own efforts.
Trofimenko: It is not possible any longer.
Trofimenko: You could -- you could have an illusion of this security, but the moment something were wrong, then you are not secure, you are doomed as all the rest of them, you are even as a winner you are doomed the same thing as the vanquished.
Trofimenko: So you have to abandon this notion.
Trofimenko: And when you abandon this notion of absolute security, or one-sided security, of security achieved only through your own efforts, and to hell with the rest, whatever the rest are doing, if the...
Trofimenko: all the world is racing, but you, through your own racing, you'll always be on top, until you relinquish this thing, you'll always be in the...
Trofimenko: in the arms race.
Trofimenko: But you know that...
Trofimenko: in order to achieve security by not military means you have to do away with this notion of war fighting or war winning and so on.
Trofimenko: And and to do -- to show this it's not known...
Trofimenko: it's not enough to declare that I'm now a representative of a new thinking, you see.
Trofimenko: That I'm now for peace against warriors.
Trofimenko: And this kind of thing.
Trofimenko: You have to implement this in two complete actions on the bilateral on contractual, on a compromise basis.
Trofimenko: But all those actions ought to be more civilian, more non-military than military, so our difference with America is that United States and President Reagan, I understand that I am anticipating a program but you should...
Trofimenko: you could not compartmentalize it like this, you have to have an end to every sentence after this to our discussion today.
Trofimenko: That United States thinking is that you could assure your security through more and more and more military efforts, while we are saying, you could not do this.
Trofimenko: We have to assure our security through more military efforts by mutual efforts.
Trofimenko: You have to relinquish this idea, winning you see, acquiring, one-sided preponderance and so forth.
Trofimenko: That's the difference because America is still going by military means.
Trofimenko: Whatever is said defense, offense, non-nuclear, but it's still search for military solutions to the problems to which military solutions cannot be found because we are a dead end.
Trofimenko: And that's the main thing.
Trofimenko: If we would seek some solutions, we have to find them on another part, on another thinking and on other complete implementing of the thinking.
Trofimenko: In the...
Trofimenko: in the...
Trofimenko: in the arrangement, in excellence, in anything that would decrease the military components of international politics.
Trofimenko: That's my final words so to say.
Interviewer: VERY GOOD.
Interviewer: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Trofimenko: Thank you.