ASKS HOW HE HEARD ABOUT THE MX.

I heard from Washington, DC, that they'd finally made a basing decision, to go with the shell game basing. They had been talking about railroads and using highways and all sorts of ideas, some more crazy than others, all of them sounding a lot more like Rube Goldberg than one would like. And finally they wrote off on a decision to hide a couple of hundred warheads among 5000 shells.

ASKS HIS REACTION TO HEARING IT WOULD BE IN UTAH.

Shock, horror. I was shocked when I heard they were going to go with a, a shell game basing mode. The idea of soaking up virtually the entire Soviet land-based fleet of warheads in one area of the West so that Minuteman, located elsewhere, could survive, seemed to me the height of stupidity and the height of immorality.

WHAT LED HIM TO WANT TO TALK WITH THE CHURCH ELDERS ABOUT IT?

I felt that a great deal of power would have to be exercised by the Mormon Church and other churches as well. 73 percent of Utahans and a heavy percent of Nevadans belong to the Mormon Church. All churches would need to speak on this deeply ethical issue I felt, and the church that represented most people in the basing area seemed to me to appropriately have the most to say about that issue.

HOW DID YOU LET THE CHURCH KNOW?

I began to write memoranda and letters and to have personal interviews with certain of the general authorities who would appropriately by their committee assignment be involved with the, this issue.

ASKS IF HIS RELIGIOUS BELIEFS HAD TO DO WITH HOW HE VIEWED THIS ISSUE.

I think the admonition that we think globally and act locally makes a lot of sense. For many years as a professor of international law, I had considered the problem of nuclear weaponry, how to base such weaponry, the implications for the country, for making war more or less likely. As a Mormon, I have a strong feel for this land, that we have a stewardship over this land and its people, our own people, our own selves, our own lives. To intentionally base a weapon so that in the event of nuclear war, virtually every Soviet warhead would be aimed for the great basin of the West, seemed to me devious at best, cold-blooded, immoral at worst.

ASKS HIM TO ELABORATE CONNECTION WITH MORMON CHURCH.

Our people left New England and left the East in the last century to found their own Zion. Their own, own city of God, to be able to worship God as they felt best. They like many groups had been persecuted and kicked out of one state after another. We had founded this territory and finally this state. My great-great grandfather came here with that first group, Brigham Young. We felt that we had a message of peace to take to the world. Not uniquely. Many Christian groups had done the same, many other religious groups. But we had our message of peace. It seemed deeply ironic to me to have based here the single greatest concentration of weaponry of mega-death anywhere in the world, right here, coming from an area that we consider Zion.

ASKS WHAT YOUNG TAUGHT ABOUT THIS.

My great-great grandfather Brigham Young did not tolerate fools gladly. He was never known for his subtlety. He spoke with great candor, great point. He said, in the 1859, that much of the wealth of the world was being spent on manufacturing instruments of death. He said, what a set of fools. May God save us from such war and may God save us from those people who do nothing but think of greater ways yet [of destroying each other.]

ASKS HOW BRIGHAM YOUNG WOULD HAVE VIEWED THIS PROBLEM.

Brigham Young didn't tolerate fools gladly. He was never known for subtlety or being terribly restrained about saying what he really felt. He said in 1859 that the nations of the world were spending most of their wealth making greater weapons yet to destroy each other. He said by the, by all that we know of history, such weapons will ultimately be used if they're developed and if they're deployed. He said, may we be saved from such a war. May we be saved from them, those people, those people who continue to make weapons simply to kill each other one more time over.

ASKS CHURCH'S RESPONSE TO THIS.

Our people have not been...

(INTERRUPTS)

The Mormon Church has not taken a public position on most, most political or social issues. Our heritage has been quite conservative. We have been basically an isolated people for a century, the first century of our existence. They would be loath to jump into something they considered political. They came to see this, as surely I see it, as, as a deeply ethical spiritual issue, apart from the strategic concerns which I also share, and the environmental concerns which share a certain element of spiritual and ethical concern as well as, as well as more secular concern.

ASKS HOW THEY HEARD HIM OUT.

From the beginning...From the beginning Mormon leaders were concerned about this, were interested in it, and saw the implications, I think, spiritually, ethically, as well as strategically. It took some time I think for any of us to, to see our way clear, to act in the way we considered proper.

ASKS HOW THEY RECEIVED HIM.

I had been speaking on MX for a number of months when I first made an appointment with a Mormon general authority to talk about my concerns. I brought memorandas supporting what I, what I was to say with him. We began a series of meetings and I continued to supply memoranda for some time.

WHEN DID THEY MAKE A DECISION?

The first discussions on MX began in 1980 and three statements were made by the Mormon Church. Near the end of that year, the Christmas statement of the first Presidency condemned the nuclear arms race, pleaded with the nations of the world to seek peaceful means of resolving disputes, and to seek arms control agreements that would limit further production of nuclear weaponry. A similar statement was made by the first Presidency in its Easter message, April of 1981, and finally the message that I think had by far greatest weight, the MX statement of May 5, 1981.

WHICH SAID?

The MX statement said by reference to its earlier statements, we, we deplore nuclear arms racing, seek peaceful means of resolving disputes, and then they specifically mentioned MX which they had not done before, and regretted this weapon system and pleaded that it not be based here or in any similar basing mode anywhere else.

WHY DID IT TAKE TWO YEARS TO SAY IT?

I think it took a good time for any, any organization that came from its conservative posture, usually taking stands that would be identified as strongly favoring national defense. To see the peculiar implications of MX and the basing mode. It was not simply backyard ethics. Their statement condemned such basing, such concentrated basing anywhere located. However, there is an ethical or spiritual argument in favor of some concern for your local situation. If the Mormon Church had come out against MX basing in Central Park, or as I suggested, they might want to consider it around Plains, Georgia, or around the Pentagon, it wouldn't have made the obituary column of the New York Times. As it was, coming out against MX basing in an area where 70 percent of the people were Mormon, it was pretty rough to, to have an idea of sort of force-feeding a missile down the throat of a people kicking and screaming against that. That was the power of the Mormon statement. It made the front page of the LA Times, and The New York Times, and most other papers. And I think spelled the death knell to MX.

HOW DID CHURCH REACT TO AIR FORCE STATEMENT THAT THE CHURCH BACKED ITS UTAH PLAN?

I don't think the church made any public rebuttal to criticism, they usually don't. I think they felt very secure in the position they had taken. After all, this was not a position in which they debated the strategic implications with the Pentagon. I was doing that. I continued to do that, debating General McCarthy at the end on ABC's NIGHTLINE. They did not. They took a spiritual, an ethical, a moral position which not only is their right to do, but their obligation to do. They have a stewardship over this area. They have power in this area. If they do not exercise that power as they think best, then they're poor stewards.

WHAT DID THEY PROTECT PEOPLE FROM?

I believe they were protecting the people from at least the immediate local effects of the idiocy of the nuclear arms race. They were first of all protecting this people from the implications of first strike counterforce strategy. It was no secret in the early candid days of Air Force dialogue, before the politicians took over, and a lot of candid debate stopped. This was called The Great Sponge. General Lew Allen called it that. The Great Sponge that was designed to absorb or soak up all Soviet land— based warheads. When you've been identified rather openly and candidly as the bull's-eye, your people live in that great sponge, it doesn't sound terribly appealing. To argue against that on the basis of self-concern is perfectly understandable and perfectly defensible. Their concern went beyond, however. They expressed concern for nuclear arms racing in general, not simply MX. They condemned the entire nuclear arms race. They had pleaded for peaceful resolution of disputes, and specifically for arms control agreements making such weaponry unnecessary. Their concern was also environmental. This would have destroyed for purposes of cattle and sheep industry, an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania. This would have destroyed a terribly fragile ecosystem that, that still, still reflects, the tracks of handcart companies, ox companies, horse drawn and oxen drawn wagons that came from here to California. It would have used more concrete than we've used in many times over in the federal highway system. It would simply have denuded this area of water. It would have destroyed our aquifers, it would have taken more water than would have been consumable in most parts of the intermountain West. It was an enormous destroyer of the land it was supposed to defend, the sort of sad epitaph of the Vietnam War was when an officer said that we had to destroy that village to save it. I think that was entirely what was done by the proposed basing of MX. You would have destroyed an enormous area of the country. You would have taken the lives of scores of animals, the entire population of those animals in the destruction of this ecological system, and you would have created an area, right in our country's innards, designed to soak up Soviet land basing. Now think of this. As I was going nationwide with this story, Mt. St. Helens erupted. I don't think that is in any way tied to the Mormon First Presidency statement. We take no credit for that but it erupted and the ash from Mt. St. -Helens dropped clear across the East. If in fact deterrence failed, if in fact there were a nuclear exchange, there would have been not only the immediate total devastation of this part of the West, but with the eastward flow of the wind, we would have made radioactive the rest of our country. A noted Admiral said the height of good strategy is to avoid...is to avoid all battles if possible. But if you can't avoid a battle, to arrange to have it fought other than in the heart of your own country. To have sea basing available. And to have this kind of land basing, inviting Soviet attack in that kind of concentration, in one part of your country, is, I think, wicked. We were duped before in nuclear testing outside of Las Vegas. When I think the military and civilian leadership knew a lot more than they told us about the effect of, of open air testing of radioactive, of nuclear weapons. Then we were guinea pigs, now we were to be made sitting ducks. We stood on our hind legs and we objected.

ASKS ABOUT BEING CALLED THE LUNATIC FRINGE.

Well that Lunatic Fringe included the Catholic bishop, the Episcopal bishop, the Mormon First Presidency...

(INTERRUPTS)

That Lunatic Fringe included the Episcopal bishop of Utah, the Catholic bishop of Utah, the First Presidency of the Mormon Church, virtually every mainline church in this, in this valley and nationwide. It included most scientists who had examined it, most academicians, and finally most of the people. And so that Lunatic Fringe included by the end around 87 percent of our people.

WOULD UTAH HAVE PREVENTED IT IF REAGAN HAD NOT CANCELLED IT?

I have no idea what would have happened had, had Reagan gone on with this. I know there would have been very significant protest. I don't know how in a democratic state a President not committed, as Carter had been, to this basing mode, would make a decision to force that kind of basing mode upon a people who by this time had come overwhelmingly to oppose it.

ASKS HIS ROLE IN THE CHURCH.

The. I'm a layperson in the Mormon Church. I do not speak for the Mormon Church in any corporate capacity. I am a professor of law. There is no professional clergy in the Mormon Church. People such as myself may have a lay calling in the Mormon Church. But I'm simply a lay member of the Mormon Church.

ASKS HIS PROFESSION.

I am a law professor who has written and worked in the area of nuclear weaponry for 25 years.

AND...

And I'm an active Mormon.

ASKS HIM TO ELABORATE.

I am an active member of my faith and I'm a professor of law at the University of Utah.

...COMING TO UTAH?

I heard from Washington that the decision had been made to base MX here in the racetrack basing mode.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT IT?

Terrible.

COMPLETE SENTENCE, PLEASE.

I felt terrible about that news.

HOW'D YOU FEEL ABOUT THE MX COMING OUT HERE?

I felt terrible to hear that the MX was coming here.

HOW COME?

I felt that it was a terrible basing mode for any area of the country. That it meant that they were, in effect, the great sponge, the area that would soak up all of the Soviet warheads of their land based fleet.

AND WHERE HAD YOU GOTTEN, WHAT HAD GIVEN YOU THE IDEA THAT IT WAS MEANT TO BE A SYSTEM THAT WAS SOAKING UP WARHEADS?

Well, there were more or less the same numbers of shells as Soviet warheads. And the Air Force in the early days, at least, was very candid about the strategy. The idea was that land based weaponry was now vulnerable as each side developed the capacity to drop a warhead within 100 meters of a target. Once you can do that, you can knock out, at least theoretically, a lot of land based missiles. To preserve minuteman located elsewhere, the idea was to hide 200 MX missiles under 5,000 shells, or dummy areas for MX to be. So the soviets, to be sure of knocking out all of the MX, would have to target 5,000 shells; all but 200 of them empty. They had 5,000 warheads. I don't think the number was accidental.

YOU MENTIONED THE STORY ABOUT GENERAL LEW ALLEN CALLING UTAH AN MX SPONGE? COULD YOU...?

General Lew Allen is reputed to have said that MX was the great sponge to soak up Soviet warheads. This was widely reported for a long time. He denied it later, people say that he was on tape as saying that.

OKAY. WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU HEARD ABOUT THE SYSTEM COMING TO UTAH?

I began to speak against it immediately. I've been writing on nuclear matters for 25 years and the idea of counterforce strategy is basically that you target each other's weapons systems. In other words, the weapon that supposedly is to defend you is in reality the only reason for the Soviets to strike that area.

AND WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU...?

I began speaking in towns and cities all over Utah and Nevada, ultimately, opposing MX.

AND YOU FORMED AN ORGANIZATION?

A number of young people, around six young students at the University of Utah, had what was then called the Brian Shrimp Alliance, an environmental group of sorts. They, too, became concerned about MX. After my article in the Salt Lake Tribune appeared, a number of people began to approach me on how we organize against MX. These students, meeting in the basement of the Christian center across the street from the University of Utah, formed what came to be the MX Information Center. They asked me and General William Fairbourn, a retired Marine general, to serve as their advisers. Opposition really sort of began at that point.

I HEARD THERE WAS AN UNUSUAL COALITION OF PEOPLE WHO JOINED TO OPPOSE THE SYSTEM?

MX produced a strange variety of bedfellows, people that normally were shooting at each other began to shoot at the Air Force rather than each other. The Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Audubon Society on one side, the sheepmen, the cattlemen, normally not friends of the environmental groups, and vice versa, also for their own reasons the National Taxpayer's Union, a very conservative group for fiscal reasons. And one by one, almost all of the mainline churches came to oppose MX.

COULD YOU DESCRIBE THAT IN A MORE CONCISE WAY ABOUT PEOPLE BEING, AND SORT OF GROUPS WHO WERE NORMALLY, GO AHEAD.

MX produced a strange variety of bedfellows in opposition to do that system. I'll start again. MX produced opponents that normally were each other's opponents. They became allies in this effort. We formed Utahans United Against MX to keep those people from shooting at each other and keep them shooting at the Air Force.

AND IT BROUGHT TOGETHER WHAT TYPES OF PEOPLE?

These groups included the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the Audubon Society, environmental groups of all sorts. On the other side, cattlemen, sheepmen, cowboys, Indians, people who didn't normally get in bed with the environmental groups. They both came to see MX as a great threat to their interests.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE PRIMARY REASON PEOPLE OPPOSED THE MX SYSTEM?

I don't think there was one reason, there were two or three critical reasons for people to oppose MX. One, the environmental concerns. People realized that an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania was going to be affected so disastrously that it would be destroyed for cattle, for sheep, for agriculture, taking their water, destroying their aquifers, destroying the very thin topsoil, the very fragile topsoil of this area. People from a more spiritual or ethical point of view also felt a stewardship over the land and the water, the resources, the other life forms than human beings. The Air Force Environmental Impact Statement made it obvious that a number of forms of life would simply be extinguished here. Many others would be threatened, we felt human beings as well. That was one issue. Other people opposed it strategically. They understood, they're not stupid, they understood that this was decoy basing. They understood that, of course, it meant it was intended to prevent any attack. But if deterrence failed, that they were overwhelmingly the chief target. From being irrelevant to Soviet targeting, a little rural area in Utah and Nevada, they became without any question the number one target for essentially all of the Soviet land basing. So for strategic reasons, others opposed. What came, I think, to be the most important reason in defeating MX were spiritual, ethical, moral reasons for opposing the missile. People came to understand, they didn't necessarily understand in the beginning, but they came to understand the ethical implications of this; not simply the basing mode, but the missile itself. Opposition began to the basing mode. My own article centered only on the basing mode supporting the missile, originally. I came rather quickly to oppose the missile, too, located here or anywhere else. Because what you have is a weapon so accurate that it can only be meant to strike a Soviet weapon, not a city. In striking a Soviet weapon, it has to be used first, or never. It makes no sense to strike an empty silo. So very obviously, once you thought through this, we were developing a weapon system which presumed that we would strike first, a weapon system that could destroy everybody in the Soviet Union 30 times over instantly. That raises ethical questions.

NOW, THE AIR FORCE HAS SAID IT WASN'T A FIRST STRIKE WEAPON BECAUSE, FIRST OF ALL, THEY WEREN'T BUILDING ENOUGH OF THEM--

Baloney. The Air Force was proposing 200 weapons, 200 ICBMs, MIRVed by a factor of ten. That's 2,000 weapons. That, along with minuteman there, another big hunk of weapons MIRVed by a factor of three, is more than enough to redundantly target every Soviet ICBM.

WELL, THEY ALSO SAID THAT THEY WOULDN'T LAUNCH FIRST BECAUSE THE SILOS ON THE OTHER SIDE WOULDN'T BE EMPTY BECAUSE IF THEY OTHER SIDE LAUNCHED AN ATTACK ON US, THAT THEY WOULD ALWAYS HOLD A FORCE IN RESERVE AND IT WOULD BE IMPORTANT TO TAKE THOSE OUT?

Any country does a great deal of worst case analysis. I think the Air Force would not intend other things being equal to strike first, though we have never taken a first strike posture. Never have we said, though the Soviets have, that we would never use a nuclear weapon first. Clearly in northern Europe, we have intended to use nuclear weapons first if we couldn't stop a Soviet conventional assault. Worst case analysis basically means that you look at the technology of the weapon system. You can't psych out the Soviets, or they us completely, though we can try. You can say, "What will this weapon system do?" This weapon system is accurate enough to knock out their land basing. How will the Soviets have to analyze it? Exactly the way we did, that it's accurate enough and therefore it may be used in that way. As I say, we've had the capacity to destroy every Soviet city 20 times over, even with old forms of weaponry, the old titans would destroy everything in Moscow. It can't hit the broad side of a barn but with nine megatons, it doesn't have to. But this weapon can. It can drop almost down the silo of another nation's weapon systems. Once it has that capacity, of course, the other side, and anyone else looking at it, will look at its criteria and say, "Here is its signature. Here's what it can do. Therefore, here's what they may intend to do and plan accordingly." We did, too.

WHY WOULD IT BE BAD If THEY DID PLAN ACCORDINGLY?

Because it means they have to strike first.

YOU HAVE TO GIVE A PAUSE AFTER I FINISH ASKING THE QUESTION.

If the Soviets feel that we are potentially able to launch a first strike, they have been rendered soft. Weapons which the day before they considered hard, namely able to withstand a first strike and retaliate, are now soft. That means that they have to go to a launch on warning system. They can't wait until our missiles have hit their missiles and then respond because if our missiles are as accurate as we say, they won't have missiles at that point. They must launch on warning. That means that all of the safety factors that each side has to prevent an unwanted launch, an accidental launch, have to be dropped because you have to get that missile off fast. So we felt it was a great drop in our national security, not just Utahans, but anybody in this country, to have a weapons system which had the capacity to be a first strike weapon. MX, without any question, is. It is aimed at their missiles. You don't shoot empty silos, you shoot missiles, not empty silos.

IS IT SOMEWHAT SURPRISING THAT A, I UNDERSTAND THIS IS A REPUBLICAN STATE AND FAIRLY CONSERVATIVE AND NORMALLY SUPPORTIVE OF THE AIR FORCE HERE, OF COURSE THEY HAVE TONS OF LAND HERE, WOULD TURN AGAINST SOMETHING THAT THE AIR FORCE WANTED SO MUCH AND THE WHOLE GOVERNMENT SAID WAS IN OUR NATIONAL SECURITY INTEREST?

I think the Air Force, and the government, the Carter Administration at the beginning, and the Reagan Administration at the finale of this, were very surprised at the level of opposition here. I think we had been chosen for a number of reasons, not all of them, by any means, flattering to Utahans or Nevadans. I think they said you're hawkish, you're conservative, you've got a lot of land, you usually support the military knee jerk without thought as was seen in the testing of nuclear weapons out here, air bursts that killed a lot of sheep and damaged a lot of people. I think they were surprised. I think they felt also that we weren't very up to date on the national debate on nuclear weapons. Not only were we hawkish but we were essentially out of national dialogue. We came to teach ourselves and to do combat with them and to beat them on those issues.

THE AIR FORCE, AS I SAID EARLIER, SOMEONE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SAID THAT REALLY THE OPPOSITION OUT HERE WAS A BUNCH OF-- WHAT WAS THE PHRASE?

Lunatic fringe?

WAS A LUNATIC FRINGE THAT HAD INSPIRED IT?

I think some of the military, not all by any means, we had good relations with a number of the military, but some of the military and some of the civilian leadership of the military, take a very paternalistic, almost colonial attitude. We had insulting exchanges as well a very pleasant and respectful exchanges in which some people would assume that we had no basis to argue against national security interests. "Who are you to talk about nuclear weapons?" My response to them was, "How many nuclear wars have you fought, general? I fought exactly the same number as you, zero. I've thought about it, I've written about it for 25 years. I've read everything you have to say about it. I've read your environmental impact statements, I've read the strategic debate, I've participated in that debate for a long time. "I think the idea that you cede to the Air Force, or any administration, the whole definition of national security is nonsense and terribly dangerous nonsense. It's our lives they're talking about, it's our land. It's the land that Brigham and the Mormon people and many other groups colonized and settled. National security has to have something to do with the quality of your life as you chew up a desert, as you consume the water, as you devastate the industry and as you replace the local population with many other people you change that dramatically. We have a say in that. This is, after all, a democracy."

WOULD YOU TELL US WHAT YOUR RELIGIOUS PERSUASION IS AND HOW THAT INFLUENCED YOUR THINKING?

I'm an active Mormon. I'm a layperson...

WHAT?

I'm an active Mormon. I'm a layperson, I hold no ecclesiastical office in my church. I'm a professor of law and coming from both perspectives, from my profession and my church I oppose this. I oppose it spiritually, morally, intellectually, strategically.

WHAT WAS IT ABOUT YOUR GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER'S TEACHINGS THAT YOU THINK WAS... TO A SYSTEM LIKE THIS?

My great-great-grandfather, Brigham Young, spoke with great pungence. He wasn't known for tact or restraint or diplomacy, but he was known for straight talking. And he said in 1859 a great percentage of the wealth of the world today is being spent on armaments of destruction. He said, "May God save us from that kind of destruction. May God save us from them," meaning the armaments manufacturing interests. And he preached against any kind of an arms race. He said, "If we do this, we will eventually be destroyed by the weaponry that is to supposedly defend us. Weapons produced," he said, "ultimately become weapons used." If that's true of nuclear weapons, then these weapons that are supposed to defend this society will be enormous destroyers of it.

Starting from six young kids in the basement in the Christian Center and myself there came to be a very potent coalition that opposed MX. The Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, Friends of the Earth, and people that normally don't get in bed with those folks. The cattlemen, the sheepmen, Indian groups, the National Taxpayers Union, came to oppose MX for their own reasons. And this sort of secular coalition took place. Along with that, something else was happening, not in the basement of the MX information center, but among the churches. First churches that you'd expect, peace churches—Quakers and Mennonites, Brethren, Unitarians, then the Episcopal Church, Otis Charles and the Episcopal Church. Bishop William Wigan very recent in our state is a new Catholic bishop, spoke on behalf of the Catholic Church. And three times, the Mormon Church spoke, in December of 1980 at their Christmas message, their Easter message of 81, and finally on May 5, 1981, the MX statement that broke the bake, I think, of MX. It wasn't simply a, the straw that broke their back, it was a good, well-handled 2x4, that broke the back of this basic scheme.

ASKS WHY IT TOOK THE MORMON CHURCH SO LONG TO SPEAK.

The Mormon church moved very cautiously on this matter. They don't speak out frequently on issues of national importance. They speak on moral issues. It came, it took some time for all of us to see the moral and ethical and spiritual implications of MX. But when they did they spoke. They spoke three times. On Christmas of 1980, in Easter of 1981, both condemning the entire nuclear arms race and pleading for peaceful resolution and arms control rather than arms racing. Then on May 5th of 1981 they spoke against MX basing itself and that specificity was the powerful statement that not like a straw but like a 2x4 broke the back of MX basing.

ASKS ABOUT HIS VISITS TO ELDERS.

I began corresponding with Mormon Church leaders, sending them memoranda on this topic, and then speaking with some of them personally, over the course of a year, a year and a half's time. And finally was able to speak to the collective leadership of the Mormon Church prior to their statements. Other people spoke as well on both sides, they heard Air Force generals, they heard representatives of the missile industry, and they heard people opposing MX for many different reasons.

DIRECTS HIS ANSWER IN SUMMARY.

I approached the leadership of my church and told them my own concerns, and told them my feeling at least of a Christian necessity of opposition to this kind of a missile system and this kind of a basing system. The argument was not simply strategic though I made that as well, and it wasn't simply environmental, although I made that as well. Overwhelmingly it was a message of our own spiritual commitment, our own stewardship to defend life and to serve as stewards for this, this area, this geography, all life in this community.

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT.

I approached Mormon Church leadership early on in this process and had a dialogue with several of them, in writing and in person. I made not only the point of my strategic reasons for opposition and environmental concerns, but mainly the spiritual, the ethical implications of this. They speak on these issues and this, in my mind, is right at the core of MX as a missile in the basing system they had chosen. I pointed out the statements that that had been made by our own church leaders from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young from the beginning, and the general Christian heritage that this fits within. That we are stewards of our brothers and sisters throughout the world, and that while we should think globally, we should act locally, and here is where we have power, and here is where we have a peculiar responsibility of stewardship for all life, and for this land.

ASKS ABOUT AIR FORCE'S MISTAKES HERE.

I appreciate the Air Force even in some of their mistakes. They began with great candor. Statements to different of our people, "You are the bull's eye," "You are the great sponge," made the point. I didn't have to speak in some of the areas where they had spoken with that kind of candor. I think they other, made mistakes of, of in effect recognizing us. But these are not exactly mistakes. In a democratic state, they should have done exactly what they did do, as a matter of fact, but it was self-defeating. When Antonia Chayes rebutted my article in the Salt Lake Tribune, it elevated us in a sense to their own status, their own legitimacy. That's they way they should operate, but in doing so they were defeated. And they should have been.

ASKS ABOUT ELECTED OFFICIALS.

Overwhelmingly the elected officials were in favor of MX. They saw it as a great big post office with a lot of money and a lot of jobs. When they came, when the people came to see it as something other than that, as a grave threat to their way of life, whether missiles ever flew, and the end of their life if they did, they changed. But the elected officials did not lead out by any means on this issue. To a person, except for Francis Farley, the elected officials supported it. Some of them, our national representatives, our Senators, our Congressmen, supported MX to the bitter end. There was a sort of MX shuffle that took place among Mormon political elected officials after the First Presidency had spoken. All of a sudden they began to move a little bit side wards after the First Presidency of the Mormon Church had said, "We don't want MX here." But even then the votes of our national elected representatives remained 4-square for MX. This was a coalition of grassroots people who took on a President, at that time Jimmy Carter, took on a Congress that had funded this, a President that had written off on it, approved it, and to a person, every one of our elected officials at the beginning. Our Governor, Scott Matheson, came to be a very effective opponent of MX. But in the beginning he had invited MX here.

REMINDS HIM THE AIR FORCE SAID HAVING THIS IN THE HEARTLAND MEANT WE WOULD RETALIATE, MAKING IT A MORE EFFECTIVE DETERRENT THAN HAVING MISSILES AT SEA ON SHIPS.

To me this is game theory gone mad. What you in effect are saying is that we're going to make the consequences of a nuclear strike so utterly devastating upon ourselves that they would be frightened ever to do it, knowing that we would be angry. That is insanity. That is absolute insanity. The idea of weapons is that they are means, they are an end. If they ever become an end in themselves, we've destroyed the society. These weapons were to defend us against that very thing. If in fact deterrence fails, what have we done? We have upped the ante scores and scores of times over. This is like two teenagers playing chicken on a road and both appear to be drunk. This isn't strategy and this has no semblance to a congruence of ends and means. After all, putting all your eggs in a deterrence basket is very dangerous. You don't deter an accident, an accidental firing. A damned accident happens and you don't deter it because it's not a rational event. Deterrence assumes rationality. And assumes non-accident. You don't deter a miscalculation, and you don't deter insanity as a source of war. If war begins on any of those non-deterable ways, what you have done by basing this way is to increase enormously the level of your damage. It may be that any nuclear exchange would produce total Armageddon, but it may not be too. Because we've never fought that war, we've never had any exchange. If we had, God forbid, one accidental firing, would we want to have hooked the whole thing so ornately and elaborately together that it would automatically trigger Armageddon? I think not. That isn't strategy, that's utter stupidity.

DID YOU THINK THE SOVIETS SHOULD BE ABLE TO HOLD OUR SILOS VULNERABLE?

Sure, we hold their silo, silos vulnerable, and they ours. It's a matter of what kind of increased damage you want to pile upon yourselves. We hold their silos vulnerable from Trident and Polaris basing and Poseidon basing at sea. We hold their, their silos vulnerable for Minuteman, I, II, and III, particularly Minuteman III. Any of these hold their silos vulnerable. The question is how much do you hold yourself hostage in this process. What they did by basing MX here was to up the ante to such a gigantic scale that you're saying to the Soviets, "Don't do this or you sort of end the world." That, that's not smart.

ASKS HOW SALT II'S NOT GETTING RATIFIED RELATES TO THIS DEBATE.

The lack of ratification of SALT II meant that there was no upper limit on Soviet land basing. They could have any number of missiles or warheads. That meant that the supposed 5000 limit on their warheads was now off, and that meant for us that you would have a...a multiplication. These things would beget other shells. You'd have thousands and thousands of more shells, not simply 5000.So what originally was to take an area in the Nevada and Utah, the size of the state of Pennsylvania, would now take an endless number. Where you could have 7000, and then 9000, and then 12,000 shells, as you had to keep parity with Soviet warheads. And any idea that the Air Force might try to give you that that wasn't the idea, it falls by the same question of the effect of SALT II on MX basing. Clearly it was designed to soak up every one of the Soviet warheads. And that is the relationship between the failure of SALT II and MX.

RECALLS THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT PEOPLE SAID THERE IS NOTHING OUT THERE IN THE DESERT.

That's right, that was their idea. I think the Air Force and a lot of other people saw Utah and Nevada as one great big wasteland. This is an area of great life and great community. This is an area that our people came here as, as forming our Zion. Our City of God. As we were driven out of many other states in the Midwest and the East. There are people who live here, there are quite a number of people who live here. To destroy this area under a sort of subterfuge, that in fact you were defending it, was vicious.

ASKS FOR HIS ANALOGY OF DESTROYING PROPERTY IN ORDER TO SAVE IT.

I think maybe the saddest and most accurate commentary on one of our most tragic wars, Vietnam, was the statement made by an officer, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." That, I think, summarizes MX basing at least for this area, and in case of war for the nation as a whole. We would destroy the environment, take the water entirely, destroy the aquifers of that water, destroy the land, destroy agriculture, sheep raising, cattle raising, in an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania. And, and threaten the lives of all of these people most directly in case deterrence failed. Not only them, but as the eruption of Mt St Helens demonstrated, with an eastward flow of all of that debris from that great eruption. If in fact we were hit here, where supposedly no one lives, not only would we be destroyed but everybody eastward of us, and except for those folks in California, that means about everybody. Again, that is not smart strategy. You arrange to fight a battle if you can't avoid it entirely, other than where your people live. We live here.

ASKS HIM FOR A MORE CONCISE ANSWER.

I think the saddest commentary, maybe the most accurate of the Vietnam War, was the comment made by an officer, "We had to destroy the village to save it." I think that same lack of congruence between ends and means is what MX was about here. They were going to destroy this area, its environment, its water, its cattle its sheep, many life forms, supposedly to save us, to save us and the rest of the country.

WHAT WOULD BRIGHAM YOUNG HAVE SAID?

Brigham would have chased them out much more quickly than we were able to do.

(THEY DISCUSS ASIDE)

This is an interesting little anecdote of grassroots people overwhelming an establishment, but it's another story too, because it was here in the MX debate that you had the beginning of a national debate on the nuclear issue. We started that in effect. But we went national the day the MX First Presidency statement came out from my church, I began a nationwide speaking tour with an Admiral, a cowboy, and an Indian. I was the house Mormon. And we carried this through four weeks, through 25 universities, at least that many churches, many other groups, speaking on the media everywhere we could go. This was not only the beginning of the end of the MX debate, but the beginning of a national nuclear debate that still continues.

ASKS HOW HE FELT OCT 2ND, 1981.

I felt elation, that this... that this stage of things had come to an end. But I also felt some desperation because I realized that people need self-interest. We were interested because this was going to be in our back yard. My concern now was would we maintain that interest as it threatened someone else's backyard. I continued that debate in many, many states, in Wyoming and Colorado and the Dakotas and in California, and in New York. I crossed the country. I don't know how we go about teaching ourselves and each other that we are linked very much together. I came to identify very powerfully with someone in Germany concerned about missile basing there, someone in Moscow or Bonn, Leningrad, wherever. We are much more like mountain climbers linked together, I think, on a mountainside, in this nuclear age than we are opponents who are advantaged as our opponent is disadvantaged, and vice versa. I came to see that through this debate and I hoped that, that this whole area would remain concerned as, as MX left here but went somewhere else.

DID HE REALIZE IN 1980-81 THAT REAGAN WAS LEANING TOWARD TOWARDS NOT PUTTING THEM IN UTAH?

I came to realize that the President was leaning against putting MX here. You could tell that from some of the statements from Caspar Weinberger. I don't think their reasons for wanting to leave here were terribly good but I appreciated their conclusion that they were probably going to leave here.

HOW ABOUT DURING THE CAMPAIGN?

I think in the campaign it wasn't really possible to tell whether the President was going to base MX here or elsewhere. But as the end of the campaign approached I think it was becoming more and more apparent.

INTERRUPTS HIMSELF.

I'm ... a little unclear in mind of the chronology here.

(THEY DISCUSS)

He, he didn't give many tip offs in the election as to how he felt about that.

...Georgia or right around the Pentagon and see if they were as sanguine about the effect on Soviet targeting as they seemed to be when it was in Utah.

ASKS ABOUT AIR FORCE ARGUMENT...

The Air Force from the beginning of the MX debate argued that the land basing had to survive and MX was the next generation of land basing. They argued this again as if MX were an end in itself instead of a means for our security. They were willing to chew up our society for this end in their mind, means in mind, of MX. I think land basing in general, MX in particular, shouldn't be treated as if, as if the triad were the trinity, somehow immutable and to be worshipped. The, the triad began actually accidentally anyway. That has a heck of a lot more to do with inter-service rivalry. Each wanting a missile system, than it does our necessity of national security. In, in fact today, land basing doesn't simply have the advantages it once did. Once, in our time, at the time that I supported Minuteman, which I did, land basing had advantages of command and control and accuracy. Now with the Trident II submarine, having the same guidance system as MX, as MX or Minuteman III, those advantages are gone. They're every bit as much possible at sea, without that threat to our heartland.

ASKS EFFECT OF CHANGE FROM MPS LOOP SYSTEM TO STRAIGHT ROAD SYSTEM.

I think the Air Force intended that a less environmentally destructive basing mode, but still having the basing here in the Great Basin, would, would splinter our alliance and weaken our opposition. By that time, however, our opposition was far too hostile, to the missile, to any conceivable basing mode here, to have that survive.

ASKS EFFECT OF BILL MOYERS DEBATE.

Bill Moyers played an important role in the debate that he staged here because it focused national attention on us. We feared that this would be treated nationally as a footnote, as something of local concern here that didn't bother anybody in New York. It helped the nation see that this was a national problem.

HOW WOULD HE FEEL IF THE AIR FORCE FIGURED OUT HOW TO USE MUCH LESS LAND AND WOULD BASE SMALLER MISSILES HERE?

If the Air Force returned again with any kind of basing mode here, I would oppose them nose to nose, I would oppose them from the beginning to the end, we would fight them through political means, through organizing our religious groups here. We would oppose them at the ballot box, we would oppose them ultimately, if necessary, by putting our bodies right on the line.

HOW DID THE ELDERS FEEL DURING THIS LONG PERIOD?

I think the leadership of the Mormon church and other church leaders felt that they had met an issue which was at its center spiritual and moral and that they had done the right thing and they felt good about the position they had taken. They were to take some criticism after the Mormon First Presidency statement. I think they were willing to accept that criticism feeling they had done the right thing in this issue.

REPEATS QUESTION.

The Mormon leadership, with the rest of us, didn't perceive initially the moral and spiritual implications of this missile and this basing mode. They came to see that gradually with the rest of us. They approached it the right way, that is, hearing every side. Hearing Air Force generals and hearing the Thyokol people, hearing the missile makers as well as those of us in opposition. They waited carefully, they finally took a position I believe from their own, their own theology. They did what their own teachings forced them to do.

ASKS HIM TO SUMMARIZE THAT.

The May 5th statement of the First Presidency of the Mormon church said: This violates Christian teachings against weapons that would destroy countries. This violates the sanctity of an area that we came here long ago to set up as our Zion, our City of God. It is ironic that this area that was to be a staging place for preaching peace would be the biggest collection of armaments the world has ever known.

ASKS LESSONS HE DRAWS FROM STRUGGLE.

I think the big lesson is that of ends and means. You have to choose the means of defending our country, that are congruent with the end of peace and national security. If weapons, and the military in general, become an end in itself, and if we starve our housing, our jobs, our roads and environment, and threaten our very lives to perpetuate this so-called means, it's become the end. And we are sacrificed to perpetuate a military system and awesome weapons. That is deeply evil.