WHEN THE NEW ADMINISTRATION CAME IN WITH NIXON AND KISSINGER, WHY IN YOUR FEELING WERE THEY CONCERNED ABOUT THE VULNERABILITY OF OUR ICBM FORCE AT THAT TIME?

Well, that is not a... the vulnerability of the ICBM forces. It's not really a new problem. Ah, it's been recognized for a long time ... that the ICBMs and fixed silos would be vulnerable just as soon as the side had a large enough number of sufficiently accurate uh, ICBM warheads of their own. In fact, if one goes back in history, ... when it was originally decided to build ICBMs, to design them, it was quite — it was recognized immediately that ICBMs would not be a solution to preserving a retaliatory force forever and that they would sooner or later become vulnerable. So that was not an original thought. But, at the time, when the Nixon administration took office, it was clear that the numbers which went ... with that worry, were such that it had to be taken seriously.

MAY I ASK YOU TO SAY AGAIN BRIEFLY, "WHEN THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION CAME IN, THE SOVIET BUILD UP WAS SUCH THAT –

That's right. When the Nixon administration came in, ... this particular old worry ... became sufficiently serious ... because of the increasing number of Soviet warheads ... that it was been taken seriously.

LET ME ASK YOU THAT ONCE MORE. LET'S STATE CLEARLY WHAT THE WORRY WAS.

Ok. The worry is that ... if an enemy warhead explodes close enough to an ICBM silo, the silo would be destroyed. So therefore, as soon as the other side has enough warheads of sufficient accuracy and sufficient yield to be detonated near the silo, then they become vulnerable. So, then it gets to be simply a matter of arithmetic as to which side has more warheads and what the accuracy and yield combination is.

WHEN YOU AND THE OTHER SCIENTISTS WERE MEETING WITH DR. KISSINGER, WHAT WERE SOME OF THE THINGS THAT YOU DISCUSSED THAT COULD BE DONE ABOUT THE ICBM VULNERABILITY?

Well, uh, when we met with Dr. Kissinger, one of the main things which we I believe made successfully clear to Dr. Kissinger, that at that time, the Soviets had as much reason to worry about this problem than we had to worry about the problem. In other words, the Soviets were roughly as vulnerable, even at that time, to ... attack from our Minuteman, an — that as they were — I'm sorry — as we were ... to attack from them. And the reason was that even at that time, the precision, and the accuracy ... of delivery by a Minuteman to them was considerably higher than delivery ... accuracy on their part against us. And the one thing which are recognized technically is that accuracy is a much more controlling variable in this kind of thing than explosive power. So we...we propo...we presented Kissinger with a number of tables which indicated the... what fraction of their force we could knock out preemptively and what fraction of our force they could uh, knock out. Ended out that we were pretty much in the same neck of the woods. Uh, so um, we made it clear that this worry about this vulnerability ... was really a fairly ... two-sided affair.

KISSINGER AND THE ADMINISTRATION SEEMED TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS PROBLEM FROM US POINT OF VIEW THAT OUR MINUTEMEN WERE VULNERABLE. DID YOU PROPOSE WAYS TO COUNTERACT THAT VULNERABILITY? WHAT WOULD YOU DISCUSS IN THAT RESPECT?

Uh, no. Uh, we did not ... propose ... any way to ... counteract the vulnerability. Um, a... I already mentioned uh, that we discussed that that fear about vulnerability was mutual. We did make it clear as I also did very extensively in congressional testimony later, that vulnerability of Minuteman is not the same thing as vulnerability of the entire strategic deterrent. Uh, that since there are also airplanes, and submarines, that even if Minuteman was struck preemptively, then, the other two branches of the strategic forces uh, would survive. And in fact, one of the things which we did and which was done more explicitly later, in congressional testimony, is to outline in considerable detail the time sequence in which such an attack could develop and it turns out if you look at the timing of attack and...of an attack, versus timing of rival of weapons, then there is no way in which the Soviet Union could attack the land based Minuteman deterrent... at the same time at which they would attack the land based aircraft uh, with submarines. And uh, in other — this fact is a rather complicated technical issue. The uh, time of flight of ICBM warheads from the Soviets to the United States is about 30 minutes. And, the time of flight of warheads from submarines to our airfields is about 15 minutes. Now it is possible — it was possible then to detect uh, through the infrared radiation, or some other means, when missiles are launched. So, let's say for a moment that the Soviets would launch missiles against our missiles and from land and missiles against our aircraft from the sea at the same time. Then, uh, the aircraft on land would be impact at 15 minutes before Minuteman would ...be. And, the Soviets would take a tremendous risk ah, in their 15 minute interval. The President ah, would decide to launch because...detonations on US homeland had actually occurred. Now if, on the other hand, the Soviets decided to launch in such a way, that the missiles would arrive simultaneously on the airfields and uh, on the — at the Minuteman silos, then the uh, missiles from the land based system would have to be launched 15 minutes earlier than from sea and we would get a warning from that and 15 minutes is ample time to get our airplanes off the ground. So therefore, even though a Minuteman would be attacked, then at that time, our airplanes would already be uh, up in the air and on their way... way to their targets in the Soviet Union. So, literally the time sequence is such that there w...that there is no way to have the Soviets uh, plan an attack which takes out both the air launched — uh, or the air borne retaliatory force and the land based missiles. Uh, without at the same time risking to be struck either by the urn, the aircraft, by bombs from the aircraft or by the fixed space missiles. So that sequence, that combination was made clear. So therefore, we tried to put this whole vulnerability business in to perspective.

COULD YOU START AGAIN WITH "WE TRIED TO PUT THE WHOLE VULNERABILITY PICTURE IN PERSPECTIVE." IN THE CONTEXT THAT KISSINGER--

We tried to put the vulnerability of the land based deterrent into perspective by pointing that vulnerability of minute-man, land based deterrent is not the same thing as vulnerability of the entire strategic retaliatory force. And in fact, uh, one thing that's troubled us at the time, and has troubled us since that time, is that this whole question of the vulnerability of the land based force has been sort of turned on and off in emphasis, uh, in all the subsequent period. I mean, this whole question which later became known as the window of vulnerability, which is the same thing, it was turned on at a later time, and then much later, the Scowcroft commission on strategic forces to President Reagan suddenly say that's not very important for just the reason which are outlined before. Namely that, the symbiotical relationship between the retaliatory forces on land and those at sea and those in the air.

WHEN THAT WAS EXPLAINED TO KISSINGER, WHAT WAS THE ADMINISTRATION'S REACTION? WHY DID THEY STILL INSIST ON TRYING TO GET AN ABM SYSTEM GOING?

Well, ah, in our ah, discussions with Kissinger, uh, there was really no way for us ever to examine the reaction of the administration. I mean, we could maybe uh, examine the reaction of those present in the room, uh, but not of the administration, and those present in the room were Kissinger and some of the uh, less senior members of the National Security Council staff. So, we recognized that in this... uh, input by our scientific group to Kissinger and his staff, we were giving information but we were not receiving anything ah, like something one could call a reaction. And therefore we had no way to examine how Kissinger would use information which he received. But we were quite satisfied with that situation. I mean, we felt being heard in this rather awkward situation was all we could expect.

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO SAY THAT AGAIN.

Wa...ah...we were quite satisfied that in this arrangement in which we basically urn, were able to meet with Kissinger after having entered through the back door, uh, we were indeed doing something useful... uh, in assuring that if Kissinger and the President undertook some action, that action was not taken in ignorant... ignorance of these technical circumstances. He may be taking actions which we would not like, which uh, we would not have advised, but in general and the science advisory situation that is a risk which one takes. Uh, one cannot expect that the net judgment in that assessment of the situation taken into account, the scientific technical, ah, and political uh, factors — and by that I mean both internal and external politics. Uh, that the target of advice will do what you want him to do. So, we were basically satisfied that Kissinger knew when making serious decisions that the vulnerability of the land based deterrent was a significant worry but in no... no way of interpretation ... an overriding worry. It was an... in no respect equivalent to saying that our deterrence was at risk. And therefore, no... we knew that he knew that no emergency action or no political very risky action or any provocative action had to be taken to counteract that.

LET'S TALK ABOUT MIRVS FOR A MINUTE, AGAIN IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR MEETINGS WITH DR. KISSINGER AND IN THE FRAMEWORK OF AN IMPENDING SALT — SALT TALKS ABOUT TO START. MAYBE YOU COULD EXPLAIN WHAT YOU DISCUSSED WITH KISSINGER ABOUT MIRVS, ABOUT WHETHER MORE TESTING WAS SOMETHING YOU WOULD LIKED TO HAVE SEEN AT THAT TIME BECAUSE OF WHERE THAT WOULD LEAVE US WITH THE OUT-COMING TALKS.

My recollection of the discussions with Dr. Kissinger... on the MIRV matter, are not very precise. Uh, I don't recall how we, for instance, uh, discussed a limitation on MIRVs. One subject on MIRV deployment. One thing which we did discuss was a limitation on MIRV testing. Uh, the issue essentially goes like that. As I discussed previously, uh, one of the most important factor which controlled whether minutemen or the land based forces on the Soviet side are vulnerable or not, depends on the accuracy uh, of the missiles or the warheads rather in hitting the targets, and even more important, in the confidence uh, which the attacker would have, that that accuracy can really be obtained, because if you do a preemptive attack, uh, you only can do it once. Uh, and to get that confidence, uh, you have to test. And, you not only do you have to test, you have to test with enough frequency so enough statistable data accumulates. Uh, that you can accumulate both the date and the confidence and the accuracy is really real. And you have to keep testing the same model, over and over again uh, to accumulate such data. If you keep changing what you're testing all the time, then you don't accumulate the information in a meaningful way. So therefore, we uh, felt that by putting into the Salt framework a quota, an annual quota of the number of testing which is permitted, uh, a... a number of... of test launches permitted, that case it would make it difficult for the one side or the other to accumulate the confidence and the accuracy to result in confidence that a first strike against the other side's uh, fixed... uh, land based missiles would succeed. And, w... we — one can do some uh, statistical arithmetic which goes with that. It's not a terribly meaningful set of arithmetic. Uh then later some contractors did the same kind of arithmetic uh, more accurat... more accurately but not necessarily more meaningf... in a more...more meaningful way. But it basically meant that, at least in a qualitative sense, if there weren't test launches per year, then this whole question about vulnerability of the land based deterrent uh, would be uh, from a technical point of view, less significant.

WHAT ABOUT MIRVS SPECIFICALLY THOUGH. DID THE GROUP SUGGEST THAT UNITED STATES HAVE A MORATORIUM OR AT LEAST A SLOW DOWN ON MIRV TESTING?

Uh, I... I... eh... this... this is a matter where my rec... the matter about the actual limitation of MIRV deployment and MIRV testing, in the manner where my re... re... recollection is... is... is somewhat vague and uncertain. We did discuss the fact simply that the advents of MIRVs and the multiplicity indeed was driving this concern about, uh, vulnerability of the land based deterrent, for the obvious reason that if there are more than one warhead on one missile, uh, then one launcher uh, is... can d... indirectly destroy more than one launcher of the other side and you have an unstable situation. That we identified. But I do not recall precisely how that really should reflect, uh, into our Salt position.

...AND IT WOULD LEAVE THE SOVIET UNION IN A POSITION OF SUPERIORITY FOR A DECADE, IF WE ABANDONED BOTH MIRV AND THE ABM TREATY. COULD YOU COMMENT ON THAT?

Uh... I... uh, I... uh... was told, am being told that, uh, Dr. Kissinger said that if both ABM and MIRV were bargained away as a result of SALT I, that we would be in a po-, position of inferiority. I don't recall that we ever discussed the situation with Dr. Kissinger in those terms. Uh, we discussed sort of separately, uh, what can be done to avoid the damage MIRVs would do, uh, because, by degenerating the accuracy in a first strike, and we very much discussed, uh, how one should limit ABMs, uh, because of the fact that, uh, if there were more ABMs, in that case, that would provoke more MIRVs, more penetration aids, and that probably at lower cost, uh, ABM could be neutralized and leave the society deploying the ABM... just as vulnerable as they were before, and that therefore... our security advantage would lie in limiting ABM. So we discussed that, and in fact we discussed various ABM ceilings of various kinds. But I don't recall ever responding to the issue of what would happen if both ABM and MIRVs were go, uh, would go, how that would... that that will leave us inferior.

WELL, YOU KNOW, DR. KISSINGER'S BEEN QUOTED EVERYWHERE AS SAYING LATER THAT IF HE'D ONLY KNOWN THEN WHAT MIRVS REALLY MEANT, THAT HE WOULD HAVE HANDLED THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

Yes, I... I was told that MIRVs, uh, that, uh, Dr. Kissinger announced that "Had I known about the destabilizing effect of MIRVs, I would have done more about it." I am not, uh ... very sure that that statement is really based on fact. I think there was no question whatsoever that in our discussions with Dr. Kissinger, we made it abundantly clear that the presence of MIRVs was a driving force which caused the... the vulnerability of the land-based force in the, both ways. I think that the main thing we contributed is to point out to him that the situation was perhaps more symmetrical, uh, than he may have thought; that mainly it's not only our vulnerability but their vulnerability, which contribute instability. But I think he cannot claim not to know about those problems... if anything, uh, we may have slightly beaten that one to death. Uh... but we also, by putting it into context with the other threats, uh, and the other means to, which are possible for retaliation, we may have contributed to the fact that he did not consider the MIRV threat to the land-based deterrents to be the overriding factor, so, uh, so he certainly knew all those technical circumstances; uh, he, he may have, uh, fluctuated in view as to how serious the matter in context, in the overall strategic picture really was, that the land-based deterrent, uh, was getting vulnerable.

COULD YOU EXPLAIN BRIEFLY HOW MIRVS CAME INTO BEING?

The history of MIRVs is again complicated, because MIRVs have more than one mission. Uh, quite early uh... it, the Soviets started becoming active in deploying ABMs. They first, they built, starting building an... a defense around Leningrad, uh, then they took it down again, because it was ineffective, and then they started building around Moscow. And, of course, at those days, the intelligence information was somewhat scanty, and obviously we didn't know how far they would go. So therefore, uh, in order to preserve our deterrent against a potentially emerging ABM, we worried how to penetrate ABM, and the primary way to counteract an ABM is what is, what's known as penetration aids, and penetration aids of two kinds: things which one calls "endoatmospheric" and "exoatmospheric." Exoatmospheric are light pieces of chaff or, uh, other light objects in outer space, which presumably the, the radar of the opponent could not distinguish from the real reentry vehicle, and therefore would give them so many targets to track and to tar-, uh, uh, and to, uh, destroy, that ABM, the defense would be ineffective. However, if the other side can wait long enough for these reentry vehicles and the chaff to enter into the atmosphere, then the decoy, the chaff, the so-called exoatmospheric decoys, would slow down and the enemy radar could tell which is which. And therefore, the obvious answer is to have, uh, heavier decoys, uh, and the heavier they are, and the more they look like a reentry vehicle, the, the less distinguish-, distinguishable they would be relative to a reentry vehicle. But then the next step was, all right, I mean, if they, if it looks like a reentry vehicle and smells like a reentry vehicle and acts like a reentry vehicle, why not make it a reentry vehicle and put a bomb in it? So therefore that was basically the birth of, uh, MIRVs, or rather, first the MRV's, namely multiple-reentry vehicles, uh, because... that idea was simply borne by the fact that if you wanted a decoy, um, the real RV, with decoys, which are really undistinguishable, uh, from the reentry vehicle, then very little additional weight is involved, and you actually at the same time put a weapon on it. So that was the beginning of MRVs, and then came MIRVs. Now, the interesting fact, of course, is that that sort of prompted the idea, but then it became clear that the ABM threat had been greatly exaggerated, that the Russians proceeded quite slowly with the ABM deployments — as I said, the initial deployment... around Leningrad was taken down again; the, uh, deployment around Moscow never grew to more than 64 interceptors; so you don't need such a very complicated system to overhang just 64, uh, intercepting, uh pieces of ammunition, essentially. But nevertheless, by that time, uh, the, our military discovered that MIRVs could serve quite a few other missions, other than simply penetrating the defenses of the other side. Uh, it was discovered that that was a good way to simply be able to target more objects in the Soviet Union less expensively. And, um, uh, so that... with a lower investment in number of launches on our side, you still could have more targets. And, um, you could also target them with fairly good precision. So, uh, so as our strategy went considerably beyond sort of the idea of having a minimal deterrent to inflict unacceptable damage to the aggressor, but when we looked at actual, more complicated doctrines, uh, which involved targeting, uh, many other military targets, then being able to cover all those, uh, became an attractive idea, and MIRV started to have a life of its own, beyond being just a penetration aid. Then, there's another technical matter, and that is the fact that if you put one heavy bomb on one warhead, uh, and attack a city, then you can damage a certain area, which is quite large, but in the middle of the area you're overkilling, uh — that means you're pro-, you're producing so much extra heat and blast that ..., it, it doesn't, it wouldn't make any more difference. If you have more than one warhead on the missile, then the, what is known as the footprint of that, uh, launch, can be widened by spreading out the individual warheads. Now for that you don't need an MIRV, but only an MRV... and it's, you need, not just... you... need a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, but just multiple reentry vehicles. And our early Poseidon A-3 missiles were MRVs, not MIRVs; they simply were designed so they could widen the footprint and therefore do more damage for a given total, uh, weight carat.

I WANT TO ASK YOU JUST ONE MORE THING ABOUT MIRVS. START OUT BY TELLING US HOW AT THAT TIME, THE MIRV WAS REALLY THE BIG NEW WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT IN THIS COUNTRY.

Yes. Well, the motivation for developing MIRVs was multiple. Uh, the initial motivation was as a penetration aid, to penetrate the ballistic missile defense, which we saw growing in the Soviet Union. But, as soon as the development proceeded, uh, it became clear that technology, uh, was really very powerful to attain quite a few other goals, which at least some members of the military found extraordinarily valuable, and the, there were really two other goals: one was to attack a multiplicity of targets, maybe even hard targets, each with very high accuracy, uh, and the other one was that when you attack an area target, like a city, then rather than having one very heavy missile, very heavy warhead, uh, carried by one missile, it would, it would be more effective to broaden what's known as a footprint by having several, uh, warheads on that missile, because that way you would not overkill the center of the blast but instead could, uh, spread out the damage more uniformly, in such a way that a larger area was covered, still with a lethal force.

SO AT THAT TIME, AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION, MIRV WAS REALLY THE HOT TECHNICAL?

Well, well, by the beginning of the Nixon Administration, clearly MIRVs were... valued by the military establishment for a... number of, uh, military reasons. Uh, but those military rea-, uh, uh, reasons went considerably beyond preserving the deterrent capability of the United States to deter aggression, a first strike by the other side, and those military reasons went considerably beyond the reasons, uh, of simply penetrating an emerging ABM system on the other side. Um, this is a problem one has all the time, when you try to apply control... to a system which is in some sense destabilizing and does not really in the long run serve our, the military stability and our national security. Then when you have an argument about that, then you find yourself in a very difficult situation, if that system can have more than one mission. And whenever you say, "We don't really want that, uh, to penetrate ABM, uh, because that may be destabilizing, uh, and we don't need it anyway because the other guy doesn't have that much ABM," uh, then the argument is, "Yes, but we need it, to attack" — in the jargon... of the military — "to attack a multiplicity of time-urgent military targets." That's the standard jargon, which means in English that you want to be able to knock out a large number of hardened (?) command and control centers and maybe hardened industrial targets like, uh, power plants or hardened steel mills or whatever. And... so you find yourself in the argument, uh, uh, facing a multiplicity of arguments, because the mission is multiple, is not just one. That's a standard thing, which always happens in these arms-control or military stra-, strategy situations, that... it, it, to begin with, as a military problem, you make a technical innovation to meet that problem, one, then you build usually too much, uh, weaponry to meet that technical, uh, goal, so then the new technical device becomes a device in search of more missions; then those more missions do, uh, emerge, and then those new missions, which were really created by the technical device, become justification for building more of that technical device. And... that pattern, uh, has occurred in the history of the military competition, occurred... uh, more than once, to put it mildly.

LET'S MOVE ON TO THE ABM TREATY. WHY DO YOU THINK IT WAS THAT THE PUBLIC AND THE CONGRESS GOT SO INVOLVED IN THE ABM QUESTION?

Well, uh, one has to remember that ABM also has many missions. Uh, it has missions of defending the population at large from all-out attack; it has a mission of defending the population at large from, uh, what at that time were, was considered to be the irrational Chinese; uh, or, uh, from an a-, from an accidental or unauthorized launch on other sides. But it can also have the mission of protecting our retaliatory forces, a means of protecting the land-based missiles, which, uh, are, were, were perceived to be in danger to pre-emptive attack. Now, the Sentinel system, which Mr. McNamara proposed, uh, just, uh, near the end, uh, of his tenure in office, was an area defense, designed to protect the United States against a limited attack from either China or unauthorized launches; and it would involve placing, uh, longer-range interceptors... the so-called Spartan missiles, around the perimeter of many cities. Now the Spartan interceptors carry hydrogen-bomb warheads because they were designed to come near the, the incoming, uh, reentry vehicles, uh, only within a few thousand feet, and therefore would have to have a very long kill radius. So, that in turn gave concern in the populace, to, in respect to what was known as "hydrogen bombs in the backyard" kind of argument. And, the most of the opposition to, uh, the ABM, the Sentinel system, was generated not so much by more subtle arguments about whether strategically it was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do or, or whether it was cost-effective or not cost-effective, and all that kind of stuff, but simply because it wouldn't be safe to have those things sitting around near cities. Incidentally, I mean, that argument was relatively... poorly taken, because at that time we did have, uh nuclear weapons, on air-defense systems, already deployed — I mean, they were already from nuclear weapons in the backyard, uh, but the some other hadn't caught the public attention as much as the proposed ABM Sentinel has.

HOW DID IT HAPPEN THAT YOU CAME TO TESTIFY AT THE ABM HEARINGS? MAYBE YOU COULD TELL THAT STORY YOU TOLD BEFORE ABOUT RUNNING INTO DAVID PACKARD IN THE AIRPORT?

Yeah. Well, uh, in the beginning of the Nixon Administration, uh, I happened to meet, uh, Doc-, uh, Mr. David Packard, uh, who was the Deputy Secretary of Defense under the administration, uh, at the TWA Ambassadors Lounge at the San Francisco Airport, because we were on the same plane, and the, um, uh, airplane was delayed and we had about an hour. And he asked me, uh, about my views on ABMs, and specifically, he said that the administration had decided to take... to scrap the plans for the Sentinel, uh, system, which had been, uh, planned by... McNamara, and replace it with a so-called "safeguard system," and that the mission, uh, of that system was not to defend the population, uh, with a thin cover, uh, as was the mission of Sentinel, but that instead it was designed to protect the retaliatory power of the fixed land-based silos — in other words, to preserve our deterrent. So I asked him what... uh, hardware are you going to use, and he said that they were going to convert and adapt the hardware which, uh, had been, uh, developed at considerable investment, uh, pre-, previously for Sentinel. So--

... COULD YOU START AGAIN, WHERE YOU ASKED HIM WHAT HARDWARE. . . ?

I asked him what--

(INTERRUPTION)

Okay. I asked, uh, Mr. Packard what hardware they were planning to develop and deploy for this mission of defending minimum silos; he said they were going to use largely the same hardware which had been developed, at considerable investment, for the Sentinel system. And I said that I greatly... approved of the shift in mission, because it would fundamentally be stabilizing by counteracting the vulnerability of the land-based deterrent, but, as I said... specifically, that he had the wrong hardware for that particular mission, because the technical demands to take care of that mission were very different than the technical de-, demands for Sentinel. Uh, and, so to summarize, what I told to Mr. Packard was that I had no... criticism of the mission, but I did have criticism of the way the mission was supposed to be accomplished, by simply rededicating the hardware of Sent-, Sentinel to the mission of Safeguard. Now--

(INTERRUPTION)

Now, this airport conversation had a rather amusing sequel, uh, because as, as it happened there was then in, um, Washington, testifying before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, on a completely different subject, namely on the status and merits of High-Energy Physics Program, which is my main occupation. And and it turns out that Senator Gore, uh, the father of the present Senator Gore in the Senate, was a member of that committee, and at the end of that testimony, I didn't have anything to do for a few hours, and, uh, sat in on another hearing, this time before the Foreign Relations Committee, uh, where... uh, there was testimony on ABM. And, at that time, uh, the question w-, ...Mr. Packard was... on the witness stand, and he was being asked, uh, whether he had any external scientific advice in reaching his decision to deploy the, um, uh, Safe- guard system. And he... thought about it and, uh, because it was clear there had been internal discussions, of course, and he said, "Yes, I've talked to Dr. Panofsky." And, uh, then, he was being asked where, uh, and it then appeared that this conver-, conversation took place at the airport. Well, then it turned out Senator Gore saw me in the audience and said, "Dr. Panofsky's in the audience," so, uh, the way my friends put it, "You've been gored," uh, uh, in the sense that Senator Gore then requested me to come back and testify in two days, and give my views on the Safeguard system. So, I flew home--

(INTERRUPTION)

Senator Gore then asked me to testify two days later, uh, before the same committee, on the Safeguard system. So... I had no way to refuse that, but I was not prepared at that time, so I flew home, uh, wrote the testimony and prepared some charts, and then went back two days later and testified. And, in that testimony, basically made a... repeated the same remarks which I had made to Mr. Packard at the airport, namely that I had severe difficulties with the Safeguard system, because of the fact that technically, uh, the system was badly designed to accomplish its mission.

(INTERRUPTION)

And, she--

(INTERRUPTION)

Yeah, technically, I felt that the Safeguard system was badly designed to accomplish its mission of defending Minuteman, and I gave really two basic technical arguments. One was that there was not enough ammunition to intercept a large number of incoming missiles, that, at that time, and also for considerable periods after, the total number of interceptors which were contained in the Safeguard system, was classified, so there was no way to say, really, how poor it was in ammunition. And the second factor is, that the radars, the so-called MSR and PAR radars, which are the eyes of the system, were vulnerable. The PAR system is the forward... position radar, which detects incoming missiles at a long range, and it's very sensitive to any kind of nuclear blast, which might be occurring at some distance; it would basically bend the incoming, it would bend the line of sight of the radar so you'd get the wrong answer in terms of impact prediction. And the MSR, which is very close... to the defensive interceptors, the so-called "missile site radar," has a hardness which is such that at 25 pounds per square inch it would fail, while the things which it protects are hard to about 1,000 pounds per square inch, so it was much softer, much more vulnerable, than what it protects. So it itself would simply be the primary target, rather than what it detects... what it protects.

CAN YOU SUMMARIZE AGAIN THE POINTS YOU MADE BEFORE THE COMMITTEE, WITHOUT GETTING INTO SO MUCH DETAIL ABOUT THE RADARS, AND THEN MAYBE YOU COULD GO INTO DESCRIBING THE FAMOUS CHART...

Okay. Uh, the basic reasons why I took the position that, although I had no problems about the mission of Safeguard, I had trouble with its design, were the following: first, the—

CAN YOU START AGAIN, AND SAY, "IN MY TESTIMONY"?

Okay. In my testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, I, uh, made the basic point that although I have no problems with the basic mission of Safeguard, I felt that its design were not suited to the mission. And the reasons, the technical reasons for that view was first that the total number of interceptors, that means ammunition, which Safeguard could deploy and control, was so small that it could not possibly protect the Minuteman silos against a fairly massive attack. And secondly, that the eyes of the system, both the forward radar, the so-called PAR, and the closed-in radar, the so-called MSR, were a great deal more vulnerable to nuclear blasts, uh, and indirect effect of nuclear blasts, that they were, they would themselves become lucrative targets, and they would be much easier to knock out than the missile silos which they were to protect. Now, then at a later time, I was called back to testify before other committees, including the Armed Services Committee, and at that time I produced a chart, which reflected the fact that at that time the Soviets were building up their missile forces at a fairly high rate. And I pointed out that because of the paucity of ammunition interceptors in the Safeguard system, that the vulnerability of the Minuteman with Safeguard, three weeks later, was the same than it would have been without Safeguard three weeks earlier. In other words, that, after having spent several billion dollars to deploy the Safeguard system, we would only have postponed the day of presumably unacceptable vulnerability of Minuteman by three weeks, and that, it appeared to me, was not a good way, uh, for investing the, uh, defense dollar. So that chart, uh, turned out to be fairly impressive to the, uh, Senate committees.

COULD YOU JUST SAY AGAIN... I THINK THE THREE-WEEKS IDEA DIDN'T COME ACROSS REAL CLEARLY...

Uh, at the time of my testimony, the Soviets were building up their missile forces fairly rapidly, uh, and one could show by simple arithmetic that the main effect of the Safeguard system would have been to protect the Minuteman silos... to the very limited ex-, to a very limited extent, and that extent was so limited that without Safeguard — say, we had a given vulnerability of Minuteman --with Safeguard, we would be just as vulnerable again, uh, but only three weeks later, because, because with that curved rate of buildup, the additional, uh, warheads the Soviets were generating, uh, could just draw out that limited amount of am-, of ammunition interceptors which Safeguard had, and then the rest of them would have a free ride.

... COULD YOU SAY IT THIS WAY, JUST SAY THAT WITH THE AMOUNT OF ATTENTION THAT SAFEGUARD WAS GIVEN, IT WOULD ONLY TAKE THE SOVIETS THREE MORE WEEKS...

The total amount of protection which Safeguard offered was so limited that at the, at that time... uh, at the rate at which the Soviets were producing additional missiles and missile warheads, it would have shifted the vulnerability of Minuteman by only three weeks. Uh, in other words, that, uh, after deployment of Safeguard, the vulnerability would have been exactly the same with Safeguard three weeks later than it would have been before Safeguard was deployed.

ONE MORE THING ABOUT SALT... HOW DID YOU REACT TO THE NEWS WHEN THE ABM TREATY BECAME A REALITY?

Well I reacted very positively to the ABM ratification, which was of course, as you know, a very large majority, but I had been in the process through much this was a goal we'd been working for for a long time, so and the ratification, not necessarily by that large a majority... uh, was expected at the time, so it was sort of, just a con-, continuation of a process, which, uh, had been going for some time. Uh... so I was obviously happy that occurred; I consider the ABM treaty, uh, to have served the national security well; I believe it has prevented, uh, a destructive offense, defensive competition since that time; uh, it has made both sides reasonably comfortable with the fact that the strategic buildup has pretty well leveled off, uh, because the penetration of both the sea-launched and land-based missile forces is assured, and, uh, I believed then as I do now that, uh, to have, uh, any kind of meaningful ABM defenses emerge, uh, would take decades, if it was feasible at all, so therefore, uh, one can be entirely comfortable, uh, that under the ABM treaty regime, that there's no need for further buildup in the strategic forces, and I believe the Soviets, uh, could be persuaded, uh, along the same vein. And I believe the ABM treaty deserves critic, uh, credit for the fact that the strategic buildup of both countries hasn't, uh, has pretty well ceased; there's been modernization, and changes in the mix, but the actual number of delivery vehicles has leveled off. And it deserves credit for the fact that as the Europeans develop their independent deterrent forces, the French and the British, that they are also, uh, assured that they can, uh, meet, meet their goals. So I believe it's been a greatly stabilizing influence, uh, on the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States.

WHAT WAS THE ESSENCE OF THE ARGUMENT YOU MADE TO THE SENATE ABOUT WHY THE ABM AND THE OFFENSIVE AGREEMENT REALLY PRECLUDED THE NEED TO GO INTO RAPID STRATEGIC ARMS...?

Well Firstly, let me say that my recollection, uh, of the ABM uh, hearings, confirmation hearings, is quite faint, and that the transcript probably has more information than I recall, uh, so I'm quoting here from memory. Uh, my view was then, as it is today, that the ABM treaty, uh, assures the penetration of both the land-based, uh, Minuteman force, ballistic-missile force, and the sea-launched ballistic-missile forces; and that even at the level of forces which were available at that time, uh, those...missiles, uh, warheads, uh, could inflict absolutely enormous damage on the society, uh, of, uh, the target nation, both ways, and therefore there was no rational way for starting the employment of nuclear weapons. And that the ABM Treaty stabilized that... that relationship. And one of... now, the term "stability" has basically two facets: one is what one might call arms-race stability — that means it re-, it means the, the stability which makes it unnecessary for each side or the other to race the other in strategic weapons buildup; and crisis stability — that means it removes the incentive to one or the other side to strike first in time of, uh, crisis. Now what was under discussion at that time was arms-race stability-- namely, is there an incentive for the... the United States to engage into a further buildup of strategic weapons, uh, when, uh, at the same time, the ABM treaty has, uh, assured the penetration of those weapons which we already have. And my conclusion was that one of the fruits of the ABM Treaty right then is that such a buildup is not necessary, because of the fact that, uh, it basically extended the strategically useful life of those weapons which we already have, because they could not be stopped. That's the general logic.

IF YOU COULD STATE THAT THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE TREATY WAS MUTUAL DETERRENCE, AND THAT--

But, uh, at the... Ratification Hearings, uh, I took a position, one in favor of the ABM Treaty, and against a buildup of the strategic forces by adding some items as a B-1 bomber to the arsenal. And, my basic position was then, as it is now, is that the goal of arms control is to increase the national security at lower burdens and dangers of armaments. And, since the ABM Treaty has assured the penetration of those weapons, ballistic-missile weapons we now have, and all our lives have, I saw no reasons why additional buildup was necessary. Now, the background of that conviction of mine, which I conveyed during the hearings, is that mutual deterrence is assured, uh, was assured at that time, by the ABM Treaty, and the interim agreement on offensive weapons, which dealt with the limits on ballistic missiles, but not on aircraft, um... because it basically certified that, at that situation, both sides have ample forces to mutually deter one another from starting a nuclear conflict. And, if one would now start building up, uh, dramatically again, on offensive nuclear weapons, one may eventually build up so many weapons that the one side or the other would see a great advantage in time of crisis, to strike first. And, uh, the purpose of the ballistic missile treaty and the, uh, interim SALT I agreement was precisely to remove the in-, the incentive for such a buildup; that means to achieve what, in a more modern language, one calls "arms race stability." Uh, so, I continue to believe that, when one looks into the future, one has... various alternatives: one is to continue arms-racing with all its dangers, costs, uh, and basic destructiveness; or to try to bring the arms race under control and that means negotiated arms control, and the goal of that is to increase national security, uh, at lower burdens, uh, of, uh, weaponry. I think one thing the American people have to understand is that ever since World War II, weapons have indeed increased a great deal, and their lethality have increased, the costs have increased, but the national security, whichever way you define that term, has surely decreased. Uh, so therefore one should learn that increase in weaponry, and increase in national security, is not the same thing, and in fact very often, uh, are factors which go in opposite direction. And, at the time of the ratification hearing, that fact was abundantly clear, that here we had been successful in bringing at least one important part of the arms race under control, so surely, the best answer to that success is not to now let the arms race get away again in some other corner, uh, which has not yet been brought under formal control.

THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT PRESENTED THE ARGUMENT THAT IF THEY GO AHEAD AND MODERNIZE AND WE DON'T, THEN AT SOME POINT THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE X NUMBER MORE WEAPONS THAN WE DO, AND THEY'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO BULLY US AROUND. WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT?

Well, uh, the standard argument, of course, for any buildup is "If we don't do it, they will, and then we'll be worse off." And, uh, one real achievement of the ABM Treaty was that the range of stability which we have is really quite broad. Uh, so we don't have to react instantaneously to the Soviets doing something, uh, because, uh, even if the Soviets build up some forces, it is still... true that if they were to attack us first, we could totally destroy, uh, them as a functioning society, so one thing which the ABM Treaty makes it possible to do is to wait and see: we don't have to make hair trigger decisions about building up, uh, nuclear weapons, uh, uh, and, uh, whenever we surmise that the Soviets may be building something up. See, the problem is, our intelligence information as to what the Soviets have been doing is limited, and it's even more limited in trying to project what they are going to do. So therefore, there always is a gap between what you might call "worst-case projections," "most-likely projections," and "minimum projections," as to what the other side will do. Now, normally the military man will feel that his responsibility is to be conservative, uh... meaning that he has to be able to be prepared even in face of the worst-case projection. Now, and it's for that reason, uh, that there tends to be a gap, often, in advice between the conservative military men and others who feel that such a buildup is not warranted, and might even become counterproductive, uh, if one consider then the countermeasures, uh, which they would take to our deployment and so forth and so forth. And, uh, so therefore I took the position at that time that the margin of stability which the ABM Treaty provided was sufficiently broad that there was no necessity for us to respond to possible further acquisitions by the Soviets.

WHAT WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO IF DETERRENCE FAILED?

Well, of course, nobody had an answer to the question as to precisely what one side or the other would do if deterrence failed-- namely that, if for some reason, one side or the other, either by accident or in time of crisis, would decide to use nuclear weapons. The most, uh, important thing is, one, to make that event be as improbable as possible; and the second thing is, to, if deterrence should fail, is to use all possible means to bring the conflict to a conclusion, uh, before it escalates to a totally destructive level. And uh, that kind of thing is best served--

... THE ARGUMENT WAS BEING PRESENTED THAT EVEN IF WE DIDN'T NEED THE MARGINAL EDGE IN WEAPONS, THAT WE NEEDED THEM AS BARGAINING CHIPS FOR THE NEXT ROUND OF SALT TALKS.

Well, an argument which is often being given for, uh, building up weapons in an arms control climate -- that means, against a background of arms control negotiations-- is that we need them as bargaining chips. And the argument... is, We've got to arm in order to disarm, in order to in order to bargain from a "position of strength." The problem, of course, is that the other side... can view the situation the same way, so therefore, he feels that he can't bargain until he's matched our buildup, and you just start a race... under the name of bargaining chips. Another problem with bargaining chips is that to, if one uses that argument, one has a large political investment in... getting that argument to prevail, and then very often, once we have gotten a weapons system deployed, under the name, in the name of bargaining chips, we very often don't bargain with it but simp-, and it simply... sits there, and haunts us. And that of course has happened over and over and over again — I mean, we have, uh, uh, the, in the current day, SDI is sometimes being defended as having brought the Soviets to the, uh, bargaining table, and it's now very difficult to get rid of, in the bargaining; similarly, we are now having the spectacle that intermediate nuclear forces, the Pershings in Europe, were being brought up, uh, in the so-called "dual track" decision, where at the same time we are supposed to bargain to get rid of them, excepting now the Europeans are objecting, saying they don't want to get rid of them. So in general, a bargaining chip has two adverse consequences; one is, it in itself gets to be a contest of bargaining chips; and secondly, the general tendency, once you have such systems, they're sufficiently attractive, in terms of their military potential, that then, uh, they aren't being bargained away, and they thus continue to haunt us.