Here is a technique that I think is important. When I briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the 5th of February, 1983, because we were directing in the Clark Memorandum, which I have a copy of here: "The President would appreciate the individual views of the chiefs on the Triad, Peacekeeper and associated basing modes." That was dated 10 January. So by 5 February I had my act together, and no other chief at that time had presented his case to the other chiefs that he was going to present to the President. So I went down there on the 5th to do that, and that's when it happened. Now, in going through the building of that case for the joint chiefs, you have all of the elements of support for the concept, morally, technically, and otherwise. And I think it would be useful to go through the same briefing I gave the joint chiefs, which is 8 and a half minutes. Now, you can take it or leave it, but if you don't do that, you don't understand how policy changes are made in the government.

NO, THAT'S IMPORTANT. WHY DON'T WE BEGIN THERE, AND THEN WE'LL PICK IT UP, WE'LL JUST GO FORWARD FROM THERE.

Well, let me give you a little background.

(SIDE COMMENT)

You remember that on March 23, 1983, near the end of a major speech, the President inserted one line about the Strategic Defense Initiative that we now know it as. And he stated that, "What if free people could live secure in the knowledge their security did not rest upon the threat of instant US retaliation to deter Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?" That's what he said. And in that same speech, he also stated that, "My advisers, including, in particular, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supported my initiative." Now, that set of statements was to become one of the most important initiatives this nation has ever known, and probably the most important step towards a peaceful world that we have known in this century, in my opinion. And he also used the phrase, "Would it not be better to save lives than to avenge them?" Now, these words become very important as I go through the sequence as I viewed it as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the Strategic Defense Initiative. The background behind it is important, because I think sometimes the American people don't place it in the context of the political environment of the times. You remember the former administration had presented what was called a multiple protective shelter concept. It was rejected by the current administration. And the current administration was then tasked to come up with their proposal. And they came up with a proposal called "closely-spaced basing." And it was one of the several modes that the administration said they were going to look at. The Towne's Commission came in, and they recommended, again, this kind of a shell-in-pea game around the silos. It was rejected by the Congress as being something that they were not going to buy into, to approve the MX missile. They wanted to know what silo-basing scheme you had for the MX. So, the Congress had tasked the President by 1 March 1983, or not before 1 March '83, that's very important. It's very unusual for them to say that, but they didn't want a quick turnaround on this. They wanted some real thought put into it. Not earlier than 1 March '83 the President had to come back to Congress and say, "Now, look, we're not going to approve MX test shots, we're not going to come down on the number of MX missiles, until you tell us what you're really going to do. What is the whole strategic concept? What's this business about launch under attack and all of the other things? In January of '83, the Scowcroft Commission was established to take a look at all of these things. And this was in process at the time. In the meantime, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, knowing that this brouhaha had picked up and it looked as the current administration's basing mode was in jeopardy, started a series of briefings, technical briefings, policy briefings, reviewing the entire concept of the triad, looking at what's called the rice-op, the red exchange, our psy-op, our exchange, looking at all of the various models and analyses. We had some 42 meetings in the Joint Chiefs of Staff before we finally met with the President on 11 February 1983. So we were building up a bank of knowledge in strategic matters the likes of which we hadn't seen down there at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We were really focused on this issue, because we were coming to the nitty-gritty on MX, and where we stood in the whole triad. About halfway through that event, we, the joint chiefs, the five of us, were convinced that the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our own staff down there, simply were not coming up with some visionary thoughts, some real new concepts. Because after all, we were walking into what I would call a nuclear cul-de-sac at this particular time, with the Soviets somewhat unlimited, moving into land-based mobiles of various types, both rail and truck moved missiles, hardening up their command and control system, all the other things were under way. And, of course, we had a strategic modernization program going. We had the Trident 2 missile with the D-5 warhead, we had the B-1 bomber, we had the Alcom coming along, the stealthy bomber. We had the MX missile, which was more accurate and more powerful. We had a hardening of our command and control system, really starting from scratch. All these things were done within this administration, moving to a greater position of deterrent strength than we had by the end of the last decade, when we all became very worried about our strategic deterrence posture. And so, this is the background behind all this, and it's very important that we know that, because when we were tasked by the President in early January 1983 to be ready to come over on the 11th of February and brief the President on what the Joint Chiefs felt we should be doing in this whole area, and how we should answer the mail to Congress about the basing mode, and we were to present ourselves individually to the President. This is very unusual. So I began working in earnest, having a small study group that had worked with me for almost six months, and building up my own knowledge of strategic matters, because that wasn't where I'd focused. I had been focused on arms control and strategic matters across the board. I didn't know that much about it. Obviously, I had some knowledge, being in the military, but I wasn't a strategic expert. So I worked for about six months, building up my own knowledge. Fortunately I had done that. So by January, when we were tasked to make our own presentation to the President, I was in a position to begin to really do some heavy work. And I had this small group of highly thoughtful men that worked for me, plus an advisory panel called the CNO advisory panel, some of the best minds in the nation, Nobel laureates, technical experts, extremely well-known individuals in the field of strategic matters. These are well known, and the membership you can obtain. So I began to work the problem very hard. And I had listened to all the technologies. And I'm an engineer, I'm a technologist, nuclear power was my field and nuclear submarines, so I had a little knowledge of what I was listening to about the potential to go back to some concepts that we had rejected in the early '70s on defense, for lack of ability to manage such a complex system. The computer capacities weren't there, the command and control systems weren't there. So, I began to listen to all this technology, and many people I invited to come to lunch and talk to me about things, including Dr. Edward Teller. And Dr. Teller came to lunch on about the 20th of January, as I recall, for the first time. And while he was interested in Excalibur as a defensive mechanism, I told him that I was not interested in the program. I was interested in vision, timing. And I was interested to find out from him how he viewed the potential of American technology to reach out, perhaps beyond the turn of the century, and grasp the old concept of defense again, but in his broadest context. Not defensive silos, but defense against in-bound missiles that would raise question in the minds of the Soviet as to whether or not they could carry out their strategic objectives. And this was very important, to find out whether or not there was a new concept, because of exploding technology that in the last 10 years we had perhaps inserted a requirement to review all that again. Don't just reject it because it was rejected in 1973. Pick it up again and look at it.

LET ME INTERRUPT. MAY I ASK A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS AT THIS POINT? DUMB QUESTION, FIRST OF ALL: TELL ME, WHAT IS THE ROLE, THE PURPOSE, OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF? WHAT DO THE JOINT CHIEFS DO?

The Joint Chiefs, let me stick to this area, because I think it's very important, and it's germane to all other areas. The Joint Chiefs are tasked to provide the best military advice they can to the President, via the secretary of defense, and directly in the National Security Council meetings, not as a full member, but as a major participant. And at that time they were also tasked by law to make sure their dissenting views were presented to the President. And that's still held up even in the latest changes to the law, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have a heavy commitment to take the military requirements and make sure that they are satisfied in the political decisions being made, and this is particularly germane to strategic matters, since it's all political. And now to measure some of the political options that might be available and say, "Are these militarily sound? What's the military efficacy of moving in the direction that this gentleman just suggested?" We have to go back and analyze that in a big way. And we have all kinds of models, and really very good models, and very good knowledge of the Soviet system, and very good knowledge of the Soviet thinking and their methodology. So we feel fairly comfortable that we can make those analyses and make them very accurately. So that's our task. And many times we have to separate our own personal views from what is the hard, military justification for the decision you just made? And when we find it faulty, we say so. And this is what happened in the basing mode business, when it leaked out in a hearing, a closed hearing, when General Vessey answered the question: What was the vote in the Joint Chiefs of Staff? It was three to two against the administration's basing mode. So, what do the Joint Chiefs of Staff do? That's what they do. And it's the best thing that ever happened to this country, if they're allowed to meet and debate and deliver an independent opinion. It's extremely critical for the country. And they're not always followed, nor should they be. We all know that. But we should present the military's perspective, so that people can put that into the judgment hopper and make sure it's considered. And it should not be filtered through an appointee. And that's why the law says, when you have a dissenting view, Joint Chiefs of Staff, you, Mr. Chairman, at the National Security Council, must present that. And that's a very important thing for all Americans to understand. So, the role of the Joint Chiefs is one of determining the military efficacy of decisions that are made primarily by politicians, and to make sure we haven't given away the store militarily, which is very important to this country's concept of deterring war.

DURING THE EARLY YEARS OF THE ADMINISTRATION, SAY, '81, '82, '83, UP UNTIL THAT SPEECH, WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOINT CHIEFS AND THE CIVILIAN APPOINTEES IN THE PENTAGON? WHAT'S IT FEEL LIKE?

Oh, I think it's been very good, I really do. While there are many knock-down, drag-out battles, my feeling is that the civilian control over the military is, was a brilliant decision on the part of our Founding Fathers. It's the right thing to do. It keeps balance, it forces us in the right direction. We don't have any of the potential for the kind of military independence that you see in so many nations in the world that we abhor. I have never had any real problems. Obviously, there are battles, but that's what it's all about. It's going to be a constant tug-of-war between what's militarily sound and fiscally responsible, for example. So, that's where you get into most of the rub. The rest of it is really quite trivial. Our relationship with this President during my four years as chief of naval operations was unbelievably good. He had us over to the White House as Joint Chiefs of Staff 13 different times. That's more than all of the times of the five prior presidents put together. Now, he listened to us. And when we were not brought over, Iran-Contra, Reykjavik, okay, I don't know what would have happened. Would we have made a difference? Who knows. Why not give it a chance? And I think the President was not served well by, for whatever reason, of not allowing, not even seeking out the Joint Chiefs, having them get over there as he did so many times. Just before Grenada, the day before, he wanted to know from each individual one of us, "Should we go in tomorrow?" Now, those were exciting events for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So, what did they do? If they're used the way the law said they're supposed to be used, then they're valuable contributors to the policy-making of this country, and at least they're considered. And we were there 13 times, being considered, and we should never, they should never have let us go, because we might've brought one little element of sensitivity in some areas that might have made a difference, as it did in SDI.

I'M JUMPING AHEAD, BUT WHAT DO YOU MEAN LET YOU GO?

Well, we weren't called back in again. The 13 times stopped in the fall of '85, nominally. Maybe, we didn't get back over again as a group. Or maybe it was the spring of '86. But subsequent to that, it wasn't the same. It didn't seem to have the same ring that it had before. I think a lot of changes took place in the White House, and I don't know what all of the reasons were. Perhaps they didn't expect the Joint Chiefs of Staff would support a position, so you don't have a meeting, and that's one way to avoid having a meeting.

DURING THIS EARLIER PERIOD, BEFORE THAT PERIOD, WAS THERE A SENSE THAT AFTER A DECADE OF DRIFT THE COUNTRY WAS GETTING ITS DEFENSE PRIORITIES BACK IN ORDER?

Absolutely. We felt good about it.

(SIDE COMMENT)

Remember, the country was coming back in 1980, after the fall of Afghanistan, the fall of the Shah in Iran, and the many other complex wars, some 42 wars were going on internationally. And the American people got fed up with it. We were losing out. What was wrong? Why was the Soviet engaging in such adventurism, and why were we losing? Why didn't we know about things in Iran? And so, we were fed up with ourselves. We had gotten out of the post-Vietnam malaise, and we're really turning in the country. We immediately felt that in the military. Before one new dollar was spent in the '81 budget adjustment, or the '82 supplemental, before anything happened there that could possibly spend $1, the whole attitude in this country towards a stronger defense boosted the morale of the military forces and almost overnight improved the readiness, because there was hope now. They weren't paid any more at that point, but the expectations were that we were going to get ourselves on our feet again as a leading superpower in the world. So that made a very positive impact on the military. And, of course, then the funds began to roll in the '81 and '82 budgets, which were then seen in the fleet, in my case, or in the Army divisions or in the tactical fighter wings, or in the Marine Corps, two years later. Now you're talking about 1983, really, before the first dollars, except for some pay dollars, were really seen by the troops. But then it began to roll very fast, and we began to put our act together in each of the services, and there was much more cohesion. And the spirit of cooperation in the Joint Chiefs was incredible. We didn't have any fighting. The bickering that some of our predecessors talked about was in the last decade, when they were scrapping for a handful of dollars. That's when the bickering always peaks. We know that. We didn't have that bickering. Charlie Gabel and I signed the joint memorandum agreement between the Air Force and Navy that was precedent-setting, it was overwhelming. And for four years, we worked together. And that's why Achille Lauro, that's why the other operations in Libya went so well, we were there together. We knew how to operate with each other. We worked on that. There wasn't any scrapping between the chiefs. We were all together as a cohesive unit, because we had the resource, we had the ability now to focus on how to optimize those resources, and we thought we did a good job. And so, we already that spirit within the chiefs themselves, which probably led to the agreement by the chiefs, when I presented my position on strategic defense to them, to go as well as it did. I think there was such an openness and a mutual respect and trust between the chiefs, we didn't have those kinds of problems. We had wide-open debates, and we all respected each other a great deal, and still do to this day. We think we had a very unique team, supported by the President and the secretary of defense, who was involved with us in everything we did, and was down spending hours with us once a week, debating and transferring views and thoughts, just the five of us with the secretary of defense. Very, very impressive period of time about cooperation, understanding, exchange of views. Civilian-military relationships, while always going to be strained in some areas, were basically sound. And so, that was kind of the background behind that.

ARTIFICIALLY, LET'S TAKE SDI OUT OF THE EQUATION. WHAT WE HAVE IS WE HAVE A STRATEGIC MODERNIZATION PROGRAM GOING ON. IF SDI HAD NOT EXISTED... HAVE REDRESSED THE BALANCE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIETS? IN OTHER WORDS, WOULD WE BE STRONG ENOUGH WITHOUT IT?

The answer is yes.

CAN YOU TELL US THAT, IF YOU WOULD?

I think it's important to look back at the development of SDI not as a part of strategic modernization at all, but, rather, as an alternative to offensive strategic weaponry and mutually assured destruction. Would the modernization program the President had underway, for example, have sufficed? The answer is clearly yes, if carried through. But what was the guarantee in this country that we were going to continue with a mutually assured destruction concept which vested in the silos of our country more powerful weapons, subject to first strike vulnerability, and, whether we liked it or not a de facto launch under attack policy, which we abhor. We don't like launch under attack. It's tricky. It's of great concern to us. It's fragile. And yet we were in it, whether we liked it or not, with a handful of missiles pitted against the SS-18s of the Soviet Union. So, it wasn't so much that this strategic modernization program couldn't have done the job in the next 10 years. But what was the next event? Would we have had to go into deep silos or some new concept of putting rubble on top of the silos? This was debated, you know, heavily. Would the American people stand for it? Were they going to allow more silos to come into the country with all the debate we just heard on MX? My God, and the basing mode? So, politically, we were stymied. And we had to come up with something newer, in our opinion. Would the old system have worked? Yes, if you had no political obstacles in this country, as the Soviets do not, and could have gone on with the next generation of offensive nuclear weapons, in the next generation of silos, in the next generation of pea-under-the-pod concepts, with mobiles perhaps bouncing off against the Soviet, with massive verification regimes airborne in space, because there isn't anything to pick out a mobile, as you know. And with a 40 percent cloud coverage in most of the Soviet Union where they'd put it anyway, how are you going to do it by electronic beams? So, we had a whole new ballgame coming up in the next event. So why put all that investment today in something you know has a short life politically in this country, and certainly financially had a short life? We hadn't begun to cost out the cost of a verification regime in space for land-based mobiles. So, wasn't it time to take a look at what we're good at technologically, which is our strength in this nation, taking a theoretical concept and producing it, and that's difficult for the Soviet, but not for us. And that's our strength. So let's shift to our strength and play to their weakness, and let their strength be finessed by our technological genius over the next 20 years. It was a long-term investment at a time when the next generation of super computer was being debated as to whether or not we could outrace the Japanese and come up with an almost human thinking computer, which will probably come some time after the turn of the century. So, we're moving in that direction. Isn't it time now to look ahead to that period of time and begin to raise the R and D levels of interest now and move out to see if it can work? Isn't there new hope here? was the idea. So I think that the answer to the question of whether or not we would have made it with our strategic modernization program, yes. Particularly in the one element of hardening command and control that the American people have never been exposed to. And yet it is the guts of strategic deterrent, absolute guts. It is not only the missile in the silo or in the submarine or carried on the bomber. No. It is the way that you command and control that toward termination strategies in favor of the United States over the Soviet Union. That is a complex regime, and it deals with being able to survive the initial attack and keep the United States command and control intact. And that's the same objective that the Soviets have. And this is why they've hardened their command and control. We did not have a hardened command and control. We do today. And that's exciting in the sense that that probably has contributed as much to deterrence than any of the nuclear warheads, because we can demonstrate that we're serious about maintaining our form of government and that of our allies by this technique, so we can command and control it, and we can take it toward termination on grounds favorable to the United States. And the Soviets know that, and that's why they're at the bargaining table today. And it's because of SDI, which is hanging out there, because of our strategic modernization program, that they're at the table. And if the Congress had voted to cancel MX, I can guarantee you they wouldn't be at the table today. It takes all of those elements of the triad, and the command and control system, and the long-range R and D threat, which Arbitov says, "It's the technical spin-off of SDI that we're worried about, because what will be the impact on conventional forces by SDI?" Is it only going to go after ballistic missiles? Who's going to negotiate that treaty, of whether the ground-based laser bounced off the mirror is only going to go at ballistic missiles? Nobody has faced the issue yet. SDI has tremendous ramifications technologically for the world, and it certainly has ramifications in all phases of warfare, including chemical, biological and conventional. And so, those are the issues that need to be faced now. But to sit around and ignore the technology of the future and say somehow it's going to go away and we don't have to worry about it, is foolish reasoning. It's there. The Soviets just admitted, Mr. Gorbachev just admitted the other day, in his statement before he came to the United States, "We've been doing defense. We've got it all in R and D. You want to go that way? We'll pull it off the shelf and put it in space." I doubt that. I think they have a lot. They put $20 billion, 209 times as much investment in defense as we have over the years. But they're not as good as we are technologically, and my guess is they're worried to death that their SDI is much less promising than our SDI. So, there again, I think you find the climate towards a defense concept to be just right. And that's why I felt it was time to make the move. I felt the timing was right. The potential technology within the next 20 years was going to be there, that we had to break out of our current mutually assured destruction mode, which I think most Americans have found over the years is a very distasteful thing to them. Witness all of the opposition. It has to come from that concept of killing everybody on this earth is something that we all detest. And so, the decisions are always framed in that context. And it's the only place in defense that we do that. Conventional defense is defense. It isn't offense. It isn't killing everybody. So, what's the beef on SDI? It fits all of our ethic in this country since the very outset, and, therefore, a transition to it seems to me to be logical, when it was not logical, or technically feasible, only 10 years ago. But it is in the next 20 years. And it needs to be worked piece by piece, and the hopefulness that's brought about by a defensive mode that can not only deal with inbound ballistic nuclear missiles, but may even be a deterrent to any further warfare, is an incredible vision that is quite possible. And now is the time, as the President has said, at the right time we want to bring the Soviets with us on this, because that's the next form of negotiations. In 2010, I won't be here, but I can guarantee you there'll be a strategic defensive initiative negotiations going on in Geneva, and we'll talk about the proper use of space for other purposes. Nobody will argue the question that both superpowers should bring down inbound nuclear missiles, and that's a very valid point, particularly if they're new third world emerging nations that might have these things with irresponsible leaders, such as we would not want Mr. Gadaffi to have one, for example. So, we have, both superpowers, then, have that capability. In the meantime, now they're negotiating what the no-nos are from SDI, Soviet and US, for other purposes, first strike against hardened command and control sites, first strike against conventional forces, what would all that mean? Now, those things have to be discussed and thought out as this thing moves forward over the next 15 to 20 years.

GOING BACK NOW TO THAT WINTER OF '83, WHEN YOU WERE BEGINNING TO MEET AND TALK ABOUT THE IDEA OF DEFENSE, THIS IS AN IDEA, I MEAN, THIS HAS BEEN TALKED ABOUT A LOT IN THE LATE '60S, EARLY '70S. IT SEEMS TO DISAPPEAR, YOU KNOW, IT PERCOLATES ALONG IN THE WEAPONS LABORATORIES AND THE ARMY AND AIR FORCE PROGRAMS, ET CETERA, BUT IT'S NOT IN THE PUBLIC MIND. SUDDENLY, THE PRESIDENT MAKES A SPEECH. WE ALL KNOW IT WASN'T THAT SIMPLE, BUT HOW DOES THAT SPEECH COME ABOUT? IS IT JUST YOU AND THE JOINT CHIEFS, IS IT OTHER PARTS?

How does it get, how does a new change in direction come about? How does policy change in the country in such an area as SDI, which is a dramatic shift in strategic concepts. It comes from years and years of listening to debates on the subject. It doesn't come over a short period if time. It's not a hip shot. There were many people who felt let down by the decision not to put defensive mechanisms, which were allowed under the treaties, around our silos. The R and D in the Army was rather extensive, around a half a billion a year in R and D alone for Sprint missile interceptors and the various kinds of techniques. The Navy had a chemical laser program out on the desert to use on ship board systems to destroy inbound warheads, conventional warheads, or to put command and control sites at sea out of commission, that sort of thing. So, a lot of research and development going on on the fringes of something that might be used in space defense. The technology was exploding, and so the rationale for not going into defense that was valid years ago may no longer be valid. There were people like Jay Keyworth, who is a scientific adviser to the President, who felt, as I did, that technology was here to do something different and to expand our vision and to give people a sense of hope instead of despair about the next decision on what we were going to do with basing the silo, basing missiles in the silos on our shores. And so, the concern of the American people was peaking up at a time when the strategic balance was shifting in favor to he Soviets, which it was doing by 1975. Everybody now considers that the crossover point was around the mid-'70s. So you have all of that background, and now that's coming in from the political side. But if you are a President that believes very strongly, as he does, in the Christian-Judaic ethic in the country, believes very strongly that mutually assured destruction is not the way to go forever, believes very strongly that the American people were crying for an alternative that we weren't giving them, was watching the technology and listening to a lot of people like Dr. Teller, like Jay Keyworth and many others, who were saying there's a better way. And then the Joint Chiefs of Staff coming in and unanimously supporting a major change at the strategic crossroads that we're in for the future, still supporting his modernization program, because that was good for the interim period, you needed that anyway, because you're not going to get to SDI very fast, and allow that to carry us through the rest of this century, and then be migrating and shifting with offense on the decline and defense on the incline. That was the name of the game. And so, when we came together and made the recommendation to the President, he'd already done all the rest of the thinking, and he needed one very strong input from the military side. Remember, I told you that the chiefs have the responsibility to talk about the military effectiveness of weapons systems. And we were convinced that we'd gone as far as we could go in offensive nuclear weapons vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, because of our political system is openness, it's the testing of mutually assured destruction as a concept vis-à-vis the Soviet, who had no problem continuing in that vein. As long as we wanted to play in that game, that we were playing to their strength and our weakness. So, I think it all came together. It was a confluence of thought at a very critical time, but, in my opinion, the Joint Chiefs of Staff probably played the key role. And you'll only know the real truth to that by asking the President, and maybe in late January of 1989 the President will tell you. Because I don't know. And I would be presumptive if I were to say that we were the sole contributors. But I know that we made a significant impression by having a 5-0 vote to make this major change in our strategic posture.

WAS THERE ANY CONCERN ON THE PART OF THE JOINT CHIEFS THAT THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT SDI WOULD COST MIGHT TAKE MONEY FROM MILITARY PROGRAMS THAT THEY WERE ATTACHED TO ALREADY, AND THERE MIGHT BE A TRADE OFF?

Not if responsibly executed. We all believed that it was such a valid concept, that there could be a transitional road map made to go through the '90s into the early part of the next century that we could lay out and we could do, so that we did not put our forces in jeopardy, that we could do both. Because so many of the things in research and development were already going on. As we found initially, about two-thirds of everything we initially put into SDI were already in the various programs. The large majority was in the Army and Air Force, not the Navy. The Navy had $50 or $60 million in chemical lasers. But the other services had vast amount of dollars. I told you, half a billion in the Army alone, doing things that were very germane to strategic defense. In the Navy, we had the Aegis weapons system, which is probably the most sophisticated battle management system in the world. And that was underway. So, we had expertise and we had R and D in that area. So, there were many things we could pull off the shelf and package up as the guts of the SDI budget for the first year, two-thirds of which were already in the system. So, in a way, it wasn't that significant an add-on at the outset. We knew it would grow in the out years, no question about it, but we hoped by then that we could bring down other force sizes to compensate, and, in the end, this would be by far the most significant military contribution we could make to modern warfare, and to give ourselves continuing deterrents for the next 50 years, and perhaps even peace in the world. We really believe that. And I think that had that road map been laid out well, and it's not dead yet by a long shot, and had the policies that relayed to that technical road map been laid out well, which I do not think they have been, then I think it's a winner. I think what happened here is technology was allowed to outrun policy, which is typical of this town, because policy is tough to face. Technology moves right along. The problem here is that we didn't set up the policy-building body directly under the President, in my opinion, that could have allowed technology to be the focus in defense, and allies and other policies to be a focus in the State Department. But the broad policy issues on the transitional road map from offense to defense, which is political in nature, could be worked by some of the best minds in the world, US and foreign, to come together and convince ourselves that this made a lot of sense. Now, we have plenty of people who believe that and we have plenty of people who don't. Most of those that don't are damning it on technical grounds, and they damn it on, battle management is just too tough. Well, I think that's very short-sighted. In the first place, we don't know yet what that next generation of supercomputers is going to do. But you've got to start all this other work and find the voids of technical understanding that are there, and try to fill those over the next few years. But this R and D program can continue, and demonstrations, testing and so forth. And sure it has to be negotiated under ABM and other things. That was part of the transitional road map that we laid out. So there are many concepts that I don't think we followed well in taking the initial one-liner in the President's speech and bringing it to fruition over, say, the time he's been in office. I believe it could have been done better, and it should have been a very high-level policy group under the President, seven or eight people of great stature, both sides of the aisle, apolitical, nonpartisan, that are willing to open their minds and take a hard look at this thing from a policy standpoint. Not a bunch of technocrats, but yet with enough linkage to the technology to know that what they were saying made some sense technologically. And I believe this was a detractor from a more effective entré of SDI into the modern thinking.

(SIDE COMMENT)

I think it might be useful now to give you the same briefing that I gave to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Saturday morning, the 5th of February, 1983. This was at 9 o'clock in the morning. We were assembled down in General Vessey's office, just the five of us. I had asked General Vessey a couple of days before, following a JCS meeting, that I'd be permitted to present my case that I was to make to the President in response to the National Security Council advisers' memorandum, that each individual chief would be asked his views. I asked Vessey to allow me to give that presentation to all the chiefs. He set it up for Saturday morning. No other chief at that point had taken a position that I knew of, we certainly hadn't discussed it in open session, about where we were going in response to the questionnaire from the national security adviser. I had been working probably now about one month on this in specific, two weeks intensely since my last visit with Teller. I had two visits with Edward Teller. And Edward Teller is a fascinating individual, and you watch his rate of vibration, and when it's high on a subject, you better listen. There's an experiment in engineering you do, in theoretical mathematics, called a vibrating read experiment. And when I watched Dr. Teller vibrate on the subject of technology, where the Soviets were, where we were, where he was in X-ray laser experimentation at Livermore on his nuclear pump laser, so-called Excalibur system, listening to all that and listening to his intensity and his feeling that the United States was missing a window of opportunity in the technological field that would be devastating were we not to move it now. And having heard all the other briefings I had on technology, I was convinced that it was time to make the move. So I had prepared now this presentation, which I'd like to give you, because I think it gives you a logic train about SDI and the Joint Chiefs, which is very critical, because following this briefing the Joint Chiefs adopted this as the approach we would not only take from Admiral Watkins presentation to the President, but, rather, we would present it as the Joint Chiefs' unanimous approach, which I felt was the most exciting thing that I had ever done in all my 41 years in the military, without any question, to bring consensus to that group that morning had a powerful impact on me personally. I did not expect the chief of staff of the Air Force or the chief of staff of the Army, or the chairman necessarily, come aboard. But this is what I gave to them. And I'm going to present it to you as I would have presented it to the President, because I think it's important that you hear exactly the presentation that I gave the Joint Chiefs. Now, I'm going to say, "Mr. President," but you recall now, we're in a meeting in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, five of us, Saturday morning. This is not the President himself, but it's a dry run, you might say, for my presentation that I anticipate giving the President a week later on the 11th of February, when we met with him at 12 o'clock to 1:30. "Mr. President, I strongly support the triad. I recognize the need for strategic diversity, potential for hedging and target flexibility. Multiple systems complicate Soviet military planning and resource allocation and therefore must be retained. I strongly support your initiatives to improve the survivability and endurance of strategic command and control, especially in the post-attack period, and I support Peacekeeper development as part of the triad for arms control leverage. Otherwise, there's little incentive for Soviets to negotiate, because we're already doing it for them. "To show NATO allies we, too, are willing to modernize land-based systems and accept them on our own sovereign territory, and, most importantly, the Soviets can now threaten our ICBMs to an extent we cannot threaten his. So, I support the continuing research and development on a wide range of alternative, with more focus on small land mobiles and ballistic missile defense, for example, to facilitate future deployment options, if the Soviets fail to respond to our arms control initiative. "Unfortunately, we've allowed current public debate to become too complex and too focused on the narrow question of basing mode A versus basing mode B. We need to recognize that in large measure your program is fast-restoring and acceptable margin of safety to America after nearly two decades of neglect. But we must find a better way to present the case in a larger context. I sense an opportunity now, one that holds out the possibility of moving toward an exciting new strategy, a new vision which can capture the imagination of the American people. "I believe this is far more important than placing nearly sole emphasis on a specific basing mode. I'll discuss it in a moment, but first let me say where I'm headed with Peacekeeper. Your modernization program results in a significant improvement to air and sea legs, B-1B, Stealth Alcom, Trident submarine, Trident II missile. You're beginning to create a symmetry strongly in our favor in these two legs. New capability is already being deployed with the first squadron of B-52s, B-52 Alcoms. You ought to take more credit for it. Your program gives highest priority to strategic command and control systems that can survive and endure even after an attack. Your priorities are on the mark. We simply must be able to communicate with and control our strategic forces before, during and after an attack. This is a vital element of deterrence not normally understood by Americans as the underpinning of the triad, and it warrants more publicity. "More importantly, it's vital for our own self-confidence that we can effectively employ the systems we already have across the entire strategic spectrum. We need confidence-building measures for our own nation as much as we do between the Russians and ourselves. Assured post-attack control is especially vital. It visibly demonstrates our resolve to persevere, even if attacked. We probably need to do even more in this decade, and then demonstrate this capability to the Soviets at an early date, like 1986-'87. "Certainly, we would all like high ICBM survivability, but, at best, this demands complex and costly systems and open-ended resource constraints. The scientific community is split on the technical feasibility of achieving survivability through fixed base modes. And even if a complex basing mode did provide short-term survivability, there's clear evidence that any immobile target can never be survivable for very long. Efforts to make them so will be extraordinarily costly. It would continue to generate a public sense of hopelessness that there is no end in sight to the perennial back and forth regarding the fixed sovereign soil systems. "Fortunately, you brought B-1 back to life and converted Trident II from the rhetoric to a viable program. Therefore, we do not now need the same degree of ICBM survivability required by the previous administration's policies. The danger is that seeking high survivability through a costly, complex basing mode could lead to loss of the entire Peacekeeper program in Congress. Any such basing mode will be seen as having high risk, and that it will not be survivable for very long. We've tried the best complex approaches we can devise over the last several years, but without any success. Fine-tuning on multiple protective shelters or your closely-spaced basing concept is a poor bet. "Rejection of Peacekeeper again by Congress would be devastating to the United States. We can't lose again. Therefore, I recommend a new strategic direction and a new role for Peacekeeper. The strategy in a moment. First, I recommend a reduced Peacekeeper deployment in existing silos. Low numbers are adequate to threaten Soviet heavy ICBMs, but will not be destabilizing. Keeps production base for breakout if arms control falters, thus is an incentive for real arms control. "This approach is not without risk, but chances of success are better than with other alternatives. Congress rejected silo-based Peacekeeper as an interim solution because a credible, survivable, permanent basing mode had not been presented to them. But we can convince Congress that high survivability is not essential to deterrence, given the other improvements in your program, if we place it within a longer-term strategic objective. Peacekeeper in silos admittedly depends on launch under attack for survivability. National policy is properly not to rely on launch under attach. "But like it or not, we have on a de facto basis depended on launch under attack for five plus years, and must do so, in any case, for about five more, until 1988, even if closely-spaced basing were to be approved. At least with the command and control improvements, we can execute launch under attack much more reliably by 1988. Silo-based Peacekeeper, admittedly, is not adequate for the long-term, but may be acceptable for this decade, provided Peacekeeper in silos is accompanied by transition to a new, long-term strategy. "Here's the vision that I talked about earlier. I spoke of long-term objectives earlier, the new strategic vision. It should probably be based on defense as opposed to offense, or retaliation. Destroy his forces as far from our shores as possible. Exactly our policy in conventional warfare today. Exciting new defense R and D possibilities have opened in recent years. We should protect the American people and our allies, not just avenge them. "New long-term strategy will help curb growth of offensive arms and less sensitive to Soviet responses. We'll move conflict away from the United States, a strategy consistent with our historical approach in conventional war fighting. The opportunity, I think, is there to alter long-term strategic objectives, and the timing is now. Your program is making us strong enough without such heavy focus on ICBM survivability. "The logical next step in American policy is to shift focus to strategic defense. In past, weapons systems limitations at the time drove our policy. In the 1950s and '60s, we had a policy of assured destruction, dependent on deterrence by punishment. In the '70s and '80s, we had the counter military or counterforce policy. It depends on deterrence by denying Soviets their goals, but still through punishing attacks. Future? The policy should be to deny the Soviet their goals by protecting insofar as possible our people and our allies and their homelands, not by attacking the Soviets. "The summary, then: In moving to this new strategy, a strategy of forward strategic defense, there are two transitional steps. The first and foremost is to change our thinking. The destructiveness of nuclear weapons cannot and should not be denied. Complete protection of our people is not possible. But former administrations as well as many strategic thinkers have enshrined vulnerability as a positive good. We have argued it is stabilizing and thus desirable for our people in our cities to be held hostage. In my opinion, this is neither moral nor sensible. "Thus, the first step is to think through the implications of a significant active defense for North America and our allies. The second step is technological. We must follow, this must follow after the conceptual thinking. Thus, we're not ready to launch a Manhattan Project on defense. The specific technical aspects of forward strategic defense are less important than the overall vision. This approach will take time, perhaps to the end of this century, but there is at least as good a chance that we can do this as there was of sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to earth. The advantage of forward strategic defense are obvious. We move the battle from our shores and skies. Thus, we are kept from the dangerous extremes of (a) a threatening preemptive strike; or (b) passively absorbing a Soviet first strike. And so, we found the middle ground. It's more moral and therefore far more palatable to the American people. "Summary: We are strong and getting stronger. Your program is making us so. We need not apologize so much for the partial frailty of one leg of the triad. Peacekeeper in silos will add to our growing strength. High survivability is not essential. We should set a new long-term strategy now, one based on the more sociologically acceptable concept of defense far from our shores rather than offense. We are not ready to begin an immediate hardware program, but we can set a new course and establish a goal like JFK did: "Land a man on the moon in this decade." If you agree in this vision, Mr. President, the entire national security community must begin the additional and difficult thinking needed before you present such a concept to the American people. "What is important now is to build up and then exude confidence in our own ability to deter. Your approved programs are already closing the 'window of vulnerability.' We don't need much more than Peacekeeper plus already approved programs. The American people will understand this vision of forward strategic defense and will support it. You should consider presenting this new vision to them and stop the basing mode A versus basing mode B debate, which is so debilitating." I then thank the chief for allowing me to present it. We had about a half an hour debate, and the chiefs all said, "We agree with Watkins. Let's now build a presentation to the President that will be given by Chairman Vessey," which we did. And my staff, two principal staff people working on my paper and my approach to this helped in preparing that presentation to the President, which went back and reviewed prior decisions, a baseline review of the strategic posture vis-à-vis the Soviet, and then wrapped up with this. And I think the most important event that occurred on the 11th of February, when we talked to the President for an hour and a half, was that after Secretary Weinberger presented his new concept of basing, which was much like the old one, but strengthened and so forth, he turned to the President and said, "Mr. President, now I've presented you my opinion of what we should do in making your presentation to Congress after the first of March. On the other hand, you should be aware that the Joint Chiefs do not agree. They have another approach, and you should hear them now." And I've always said after that, that I considered that to be the ultimate in the democratic process, that Cap Weinberger understood the law and he encouraged thoughtful debate on positions that might counter his own. I didn't see that in the prior administration, and I don't have experience with the ones before that. But I can tell you that that was a great day in my opinion for the country, to allow the military people to come forward on such an important matter, and make a presentation that moved us in almost a diametrically opposed direction to what we had been on for a couple of decades.

ADMIRAL, WHERE WAS THAT PRESENTATION TO THE PRESIDENT MADE ON FEBRUARY 11? AT THE WHITE HOUSE?

Oh, yes, it was at the White House. I believe it was in the Cabinet room. I can't remember now which room it was in.

WHAT WAS THE PRESIDENT'S REACTION?

Very positive. Very positive reaction. Mr. McFarlane was at that time, I believe, as the deputy to Mr. Clark, chaired that particular National Security Council meeting. It was just the chiefs, Mr. McFarlane, Secretary Weinberger, and perhaps there were a couple of other people there. But, generally, that was the make-up of the room.

WAS THERE DISCUSSION?

Quite a bit of discussion. The President was taken by the words "to protect our people, not avenge them." And, in fact, I believe he said, "Don't lose those words." He'd obviously given a great deal of thought to it. We obviously had support from people like Dr. Keyworth. I believe Mr. McFarlane himself was very supportive of the concept. I know that subsequently many others, after the gestation period of about six months, came onboard. Obviously, it was a shock to many to have the President come out and make a speech which had not been discussed with many of the people that are normally in the inner circle. But, you know, if the President hadn't done it the way he did, it would not have happened. The bureaucrats would have sandbagged him all the way down the line: "It's impossible." "It's too expensive." And so forth. But you have a loyalist like Secretary Weinberger who when the President makes a decision can shift gears quickly and stay with him, it's one of his great strengths, that he was that big a person that could move, even though he felt that this was probably too unknown and too mythical at this point to pick up on, when the President made his decision on the 23rd of March through his speech, everybody got cranked up for it. Because it was rather, it wasn't even mentioned in the Scowcroft Commission report. So it was a significant move away from past policies, and yet it demanded that his modernization program proceed. It did not preempt that in any way. But it was a longer-term vision to provide a transition, because I think we all felt that the next addition of this modernization program was probably not going to be saleable insofar as the land-based systems were concerned in this country, politically.

YOU SAID, IF IT HAD PERCOLATED THROUGH THE BUREAUCRACY THERE MIGHT HAVE BEEN MORE OPPOSITION OR IT MIGHT'VE GOTTEN WATERED DOWN. BUT HE HAD THE JOINT CHIEFS ON HIS SIDE, HE HAD THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE AND HIS CHAIN OF COMMAND ON HIS SIDE. WHERE WOULD THE OPPOSITION COME FROM?

Well, but supposing you had said, "Alright, we'll take this concept and we'll study it for the next three months. We won't do anything with it yet. We'll go with the present defense position on dealing with Congress in the MX basing mode debate. In the meantime, we'll do this quietly and see if it has any real merit. Forget it. I mean, I've been around this town long enough to know, if you want to make a move in a new direction, you get your ducks all lined up and you make your move. The best thing to do is to go public with it, and get on it, because there are so many reasons not to do SDI, gee, money, it takes away, doesn't it send a signal that we're not really serious about our own modernization, and, after all, has ACTA been in this, and, golly, we haven't gotten State, this is going to be a shock to the allies." And so, by the time you go through all that rigmarole, we've seen the Gang of Four and others been very opposed to SDI since, that have almost shot it down, and yet it's building now its own life. And even Sam Nunn said at one point, "It's no longer if, it's when." And that was a turning point in about probably 1986 that he made that statement. I may be off a little bit, but I think it was in '86. So that told me that there is receptivity to it in the country, and the polls have indicated that. And so, I'm a great believer in, when the American people say it's time for a change, that we ought to listen to it. And we've got to work very hard at it, and not let the bureaucrats pound it down on the basis of old theories. After all, this upset everything. How are we going to handle this in negotiations? What were the Soviets going to do? Right away, they came out of the woodwork: "This is a trick, another one of these capitalist tricks you're pulling on us. We can cheat, but you guys can't. It's unfair. That isn't your way of doing business, now you've thrown us off-kilter here. What is this, a violation of the ABM treaty?" Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, you have to be willing to take all the heat in that confusion to get a concept this radical moving. And I give the President great credit for thinking through this, despite our recommendations to hold off a little bit, let us work on this a little bit longer. And only a handful of us were privy to that speech, General Vessey and myself, and one of my staff people were. I met with General Vessey on the plane, on the 20th of March, a few days before and reviewed the speech. And we made certain changes and recommendations, which were accepted, but we also strongly recommended we hold off a little bit until we had our act together a little bit clearer. We didn't necessarily have to have a big bureaucratic harangue about it, but let's work in the back room again and put some thoughts together so we'd know what it is and what it's not. And when people ask more in-depth questions, we wouldn't leave them hanging out. Is it in the mind of the beholder, is it really Excalibur? Is it high frontier Danny Grahams. Is it silo protection? Is it ABM breakout? What are you talking about? And all those things raised a lot of question and threw a lot of dust in the air, probably unnecessarily. If everybody had been on board right away, I think we would have been in far better shape today. But everybody wasn't. And yet I don't think we would have gotten it off the ground if he had tried to get everybody aboard. So, it's a chicken and egg sort of a thing, and I think the President played it just right. He knew that he would have to go this way in order to really move it.

SO, IT IS FAIR TO SAY, THEN, THIS IS UNIQUELY A PRESIDENTIAL, NOT IN THE SENSE THAT HE THOUGHT OF IT, BUT IN TERMS OF MAKING IT HAPPEN, THIS IS A UNIQUE PRESIDENTIAL ACT?

In my opinion, it was a unique presidential act, and probably quite unusual. I'm sure there are other great Presidents in our history that have struck out independently from their own views. Having listened to a lot of people, the President has been thinking about this for a long time. It's not a hip shot from the President. As I say, there's a time when confluence of thought comes together and now it takes a leader to say, "The timing is right. I'm going to move it. And I feel comfortable with my grounds, I feel comfortable the American people will back this as a basic ideological concept. I feel comfortable that the technology is within grasp in 20 years. I feel comfortable that this gives us new hope." What else do you need? That's what a vision is all about. And he had the guts to step out and do it.

A COUPLE OF LITTLE QUESTIONS. YOU USED THE PHRASE "GANG OF FOUR." WHO WERE THEY?

Well, I think they call, that's the term in the newspapers, the articles, I believe they're some of the former secretaries of defense and some of the Garwins and others who have been bitterly against this from the very outset. The Gang of Four is merely representative of a very powerful anti-SDI movement with scientists and others. There's an equally powerful group on the other side. We don't hear from them as much, because they're working the problem. But they're there. And so, is it an assurity? No. Nobody ever said it was. But it's getting closer and closer, and as technology begins to explode the battle management regime will be solved. It's the most difficult today of all the regimes that make up the complex of issues that you have to face.

YOUR PRESENTATION TO THE JOINT CHIEFS ON FEBRUARY 5TH WAS AT THE PENTAGON?

That was at the Pentagon, in the chairman's office.

AND YOU SAID THAT WHEN YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT THIS, YOU CALLED DR. TELLER. AND I WONDERED WHY DR. TELLER? WHY NOT DR. X?

Well, because I knew Dr. Teller. We had been briefed on Excalibur and nuclear-pumped lasers, and of course I felt any perception that a nuclear weapon was going to be the trigger mechanism for the particles or the laser beam would be unacceptable to the American people, and I told Dr. Teller that, that I couldn't endorse a program that even implied nuclear weapons based, even on a pop-up, in a pop-up mode, that I think would kill it, kill the defense concept. But yet I applauded the R and D, because out of that R and D so many things are learned, because it does generate the energy necessary to put the power into the systems that you need to lay. I could support the R and D there, but I did not want to support program, and I told him this on two occasions we met. And Jay Keyworth suggested, as well as my own advisers that were working with me on this project, suggested that I call Dr. Teller in, because he had done so much work in this way. And I also talked to Danny Graham. And that was merely to get a pulse of technology, more than it was anything else, because I'd already had all the technical briefs from DIA and NSA and CIA and all the technocrats from the various services, and so forth. We'd heard all that. And this was a kind of a confirmation on some of the real R and D work going on in this field, of whether or not we were at a point where this might make technological sense. And so, there were a number of things working in the country and he happened to be the head of one of them.

HERE'S A COMPLICATED QUESTION. I DON'T KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO ASK THIS, BUT LET ME JUST PLAY AROUND WITH THIS A LITTLE BIT. THE TIME AT WHICH THIS SPEECH COMES OUT THERE IS A GROWING MILITANT, LARGE, I MEAN REALLY BURGEONING NUCLEAR FREEZE MOVEMENT. SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AT ONE POINT, I THINK IN '83, WHEN POLLED, SUPPORTED A FREEZE IN NUCLEAR WEAPONS. CLEARLY, THEY SUPPORTED THE PRESIDENT'S BUILD-UP OF STRATEGIC ARMS, BUT THEY WERE CONCERNED ABOUT SOMETHING. THEY WERE UPSET. AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS ARE COMING OUT WITH STATEMENT AFTER STATEMENT ABOUT THE IMMORALITY OF NUCLEAR. DID THAT MORAL FERVENT, AND YOU'RE A PRACTICING CATHOLIC, I BELIEVE, AND QUIET COMMITTED AND CONCERNED WITH CATHOLICISM, HOW DID THAT ALL IMPACT? HOW DOES THAT WORK INTO THIS?

Well, it was part of this strategic cul-de-sac that I talked about. I think when you define what the cul-de-sac is, it's a group of significant barriers, primarily political barriers, that are in that cul-de-sac. You can't get out of it. It's a blind alley you're going into, and the walls are getting bigger and bigger and this whole fervor in the country against nuclear weapons and pro-freeze, and the pastoral letter on nuclear warfare, so forth, were feeding the fires of this public policy against another expansion of our nuclear weaponry. And primarily it didn't seem to be thrusted against the bomber, because of its time, late, it doesn't seem to be that urgent. That's real defense. Or the submarine that's involved in the strategic reserve, not a first strike kind of a weapon. So it was all focused on the follow-on to the Minuteman 3 missile. And it was in both administrations. So, it really was apolitical in that sense. It wasn't a function of the administration, it was a function of attitudes of the American people. Now I saw it manifested in the Navy this way, in the pastoral letter, for example, the fall of '82, we were receiving our first resignations from officers, and sailors would not reenlist because their serving in uniform was incompatible with the pastoral letter, the first two editions. And I had to stop that nonsense. And I gave a speech at Marymount College, which is now Marymount University, at their graduation, on moral man, modern dilemma. And I took this issue specifically, and I went back to the best ethicists that I could find, the people who understand the justification from a moral standpoint of a defensive posture for a nation, so-called "just war" theory. And I put together a statement that I put out to the entire Navy that said, "Knock it off. There isn't anybody, including Pope John Paul the 2nd, who believes that service to your country isn't one of the great dedications, providing your focus is on the brotherly love, the peace that Christ gave us," and that sort of thing. So, it was clear to me that I had to get in the game as the naval leader, to stop the nonsense that was going on from unilateral disarmament vis-à-vis the first two editions of the pastoral letter, which were nonsense, which were naïve. And it wasn't until the third draft that it made sense. And the third draft was a good draft. The fourth draft had 150 amendments or something in it, and it had a little bit of everything for everybody. So we took what could have been a diamond in the third draft and we rounded it off to a marble in the fourth draft, and I think the impact has been marble-like, a little bit for both sides, grab what you want out of it and use it. But the element in there that deals with the moral propriety of people to serve their country in uniform, including the managing of nuclear weapons, which we all find distasteful as individual mechanisms for warfare, despite all that we felt that we had just moral grounds for doing what we were doing, and that we had to get off this kick that somehow there was an alternative, which certainly was not the alternative that came out of Rome, out of the Vatican. It came out of a group of people who were certainly in this country capable of expressing their views, but it was not the views that finally came in even the fourth edition, which showed some balance and recognition that it took two to tango, including the Soviet Union, which they didn't learn until the third draft. So, it was a very big issue. And so, I don't like to, I'm not a moralist. I'm a pragmatist. But you have to think in terms of what do the American people think, and basically we are founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic in this country. On many other issues, we have our own sense of moral values, but generally the nation moves together in that sense of moral values. We're seeing a rebirth in interest in it right now with American youth and other things that I'm involved in. But it's very important that you think in those terms, too, about your decisions, because that is the political reality. And grassroots are going to make their recommendations to their congressman and to their senators. And we're seeing that manifested in the debate and the antagonism and the vitriolic attack against basing mode A and basing mode B. So it's all tied together. So, this upheaval is what I'm talking about. That's the reality, political reality, in this country. That doesn't exist in the Soviet. They just turn the button and squash that whenever they want to. So, they don't have those kinds of obstacles. Now, I like our obstacles because it's part of our free democratic society. So I'm not against the obstacles, don't want to every imply that I think the Soviets have a better system. They do not, because checks and balances are built into our society, and that's very good. But I saw that coming to an end, that the old mutually assured destruction concept was coming to an end. And we had to find an alternative rather than go down the tubes on unilateral disarmament, which was the only thing that some of these people were offering as an alternative, which would have been devastating. And even if you take away all nuclear weapons, it's devastating to the Western world, because of the blackmail that you can be held hostage to with both conventional and unconventional warfare and chemical and biological warfare, let alone conventional warfare. So, we had to be very cautious about accepting any of those platitudes that came out of people that had no knowledge of what the nuclear chess game was all about, and how important it was to keep the free world free and keep us in charge of the free world. We're supposed to be the free world leader. Sometimes we don't do very well at it. But we ought to pick up that baton of responsibility. And, certainly, we had it in the nuclear area, because we are the second nuclear super power and had to show the way. And we were showing confusion. And I think SDI gave us a raison d'etre for the modernization and the transition to a more hopeful future. And I still believe that. I've seen nothing that changes my opinion on that over the last several years, the intervening years, except I don't think we've managed it as efficiently as we might have with a more aggressive policy push in front of technology. It's been lagging badly, and still tends to lag. And I still believe that something not in Defense, not in State, but directly under the President, is absolutely necessary to manage the policy issues that are so complex in this transitional move to defense.

ALONG THOSE LINES, WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THOSE WHO SAY, "WELL, ALL YOU'RE DOING WITH SDI IS MILITARIZING SPACE. AND WE KNOW THAT THERE ARE ALREADY SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS UP THERE, BUT THEY ARE STABILIZING BECAUSE THEY HELP".

How more militarized can space be with 10,000 warheads flying at each other on each side? I mean, isn't that the ultimate in militarization of space? So, it's already militarized, whether we like it or not. Now, that's in the nuclear exchange. But the whole point of defense is to stop that nonsense. So, you're demilitarizing nuclear weapons in space as a warfare option. I think that's great. And these are not, what is, I don't even know what it means to militarize space. Both sides have probably over 5,000 satellites today with other nations involved in space. All of those are surveying, watching, doing all kinds of funny things that allow you to make decisions about warfare. All the precursors for nuclear exchange are there. So, what are we doing differently? We're putting up some things that can bring down inbound missiles. My feeling is that you demilitarize space, not militarize space. If your concept is defending your nation and your allies by going into space to make nuclear weapons no longer a relevant political tool, or to minimize it as a relevant political tool for the future, you've demilitarized space. Witness the warheads we've just taken out, the first step, or we're about to sign a treaty today at 1 o'clock. Is that a big deal? I think it's a big deal. It's an unusual move. The concern most of us have is, what's the next move? That's the real issue. We don't want to get caught up in this nuclear disarmament because we're on some kind of a roll. We've got to think of it in terms of, what are you doing to deterrence to war? Now we've got to be careful. The next move is extremely important, and that's, again, where SDI plays a tremendous role for the US, because of what some of the Russian experts say is technical spinoff. Where is it going? Where else is it going besides hitting nuclear warheads coming in? We don't know.

A STEP, IN A SENSE, TOWARD DEFENSE, A DEFENSIVE POSTURE, WASN'T IT?

Well, it was a step to strengthen the significance of our deterrence. If the Soviets feel that we have no hardened command and control sites to manage the system, and that we're dead after first strike, this is destabilizing, very destabilizing. Now, because of their hardening and their concepts about command and control being absolutely critical to them, protecting the Soviet leadership, for example, oh, boy, have they ever. And they're hard and they're good, and we know all about that. That's why the balance of warheads cannot be looked at simplistically by numbers.

BECAUSE WE HAVE TO DIVERT SO MANY?

You have to look at the targets. That's why I say that very few people understand the insidious nature of the chess game that you have to play. Just to come out and say, "Well, look, they've got this many, they're going down 1,800, we're only going down 400, isn't that wonderful?" Baloney. It's not wonderful at all. That's the way it ought to be. It's a different kind of a thing. If you look at hardened systems that we have to after the Soviet, it requires many more warheads, and has tended to proliferate warheads. So, the hardening becomes critical, but hardening is also not just for destruction of silos, but hardening becomes important for command and control because that's how you command your forces, and that's how you move to a war termination strategy at the end of exchange that says, "Can we carry out our national objectives now?" And the answer has to be yes, or you don't get it in the first place. And the Soviets play the same game. It's not a different game. We both understand strategic reserve, vested primarily in the submarine forces.

YEAH, ON BOTH OUR SIDES.

Both our sides. And when they think theirs is vulnerable, then they don't get in the game. That's called deterrent. People say it's destabilizing. I think it's stabilizing, because, It's stabilizing because they cannot one-up you. If they have an overwhelming first strike capability with the SS-18 and others, then if we hold the key on strategic reserve there's an asymmetrical balance there that's very important. So you have to look at the whole package of deterrence, including conventional warfare and special warfare, and unconventional warfare in chemical and biological weapons, all has to be looked at in the total package of deterrence. That's why the focus on warheads and nuclear weapons is dangerous, because it's taken out of context. You're pulling out one element of deterrence and saying we ought to get rid of it because it's so bad. Well, you mean chemical warfare is so good? And biological warfare is so good? And overwhelming conventional power is so good? You want to get into that game? If you think that other one was expensive, that's why you stayed in it, because it's less expensive, as bad as it is. They're all bad. So, balance it off.

FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW?

Fifty years from now, I think that the American people and allies will look back and state that no matter what the rationale was for the President's courageous statement in 1983, that it was better to defend our people than avenge them, that out of that a better world came, and we're still going to be at peace, providing we keep moving down the road of strategic defense in a logical, evolutionary way, aggressive, going after a product of our strength working against the Soviets' weakness. And I think the Soviets will respect that. I think they can join the game, and that we can begin to focus, then, on other bilateral, multilateral relationships, which can improve the situation around the world, and maybe the enemy of the future will be someone, an irresponsible person, holding a nuclear weapon, which the Soviet Union and the United States can join together and finesse through a defensive system, that says, "You ain't going to make it with that system." And so, it no longer can be used for political blackmail and leverage in the world. It's overtaken by events. It's an antique to put in your museums now. And, sure, we have new problems perhaps in controlling warfare, because now we're in space, we have space sensors and satellites moving around, and all sorts of things, and manned space stations going around. We're learning much more about the world we ever learned before, and the outer world. We're really moving into space in a big way. I think all of that can be a step in the right direction and can bring the United States and Soviet Union together. I think will be there, and I think we're going to see that as the glue that may have been bound the nations much closer together. That's my own optimistic outlook. I think it's that important.