Interviewer: NOW, IN THE NUCLEAR AGE, THE MILITARY HAVE THE JOB OF PLANNING TO FIGHT A NUCLEAR WAR.
Interviewer: WHEN YOU WERE INVOLVED IN PLANNING AT NATO, WHEN WAS IT ASSUMED THAT WERE THERE TO BE A SOVIET CONVENTIONAL ATTACK THAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS WOULD HAVE TO BE USED?
Smith: Let me begin by saying that we thought our job in planning was to prevent war and not to fight wars.
Smith: Our job in NATO was to deter conflict and the way to deter conflict was, we thought you had to be prepared to fight if necessary.
Smith: So we spent a lot of time trying to make sure that NATO forces were in a position where they would make it unattractive for any aggressor to try to challenge us.
Smith: So, we...
Smith: we did, however, have to think about what happened if war began because — at least for myself, I felt that the only way to deter would be able to persuade a potential enemy that Warsaw Pact that...
Smith: you were serious about...
Smith: and that you could carry out what you said you were going to do.
Smith: Now, when it comes to the question about when were...
Smith: when would nuclear weapons be used, that's an ans— that's a question which really can't be answered, you know, the General Clos of Belgium wasn't...
Smith: certainly would be used but he was certain that the...
Smith: the Russians would win in about...
Smith: about three days.
Smith: Most people in...
Smith: in NATO, felt that the...
Smith: or at least in the Military part of NATO, felt that the use of nuclear weapons were dependent on a lot of variables but one thing was clear, that the Alliance would fight with conventional weapons for as long as it could.
Smith: But that period was indefinite so, if you ask me, was it going to be two days or four days or a week, I can't say.
Smith: I can tell you that the forces in the field were prepared to defend themselves and to defend alliance territory with the equipment that they had with conventional weapons for as long as they could.
Interviewer: AND, OF COURSE, A BIG EFFORT WAS MADE AT THAT PERIOD, TO IMPROVE THE CONVENTIONAL CAPABILITY?
Smith: Yes, that was a...
Smith: a major objective of the Alliance at that time.
Smith: But, also to improve nuclear weapons as...
Smith: as well.
Smith: It was a joint effort to keep both conventional weapons and nuclear weapons modernized and persuasive deterrents in the eyes of the Warsaw Pact.
Interviewer: NOW, CAN I ASK YOU TO CLARIFY SOMETHING ABOUT WHICH I CERTAINLY AM VERY CONFUSED.
Interviewer: IN TERMS OF NATO'S PLANNING, HOW IS IT ASSUMED THAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS WOULD BE USED? FOR WHAT PURPOSE WOULD THEY BE USED?
Smith: They would be used for Military purposes.
Smith: Now, that's...
Smith: that's key because a lot of people think that you would — and some British believe this way, some people whose judgment I...
Smith: I respect, believe that you use them first as a demonstration.
Smith: But I must tell you that those, particularly in the United States who went through the Vietnam experience, learned that if you try to do things just for demonstration with no Military...
Smith: relevance, it doesn't work.
Smith: And so we felt they had to be used for Military purposes against Military targets.
Smith: Now, that...
Smith: the question, okay, what kind of targets? Well, that depended on what the situation called for but those targets could range all the way from striking air fields in...
Smith: in the Eastern part of...
Smith: of Europe, logistic centers in the Eastern part of Europe, things of that nature, to weapons that would be used closer and those kinds of weapons that are called battlefield weapons that might be useful for restoring the integrity of the defense in Western Europe.
Interviewer: YOU'VE MENTIONED THE BRITISH THERE WERE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, THEN, ABOUT HOW WEAPONS SHOULD BE USED? HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT?
Smith: Yeah, there were...
Smith: there were yeah, several different schools of thoughts about how...
Smith: how weapons would be used...
Smith: you know, some people thought, oh, you did...
Smith: use them for demonstration, you know, a shot across the bow and then that would get the attention of the other side and then that would lead immediately to negotiations.
Smith: There were those who thought that it should come from the commanders in the field, that they should see the necessity and they should recommend up the chain of command through the Military chain of command to the political leaders for the use of nuclear weapons and then there were the...
Smith: another group in the Military who thought it should be Military use from the top down, I associate General Haig, among others, with that, who felt that it should be...
Smith: the decision should be made in large...
Smith: in terms of larger Alliance objectives and that...
Smith: that...
Smith: once they had to be used, it should be decided at the very highest levels for what purpose.
Smith: So you had...
Smith: you had different...
Smith: different schools of...
Smith: of thought about how they should be used.
Interviewer: NOW, THE PROBLEM THAT THE MILITARY HAVE IN THESE SITUATIONS -- I MEAN, THE MILITARY HAS SEVERAL PROBLEMS IN THIS AREA, BUT THE ONE WHICH, I SUPPOSE I'M THINKING ABOUT IS, HOW DO YOU TRAIN SOLDIERS TO FIGHT A NUCLEAR WAR, GIVEN THE SORTS OF DIFFERENCE OF THOUGHT THAT YOU'VE DESCRIBED? HOW CAN YOU SIMULATE WHAT'S LIKELY TO HAPPEN?
Smith: Well, you know, if...
Smith: one has to be very careful about simulating, you know, how war is going to happen.
Smith: I think that's one of the most dangerous things one can do, whether it's conventional war or...
Smith: or nuclear war, what one really trains people to do is to carry out missions in times of hostilities under different kinds of circumstances.
Smith: Now, these for the Air Force, in terms of preparing for any...
Smith: any kind of war, one thing you...
Smith: first thing you think about is dispersing your aircraft so they can survive, you talk about getting the munitions there so as...
Smith: they can use, you think about designing...
Smith: I mean, the...
Smith: designing target packages so that you know what you're going to attack and how to attack them, and, you know, you can do that both for conventional war, in terms of nuclear war.
Smith: It's just that, in nuclear war, the stakes are, yeah, extremely...
Smith: higher, but I think...
Smith: you know, the basic planning logic is the same.
Smith: For the Army, it's a little bit different because...
Smith: and the major difference is that in...
Smith: in the conventional war, you want to, you know, mass forces and, you know, get a concentration of forces so that you can attack, whereas, in a nuclear war, they become very attractive targets and you have to separate.
Smith: So they...
Smith: the Army has to plan to...
Smith: what it really has to do to plan is to fight a conventional war in a nuclear environment.
Smith: You know, it's a very difficult task, but if you look at...
Smith: at the people who studied doctrine on...
Smith: for both the Warsaw Pact and the Alliance, you'll see the differences in the amount of territory that, both attacking and defending forces are responsible for and the reason is, they cannot concentrate forces so much that they become an attractive target for a nuclear weapon and so, what the Army training means, they must be trained in dispersed operations, in operations where there is...
Smith: a lot of initiative has to be exercised at a lower level, you have to have much more dispersal of your supplies and logistics and it just becomes a much more complex operation because you can't concentrate the way you'd like to concentrate to get that weight of effort.
Interviewer: THANK YOU.
Interviewer: AS YOU AND I BOTH KNOW, THERE ARE TREMENDOUS SAFEGUARDS TO MAKE SURE THAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE NOT USED INADVERTENTLY.
Interviewer: CAN YOU JUST TELL US, FROM THE EXERCISES THAT YOU'VE BEEN INVOLVED IN ONE CAPACITY OR ANOTHER, WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT THE FEASIBILITY OVER NUCLEAR LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR IN EUROPE, WOULD YOU SAY?
Smith: Well, you know, we are all prisoners of our experience, we're all prisoners of our own prejudices and biases and I will...
Smith: and also I will reveal one of...
Smith: more than one of mine probably now.
Smith: And one doesn't know what's going to happen in war, whether it be a conventional war or a nuclear war.
Smith: One knows that what's going to happen is going to be what one doesn't expect and there's going to be a lot of improvisation at the time, but what I...
Smith: what I learned is that a lot of people, when they talk about conventional war and nuclear war, they assume that in a conventional war, everyone is perfectly rational and that this war can be fought under...
Smith: under certain rules and everyone knows exactly what he's doing but once that a nuclear war starts, everyone loses all rationality and becomes irrational and that a lot of people say, they talk about a fire break and that once one nuclear weapon is used, all nuclear weapons will be used.
Smith: My experience has been, both in real life and observing these exercises, that people are a little bit irrational all the time and in...
Smith: and they...
Smith: sometimes they...
Smith: an event...
Smith: focuses the mind and it's just possible that people will become more rational once a few nuclear weapons are used and find some way to bring that war to an end, rather than less rational.
Smith: And so I...
Smith: I really do see that...
Smith: that one cannot predict what will happen if nuclear weapons are used, but one shouldn't make the assumption one way or another.
Smith: One should be prepared that...
Smith: to the extent one can to end that war as soon as possible, with the least amount of damage.
Interviewer: THANK YOU.
Interviewer: GENERAL, I'M GOING TO ASK YOU ONE OR TWO QUESTIONS NOW WHICH RELATE TO THE EARLY '70S PERIOD.
Interviewer: IN BETWEEN — WELL ROUGHLY BETWEEN '73 AND '75, BUT OBVIOUSLY IT WAS AN ONGOING PROCESS, BUT PARTICULARLY WHEN SECRETARY SCHLESINGER WAS IN OFFICE, AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO ADAPT NATO'S NUCLEAR STRATEGY.
Interviewer: WHAT WAS THE FLEXIBLE RESPONSE TO THE SITUATION OF STRATEGIC PARITY? WHAT WAS THE INTENTION AT THAT TIME?
Smith: The...
Smith: the intention, as I...
Smith: understood it...
Smith: and this came in a part part from ...
Smith: Secretary Schlesinger, was really to show that in an age of...
Smith: of parity...
Smith: I think...
Smith: what did he call it? We were in a period where we wanted to maintain no more than essential equivalents, that it was possible for nuclear weapons to be used in less than an all-out way, so he talked about limited strategic and...
Smith: and limited theatre nuclear options which would be designed to hit certain targets for certain purposes and those purposes would be conveyed to the other side so that it...
Smith: nuclear weapons could be used in less than an all-out fashion, and it was designed to show that the NATO strategy or that...
Smith: has still...
Smith: made sense that there was...
Smith: that the flexible response still was operable and that it had...
Smith: still had meaning even though at the strategic level there was a growing parity.
Interviewer: GENERAL, NOW I'M GOING TO ASK YOU A QUESTION ABOUT THE ENHANCES RADIATION WEAPON.
Interviewer: FROM THE MILITARY POINT OF VIEW, WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THAT WEAPON?
Smith: Yeah, the purpose of that weapon, as I understood it, was...
Smith: was primarily to reduce the damage that was done during war.
Smith: One of the...
Smith: objectives of NATO, you know, is...
Smith: first, it is to deter war and the other is to fight war in a way that achieves the Alliance's objectives with a minimum amount of destruction.
Smith: Now, in...
Smith: that strategy also had flexible response which meant that nuclear weapons could be used and therefore...
Smith: one looked at the use of nuclear weapons and, with the air-versed weapons and particularly with the ground-versed weapons, it would follow that there was a lot of damage, both in terms of physical destruction of property and of lives, and one of the purposes of enhanced radiation weapon was to have a weapon that destroyed...
Smith: killed people without destroying...
Smith: property unnecessarily, so it was a weapon designed to really make sure that you destroyed the target you wanted to destroy without a lot of unnecessary damage to...
Smith: the area surrounding the target.
Interviewer: IT WAS DESIGNED PARTICULARLY WITH TANK WARFARE IN GERMANY, WAS IT?
Smith: Ah...sp...
Interviewer: TANK WARFARE, IN KNOCKING OUT WARSAW TANKS IN GERMANY?
Smith: Well, tanks in...
Smith: it was designed to...
Smith: yes, it was designed to attack attacking forces, but they did not necessarily have to be...
Smith: at least the way I thought about it, I've never confined any war in Europe to only Germany because I think it has to be...
Smith: I think we all need to understand that we're all going to be involved in...
Smith: in that war, and it was to attack offensive forces, particularly armored forces...
Smith: in...
Smith: in Central Europe.
Interviewer: RIGHT.
Interviewer: HOW ARE WE DOING, MIKE? YOU KNOW ABOUT THE SOVIET SS-20 MISSILE.
Interviewer: WHAT WAS, AS YOU OBSERVED IT, THE RESPONSE OF THE US MILITARY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SS-20 MISSILE? WHAT DID YOU FEEL IT MEANT THE SOVIETS WERE UP TO?
Smith: Well, when...
Smith: when the SS-20 first appeared and I, personally, first became aware of it, I...
Smith: I thought of it in terms of the SS-4 and the SS-5 because the Soviets had these...
Smith: missiles...
Smith: one of them somewhat mobile...
Smith: all...
Smith: both of them...
Smith: fairly long range and both of them fairly potent, they were a concern that we had before, questioned how we could respond in the proper way and...
Smith: and so I look at the SS-20 as an update of those earlier weapons and it was something to be, you know, concerned about, it was something that we needed to develop weapons so that we could re— we could respond...
Smith: to them, but it wasn't a weapon that was, you know, completely out of line with anything they had done before so what I thought the Soviets were up to, myself, was that they were modera-- modernizing some weapons that were growing obsolete and increasing their range and effectiveness.
Interviewer: As YOU KNOW, AFTER THE SS-20S CAME ON THE SCENE, CHANCELLOR SCHMIDT MADE THE SPEECH DRAWING ATTENTION TO THIS AND THINGS HAPPENED.
Interviewer: BUT, WHAT I WANT TO ASK YOU, DID YOU IN THE AMERICAN MILITARY FEEL THAT YOU NEEDED TO MATCH THIS WEAPON OR DID YOU FEEL THAT YOU ALREADY HAD SUFFICIENT CAPACITY IN OTHER AREAS, AS IT WERE?
Smith: Well, you talk about matching or sufficient capacity, it gets a little delicate because it's hard to measure that precisely, but let me...
Smith: let me say that we did not think that we were going to be able to respond directly to the SS-20 with a weapon that could attack it easily because it was mobile, And therefore...
Smith: but you needed forces that could strike targets in the Soviet Union and had...
Smith: with enough force so that they would be very reluctant to use that SS-20, yet...
Smith: in...
Smith: in the first place.
Smith: So we did feel that we needed a...
Smith: a weapon or a group of weapons that would pose a threat to the Soviet Union so that they knew that if they attacked Western Europe with SS-20s they risk being attacked by other weapons from the Alliance.
Interviewer: DID YOU FEEL, AS I UNDERSTAND THE BRITISH DID, THAT THERE WAS, IN ANY CASE, A NEED FOR A FURTHER RUNG IN THE LADDER OF ESCALATION?
Smith: I don't think we felt that quite as much as the British 'cause I remember when the the idea of the INF force, then called long-range theatre nuclear forces, LRTNF, at the time, came...
Smith: we and the US Military were not as persuaded we needed, you know, that particular weapon as the...
Smith: as were the...
Smith: Europeans at that time.
Smith: Certainly we felt we needed, yeah, some modernization but whether, you know, for that particular purpose, it wasn't quite as clear to us and we...
Smith: we felt that we had enough rungs in the ladder that we didn't feel a compulsion at that time to add some...
Smith: a number of others.
Interviewer: WHO, THEN, MADE THE RUNNING WHEN, IN THE DEVELOPMENTS BETWEEN '78, '79, WHICH PRODUCED THIS PACKAGE? WOULDN'T YOU SAY IT WAS THE EUROPEANS WHO MADE THE RUNNING, OR THE AMERICANS?
Smith: There's both.
Smith: But...
Smith: who...
Smith: the Europeans wanted the...
Smith: some theater nuclear weapons ashore...
Smith: in Europe, from my view, for several reasons; one was the SALT negotiations were underway and at that time the Europeans thought that it might be an agreement at the strategic nuclear level that would make war more likely in...
Smith: in Europe and only in Europe and they wanted to be sure that the linkage between the theatre and the US strategic forces were there and one way to do that was to get the ability to hit the Soviet Union from land-based forces in...
Smith: in Europe.
Smith: So they felt a very strong need to have something ashore in Europe.
Interviewer: WHEN WE TALKED EARLIER, YOU REFERRED TO AN IRONIC CONTRADICTION IN THE BRITISH ATTITUDE.
Interviewer: CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT THAT WAS?
Smith: Well, I think that you...
Smith: when I said it, that...
Smith: the...
Smith: on the one hand, some British felt that nuclear weapons were best used for demonstration purposes only and on the other hand, some British thought that you needed more rungs in the ladder of escalation and to me, those two things don't make sense because if you're only going to use them for a demonstration then you don't need a lot of rungs in the ladder.
Smith: On the other hand, if you're going to use them for Military purposes, you do need those rungs.
Interviewer: WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT, LET ME JUST ASK YOU, HOW DOES ALL THIS RELATE TO THE STRATEGIC PICTURE? IS IT POSSIBLE TO TALK IN THESE TERMS WITHOUT TALKING IN TERMS OF WHAT'S HAPPENING IN WASHINGTON AND MOSCOW?
Smith: No.
Smith: I mean, actually I think it's important that, you know, we keep that linkage, It's not important, then it's not possible to talk about things in Europe that you...
Smith: that do not link and should not link to Washington, yeah, and Moscow, and...
Smith: and one of the purposes is to prove to everyone, both to our friends and to our potential enemies alike, that we're all in this together and therefore, so you must talk in terms of Washington and Moscow and that's why it's so relevant to the Europeans as to what happens in Washington and Moscow because they know, and I think correctly, that it affects them almost immediately.
Smith: ...because people think that nuclear weapons are the problem and nuclear weapons are the instruments of policy and you know, in...
Smith: there's these...
Smith: there's these fundamental yeah, differences, there are these fundamental agreements, and that's what drive things and the nuclear weapons respond to...
Smith: to that.
Smith: They happen to be so destructive that they play a very large a very large role and have a big impact, but it's...
Smith: it's the policies of people that drive things.
Interviewer: I'LL COME BACK TO THAT IN A SECOND.
Interviewer: OKAY.
Interviewer: LET'S JUST TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT SALT II.
Interviewer: YOU HEARD OF SALT II BEFORE? IT'S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT SALT II IS THE BACKGROUND TO ALL THIS, ISN'T IT?
Smith: Yes.
Interviewer: WOULD IT BE FAIR TO SAY THAT THE AMERICANS WERE VERY PREOCCUPIED BY SALT II AT THIS TIME AND WERE VERY KEEN TO MAKE SURE THAT SOMETHING HAPPENED ON SALT II AND PERHAPS WORRY LESS ABOUT THE WORRIES OF THE EUROPEANS?
Smith: That's not...
Smith: that's not quite fair.
Smith: The first part is true.
Smith: The Americans...
Smith: we wanted agreement in SALT II.
Smith: We thought it would serve our interests, we thought it would serve the interests of the Soviet Union, it was a modest step, but it was a step that...
Smith: that made sense.
Smith: At the same time...
Smith: and this is particularly true of the US Military, but true of the rest of the government as well, we are very conscious that we didn't want that agreement to do anything that would undermine our relationship with our allies in Europe.
Smith: It was a Soviet intention that any agreement do what it could to undermine that relationship and so, you know, there was a question of the non-circumvention clause in the treaty which we had to make clear that didn't apply to our European allies; there was the question of technology transfer and among the things the Europeans were concerned about at that time was cruise missile technology and all the advanced...
Smith: advancements that came with that and so, the Military, the joint chiefs of staff in the United States wanted to make sure nothing was done to undermine the Alliance, and that was you know, it was very important and I...
Smith: I think those two purposes were...
Smith: were equal in...
Smith: in terms of...
Smith: in terms of the commitment to maintain...
Smith: both...
Smith: the commitment, both to try to get an agreement, and both, not to have it destroy the Alliance.
Smith: Not easy to do.
Interviewer: LET ME GO BACK FOR A SECOND.
Interviewer: WHAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT BEFORE, WHICH IS THE WEAPONS, WHICH WERE, IN THE END, SELECTED TO BE IN THE PACKAGE THAT THE ALLIES WOULD DEPLOY?
Smith: Yeah.
Interviewer: WHY WAS THE PERSHING II CHOSEN AND WHAT FUNCTION WAS IT INTENDED TO PERFORM?
Smith: Okay, the Pershing II was chosen, I think, for two reasons.
Smith: one, the Pershing I existed and this was an update of an existing weapon.
Smith: Yeah, the United States Army had been working on some modernization and...
Smith: development of the Pershing II, so some work had already been done and so when we came and looked at it...
Smith: specifically, there was consideration given to developing a new ballistic missile but it was determined that the Pershing II could be ready sooner...
Smith: would accomplish the mission and would be less expensive.
Smith: Now, when I talk about accomplishing the mission, it was important that the Pershing II hit the Soviet Union.
Smith: And, it was...
Smith: not designed and not...
Smith: did not have the range — does not have the range to hit Moscow and that also was a...
Smith: a deliberate consideration at the time, which was to be able to have the Pershing II hit the Soviet Union homeland but not hit Moscow.
Interviewer: AFTER THE 1979 DECISION WAS TAKEN, AS YOU KNOW, ALREADY DEVELOPED IN EUROPE, SOMEWHAT SIMILAR TO WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN THE NEUTRON BOMB EPISODE AND PEOPLE IN EUROPE CLAIMED THAT THE AMERICANS WERE PUTTING WEAPONS INTO EUROPE AS PART OF A NUCLEAR WAR FIGHTING STRATEGY.
Interviewer: NOW, THAT WASN'T VERY TRUE, WAS IT?
Smith: No, no.
Smith: I think, I thought it was really quite ironic that in the 1979's...
Smith: the Europeans came to the United States and asked us to put the Pershing II and the ground launch cruise missiles in Europe and the United States did it primarily out of Alliance solidarity.
Smith: I mean, we paid the bill...
Smith: we didn't pay the complete bill because the Europeans provided the territory, the basing and a lot of the forces, but we...
Smith: the United States paid for the weapons our...
Smith: ourselves and the...
Smith: but it's ironic that after asking us to do this, about three or four years later, the United States got blamed for putting these weapons in Europe as if we were doing it on our own.
Smith: Now, it is true that a lot of things changed in between and part of it was brought about because the...
Smith: the Reagan Administration, when it came in, had an attitude that was considered much more bellicose than the previous administration and that made the Europeans, in my view, more concerned than they had been previously about the dangers of war.
Interviewer: BUT WHAT WAS ALSO SAID AT THAT TIME WAS THAT THIS WAS PART OF SOME AMERICAN — SOME DEEP AMERICAN PLOT TO WAGE A NUCLEAR WAR IN -- PLANS TO WAGE A NUCLEAR WAR IN EUROPE AND CONTAIN IT IN EUROPE AND NOT INVOLVE THE UNITED STATES.
Smith: Yeah, and that's ironic also because the purpose of having those was to link the...
Smith: any European war to the United States based on the fairly simple premise that if the Soviet Union found itself attacked with nuclear weapons from anywhere...
Smith: it's...
Smith: it's home land attacked, it was going to make certain that...
Smith: that the other participants in that war also had their home land attacked which was...
Smith: it was looked at by the Europeans initially as one way to make...
Smith: help make certain that...
Smith: that the United States could not avoid direct hostilities and homeland exchange of weapons with the Soviet Union even though, no matter what the United States hoped.
Interviewer: GENERAL, LET ME ASK YOU NOW A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE IMMINENT INF DEAL, AT LEAST I THINK IT'S IMMINENT, BETWEEN PRESIDENT REAGAN AND SECRETARY GORBACHEV.
Interviewer: IS IT, UNDERMINE NATO'S STRATEGY?
Smith: I do not think it has to.
Smith: I think that there's a danger that it will...
Smith: I think that any change in...
Smith: in the current conditions, you know, upset people.
Smith: We're just more comfortable with the status quo, it may be bad but we know we can live with it...
Smith: but, yeah, I...
Smith: it...
Smith: unless we find some way to reassure the Europeans as a group, that the linkage between the...
Smith: our forces, the United States forces in Western Europe...
Smith: and the NATO forces in...
Smith: in Western Europe and the US strategic forces, unless we can assure the Europeans that that linkage still exists, then I think there is a...
Smith: there is a danger that...
Smith: that the Alliance strategy can be under...
Smith: undermined, but I think that is a matter that can be dealt with.
Smith: It's going to be very difficult to deal with because to deal with it, it's going to -- to say, okay, the world's changed and if you want to adjust to this change, you must do...
Smith: in terms of defense in Europe, you must do at least two things: one is, improve your conventional forces, another is modernize your nuclear forces and, you know, if you try to put on a list of of the subjects that are unpopular today, they come pretty near the top of the list for a lot of people so it's...
Smith: it's going to be, yeah, the political will of...
Smith: of governments and peoples to take defense seriously and if we do, I do not see why it has to...
Smith: weaken the Alliance.
Interviewer: NOW, YOU'VE PINPOINTED FACTORS.
Interviewer: THERE IS ANOTHER SIDE TO THIS, ISN'T THERE? ISN'T IT TRUE THAT WHAT'S LEFT IN EUROPE, AGAIN, IRONICALLY, BATTLEFIELD NUCLEAR WEAPONS, WHICH, IN MANY PEOPLE'S VIEWS ARE WHAT, SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN OUT?
Smith: It's not completely true.
Smith: Ah, you know there are some...
Smith: there are some battlefield weapons.
Smith: We have some surface to surface missiles which are fairly short-range but there we have weapons that can be delivered by aircraft which...
Smith: which are...
Smith: are still there and then, of course, we have weapons at sea, which are committed to SACEUR, there are some weapons...
Smith: and then you have...
Smith: of course, then you have the British...
Smith: forces, in addition to those of the...
Smith: of the United States and so, no, there are...
Smith: there are other weapons there.
Smith: There are potentials for improving those that are there so that you do not need the...
Smith: necessarily, surface-to-surface missiles to hit the targets that need to be attacked in the event of war.
Interviewer: YOU WERE TALKING EARLIER ABOUT WHAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE AND YOU WERE SAYING IT'S A POLITICAL THING.
Interviewer: CAN I GET YOU TO EXPLAIN THAT TO US? THIS IS SOMETHING THAT THE GENERAL PUBLIC DON'T OFTEN GRASP, SEE, WHAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS ACTUALLY ARE.
Interviewer: CAN YOU GIVE US YOUR —
Smith: Well, yeah, yeah.
Smith: Nuclear weapons, in my view, are...
Smith: no...
Smith: well, are both...
Smith: political instruments of diplomacy and they are military instruments to be used, if necessary, in hostilities so they are, yeah, they are both and I believe what I said earlier was that a lot of the differences that we have spring from political differences and — and — and nuclear weapons are just the...
Smith: one form of expressing those...
Smith: those disagreements and those differences.
Smith: I mean, you could do nuclear weapons and...
Smith: all the nuclear weapons in the world and you still wouldn't get along with the...
Smith: with the Soviet Union given their view of what the world should be and our view of the world, what the world should be.
Smith: So...
Smith: and in terms of the...
Smith: the diplomacy...
Smith: between the major nations of the world, when you think how much time is spent on matters nuclear, you know, would...
Smith: that we would spend more time on more things.
Smith: We probably...
Smith: may not be in some of the difficulties we are in now, but...
Smith: you know, both the...
Smith: the Soviet Union and the United States and Western Europeans had put matters nuclear at the top of their diplomatic agenda and so, you know, we talk about things that...
Smith: it goes all the way from trying to get arms control agreement, that's...
Smith: one thing, but we — non-proliferation agreement, you know, we're trying to get, now we're talking about peaceful uses of...
Smith: of atomic energy and trying to get some agreement on nuclear plans.
Smith: I mean, you know, when you look at it — things nuclear, just loom very large in the diplomatic world and a lot of things...
Smith: a lot of things flow from that.
Interviewer: WHAT I FIND INTERESTING ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS THAT FOR — WHAT IT MEANS, IS THAT — FOR SOLDIERS, FOR THE MILITARY.
Interviewer: THEY AREN'T NECESSARILY INVOLVED IN A POLITICAL THING AND NUCLEAR ADOPTION, I SUPPOSE, TO SOME EXTENT BECOMES A FLEXIBLE FORM OF POLITICAL CEMENT.
Interviewer: IS THIS IS A PROBLEM FOR THE MILITARY, THAT THIS IS ALL A VERY POLITICAL AREA AND THEIR FUNCTION IS NO LONGER AS CLEAR AS IT USED TO BE?
Smith: No, not, not...
Smith: I don't think the way that you put it...
Smith: it is...
Smith: it is more difficult because...
Smith: let's take arms control matters.
Smith: Ah, the Military have never historically been comfortable with arms control matters...
Smith: we are being forced to do that and that has been a difficult lesson although at least in the United States, the...
Smith: each time there's come an important arms control agreement, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the SALT I Treaty of 1972, and even the SALT II Treaty, the Military looked at it and said, "Look, and...
Smith: okay, from a Military point of view, there are pluses and minuses but that we can accept it." But that...
Smith: but that focuses their...
Smith: their attention, not on how to fight a war but on...
Smith: on arms control and that is...
Smith: and that is difficult...
Smith: for them.
Smith: In...
Smith: in terms of the use of those weapons, since you get, like, we talked earlier about the...
Smith: some people believe that it should be used for demonstration only, well, that's...
Smith: for demonstration only is purely a...
Smith: that's a political purpose and...
Smith: and so the...
Smith: the politics of war fighting extend further down in...
Smith: into the chain of command, even further than they would for a conventional war and, goodness knows, they go far enough, even, you know, go very deep even then, so it's...
Smith: yeah, it does complicate...
Smith: it does complicate life quite a bit for the Military and has forced us to broaden our horizons about about war and peace and the status of...
Smith: human nature in between.
Interviewer: CAN I JUST RETURN FINALLY, TO ONE OR TWO OF THE QUESTIONS I ASKED YOU AT THE BEGINNING, BECAUSE I THINK IT WOULD BE USEFUL JUST TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO ANSWER ONE OR TWO OF THEM AGAIN.
Smith: Didn't like my first one.
Interviewer: WELL I THINK YOU'RE A LITTLE MORE RELAXED NOW.
Interviewer: TELL US, ON THIS QUESTION OF NATO PLANNING, SURE, AS YOU SAY, THE FUNCTION OF NATO IS TO DETER WAR, THAT'S Its PRIMARY FUNCTION BUT IT HAS THIS PROBLEM.
Interviewer: IT EXISTS TO DETER BUT IT ALSO HAS TO PLAN FOR A NUCLEAR WAR.
Smith: That's right
Interviewer: WHAT I'D LIKE YOU TO DO IS TO TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HOW, IN YOUR EXPERIENCE, NATO'S GONE ABOUT COMBINING THOSE TWO FUNCTIONS?
Smith: It...
Smith: all right...
Smith: the...
Smith: most...
Smith: a lot of us in the Military believe that the only way to deter war is to make it...
Smith: seem by any would-be opponent that you actually can fight, and therefore, that means you must have the ability to wage war in the field with all the weapons at your disposal.
Smith: That includes...
Smith: conventional weapons, even chemical weapons and nuclear weapons, at least, you must be able to fight in that...
Smith: that kind of an environment and you must demonstrate that through the equipment that you have and through the exercise that you conduct and through the doctrine that you announce about the use of those weapons and forces.
Smith: Now, there are other people who say, no, that's...
Smith: that's...
Smith: that's wrong, because what's really important is you must only give a posture to deter war and that means that if you're attacked, you're going to use, yeah, more force than necessary to resist the attack and that, yeah, the mere presence of your forces and their willingness to go all out right from the outset, will deter war.
Smith: Now, the...
Smith: the deterrents theory is a lot less expensive in terms of...
Smith: of Military forces.
Smith: It is also...
Smith: well, I think history has shown, less persuasive.
Smith: One reason we got to the flexible response strategy was because the...
Smith: what was called the trip wire strategy that NATO had before which was that nuclear weapons would be used from the outset, as nuclear...
Smith: the Soviet Union developed a...
Smith: improving nuclear capability, the idea of using nuclear weapons from the outset became less attractive because we would be hit by nuclear weapons as well as using them and the...
Smith: the credibility of using a large amount of force early...
Smith: you know...
Smith: eroded and, therefore, we came to the idea of flexible response which is, one will use conventional forces as long as one can, the purpose being, for that defense is to try to have more rational heads prevail and try to end the hostilities during the conventional phase but then, if that fails, to be able to use a...
Smith: higher level of...
Smith: of force in order to try to achieve the same objective which is to bring that war to an end as soon as possible with the least about of...
Smith: damage, and...
Smith: and NATO planning is designed to do that and that's what, you know, S...has a general defense plan and that's what that plan is...
Smith: is designed to do this...
Smith: to defend NATO because the mission of those forces is to restore the integrity of NATO territory and those plans are designed to do that using whatever force may be required but hoping — hoping to use no force at all by deterring.
Smith: But if that fails, to deter the next level of...
Smith: of escalation so that the enemy will see that it's in his interest to withdraw rather than continue the conflict.
Interviewer: LET ME JUST GO BACK TO ONE FINAL POINT WHICH WE TALKED ABOUT A LITTLE BIT BEFORE WHICH I'D LIKE YOU TO EXPAND ON A LITTLE.
Interviewer: IN A SENSE, WHAT HAPPENS WITH THESE THINGS IS THE PUBLIC ASKS THE MILITARY TO DO THE DIRTY JOBS FOR IT.
Interviewer: THE PUBLIC DOESN'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS, BUT THE MILITARY HAVE TO NOT ONLY KNOW ABOUT THEM, THEY HAVE TO TRY AND — IN THE '70'S IT WAS TRUE, IT'S STILL TRUE, THEY HAVE TO TRY AND TRAIN PEOPLE IN THE USE OF THEM.
Interviewer: HOW DO YOU — HOW, IN YOUR EXPERIENCE, HOW DO YOU TRAIN PEOPLE TO FIGHT NUCLEAR WARS?
Smith: Yeah, that's...
Smith: it's a difficult...
Smith: you know, thing to do because it's...
Smith: it's easier in some sense to train for a conventional war because we have experienced that.
Smith: And even though our experience is not too good and they always accuse the Military of trying to fight the last war, at least they have some database to operative from and...
Smith: but we don't have it in...
Smith: in nuclear war and so the only thing you can do is...
Smith: is to try to imagine what a nuclear environment would be like in terms of, you know, lack of...
Smith: you know, communications, the fact that you'd have to be...
Smith: dispersed, the fact that; you...
Smith: it's really going to be confusing.
Smith: A lot of people will not know what's going on within short distances from them and you try to imagine what that kind of environment would be like and then put people in the field and something resembling that environment, to as close as you can get and then see how they behave.
Smith: Ah, yeah, it's...
Smith: it's --it's hard to judge how well that works since one doesn't know what the real environment will be like.
Smith: But I do think it's a...
Smith: it's a serious effort to try to...
Smith: to take those factors into consideration but -- but one should not be satisfied with what's been done and I'll tell you, what that really teaches one is that one wants to avoid all kinds of war and that...
Smith: we — the best thing we can do is to make sure that we persuade...
Smith: any enemy that it's better to settle our differences peacefully than try to settle them on the battlefield.
Smith: Okay.
Smith: No one knows how long any war is going to go on.
Smith: I mean, you know, and then, then particularly...
Smith: yeah, particularly a, a nuclear war.
Smith: I think that again, they were military purposes.
Smith: The targets were going to be military targets, would have, have military utility but the...
Smith: the purpose was to make the other side realize it was better to stop hostilities before they escalated further.
Smith: So...
Smith: I know it's hard for a lot of people to look at.
Smith: It's hard for me to look at but it really is, it's the, it's the use of force...
Smith: for...
Smith: to, to accomplish a, a military objective that...
Smith: that also...
Smith: lets the other side know that you are determined to protect your interest with whatever level of forces necessary and that the time for him to res...
Smith: to desist in his...
Smith: aggression is, is right at that point rather than later.
Smith: So yeah, what uh, I think what you're...
Smith: the, the difficult part is well, can you do that with nuclear weapons...
Smith: Can you do it with the conventional weapons? I...
Smith: I think we...
Smith: yeah, we don't know that and it's a...
Smith: as, as the...
Smith: There was this time I think Schlesinger was talking about smaller, you're talking about smaller yield nuclear weapons, more controllable, less...
Smith: unnecessary damage.
Smith: ...
Smith: And as you increase the capability of conventional weapons...
Smith: there...
Smith: there was a time and some people say that time may come again when the line between what is, what's a conventional weapon and what's a nuclear weapon uh, becomes somewhat blurred and therefore they, there's not this distinction that people see, that most people now see.
Interviewer: THIS RELATES TO WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE NEUTRON BOMB THING HAPPENED WHICH WAS THAT THE PEOPLE IN EUROPE SAID THIS IS BLURRING THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN NUCLEAR WAR AND CONVENTIONAL WAR.
Smith: Yeah.