War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Douglas Waller, 1987

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Transcript

WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES D11021-D11023 DOUGLAS WALLER

Congress under the New Reagan Administration

Interviewer:

LET'S GO BACK TO 1981. LET'S GO BACK TO THE INAUGURATION. YOU WERE

HERE. JUST TELL US, YOU WEREN'T WORKING FOR THE CONGRESSMAN, WERE YOU,

THEN?

Waller:

Yeah, I was working for Congressman Markey then, who was...

Interviewer:

WHY DON'T YOU PICK IT UP?

Waller:

Well, I was working for Ed Markey in Massachusetts, who is a liberal

congressman from north Boston. And I'll never forget that particular

day. It was bitter cold outside. It had rained the day before, and it

was typical of Washington in January, just absolutely miserable out.

But, interestingly enough, when the inauguration started, it was bright

and sunny outside. Still bitter cold, but it was like the skies had

opened up. And it was a very, I guess for Republicans it was a very

festive day. There were, I can remember, people dancing, well, not

dancing, but walking through the halls with cocktails and a lot of

women in mink stoles, and a lot of hometown politicians come into town

to see one of their own put in office. In every sense of the word, it

was the conservative Republicans' day. And for, I guess, liberal

Democrats, which my boss was at that time, it was a pretty lonely

period. You noticed in a lot of the liberal Democratic offices, they

were kind of empty and kind of quiet that particular day, because this

was the final day of the Reagan revolution, and the revolutionary, so

to speak, had stormed Washington at this point. And I guess if there

was a peak to the whole revolution, that day was it. It wasn't a fun

place to be if you were a liberal, that's for sure.

Interviewer:

HAVING COVERED CONGRESS FOR A WHILE, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I'VE

NOTICED IS THERE'S ALWAYS SORT OF A CAMARADERIE BETWEEN BOTH SIDES.

YOU'RE ALWAYS SURPRISED TO SEE THAT, GEE, TIP O'NEILL AND MICHAELS ARE

GOOD GOLF PARTNERS AND FRIENDS, ALTHOUGH THEY CAN BE VERY BITTER,

ALMOST VITRIOLIC WITH EACH OTHER DURING DEBATES. WHAT WAS THE MOOD

BETWEEN. I MEAN, WAS THERE ANY RELATIONSHIP IN THESE OPENING DAYS

BETWEEN THE REPUBLICANS AND THE DEMOCRATS?

Waller:

Well, generally, there is a camaraderie, and there is for a very good

reason, too. It's because Congress is basically a house of coalitions.

So, your enemy, political enemy one day will be your political ally

another day. So you can't get too headstrong in your beliefs one way or

the other. Keep in mind that before the Reagan Administration came into

office the divisions between conservatives and liberals, although they

were there, were not tremendously great, because we had mainly

conservative moderates versus liberal to liberal moderates. The Reagan

Administration when it came in, particularly in the area of arms

control, brought in I guess what's been commonly called the hard right,

the ideological right. And these were folks that had fought bitter

battles against arms control or over arms control for years and years

and years past. These were the people that had been waiting in the

wings of power for a long time. And when they came in, of course they

were, I guess like any victory, or any victor, marching into a new

town, they displayed all the signs of a victor and everything, and in

some ways gloated. And they had good reason to gloat, because Ronald

Reagan had scored the biggest electoral victory that conservative

Republicans had ever seen. And, in effect, they owned the town, and

they acted like they owned the town.

Interviewer:

IN CONGRESS, WHEN DID YOU FIRST NOTICE, WHEN WAS IT FIRST APPARENT IN

TERMS OF LEGISLATION MOVING OR HEARINGS, THAT THERE WAS A NEW, WHEN DID

THAT MOOD BEGIN TO SEEP INTO THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS?

Waller:

Almost immediately. Of course the confirmation hearings for the

administration's foreign policy and defense team preceded, or sailed

through, which everybody would expect they would, with a new

administration. There were only two votes against Caspar Weinberger on

confirmation. I think it was from Sen. Jesse Helms and Sen. John East,

the late Sen. John East, who thought Caspar Weinberger was not going to

be strong enough on defense. The first Reagan defense budget to come to

the Hill sailed through practically untouched whereas in years past

there were a significant number of arms control amendments or defense

budget-cutting amendments on Carter defense bills. You saw none of that

in the early Reagan defense bills. The liberals that normally would

have gotten up and offered cost-cutting amendments stayed on the

sidelines those first two years.

Interviewer:

POLITICIANS OF ALL PEOPLE ARE SENSITIVE TO THEIR CONSTITUENCIES, THE

PUBLIC, OF ALL THINGS THAT COULD BE SAID ABOUT THEM. WHY WERE THEY SO

CAUTIOUS AND QUIET? DID THEY FEEL THERE WAS POPULAR SUPPORT OUT THERE

FOR THE PRESIDENT?

Waller:

Oh, they knew there was tremendous popular support out there for the

President.

Interviewer:

I'M SORRY, GO BACK AND START THAT, BUT INSTEAD OF SAYING "THEY," MAKE

THAT A NOUN, A REAL, NOT A PRONOUN.

Waller:

Oh, okay. The people knew, I'm sorry. The members of Congress, senators

and congressmen, knew there was popular support out there for the

President. They knew there was a conservative wave, or they perceived

there was a conservative wave, out there. And keep in mind, around this

time perception counts as much as reality. So whether it was real or

not, and there were some people that doubted whether this was going to

be the new age of Reagan or era of Reagan as some people were calling

it, the fact was that political folks in Washington perceived it to be

the era of Reagan. And, you know, keep in mind there were a number of

liberal stars that were picked off in that 1980 election: George

McGovern, Frank Church, Birch Bayh, John Culver, and over on the House

a number of liberals had very, very close elections that... And there's

nothing like a close election to throw a scare into everybody. So that,

yes, I think they were politically intimidated. They might not be able

to put it in so many words what the Reagan revolution was, but they

knew that there was a conservative feeling out there across the

country.

Interviewer:

CAN YOU DESCRIBE, THINKING NOW ABOUT THE ARMS BUILDUP, WITHOUT GETTING

INTO WHETHER IT'S BIGGER THAN THE VIETNAM, BUT JUST CAN YOU QUANTIFY OR

GIVE SOME SENSE OF HOW BIG THAT BUILDUP WAS DURING THOSE FIRST TWO OR

THREE YEARS?

Waller:

From 1981 to 1985, in real terms, defense spending increased by 50

percent, almost by $300 billion. It is the largest peacetime military

buildup we've ever had. And we had a large investment in new hardware,

new research to produce hardware further down the road. It was an

incremental buildup in the sense that the Carter Administration had

planned a military buildup during that period, but, in effect, we were

increasing defense spending, or almost doubling it, from around $140

billion to $280 billion, a very significant increase.

Interviewer:

DO YOU RECALL ROUGHLY HOW THOSE BILLS PASSED, WHAT PERCENTAGE OF VOTES

WERE FOR THEM OR AGAINST THEM? IN OTHER WORDS, I GUESS WHAT I'M ASKING

IS HOW MANY LIBERAL DEMOCRATS REALLY HELD OUT, DESPITE THIS SENSE OF

OVERWHELMING CRUSADE, HELD OUT AGAINST THAT?

Waller:

There was a small minority in each chamber that voted against the

bills, a little bit larger number on the House side of the traditional

liberal House members over there voted against the bills. And you had

some of them offering amendments. But they were literally trounced on

the floor, in floor votes. So it was a very small minority at that

point. It wasn't until I guess 1982 that you saw more arms control

amendments, more cost-cutting type amendments being attached to the

defense bills coming down.

Interviewer:

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO DO THAT AGAIN, BUT I WANT YOU TO -- I REALIZE,

YOU SHOULD TELL US, I THINK, YOU SHOULD LEAD OFF BY TELLING US WHO

CONTROLS THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE, REMINDING US WHO CONTROLS THAT HOUSE

AND THE SENATE DURING HIS FIRST TERM, THE FIRST TWO YEARS, AND THEN

BRINGING, TYING THAT INTO THOSE WHO WITHSTOOD THE LANDSLIDE, SO TO

SPEAK.

Waller:

Of course, you have to keep in mind, in the House we had Speaker Thomas

O'Neill controlling the House of Representatives. He, however, was

facing a group of Southern conservatives who had aligned with

Republican members, Republican conservatives and some moderates, that

in effect formed Reagan's majority those first two years. These were

the boll weevil Democrats and the Republicans joined together, so that

it was not a particularly happy period for Speaker O'Neill in terms of

trying to get through traditional Democratic programs. Over on the

House side, you had Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee as the majority

leader, who was noted for controlling very tightly the Republican

majority there, to the point that he very rarely had to cross over to

Democrats to put together his majority. He concentrated on his

Republican folks to put through the President's programs. So, in the

first two years, the President had as solid of a majority as he would

ever get in the Congress to put through his economic programs and also

put through his defense programs.

Legislators Take Up the Nuclear Freeze Movement

Interviewer:

NOW, SOMETIME ALONG IN '82, I GUESS, CONGRESSMAN MARKEY BECOMES AWARE

OF THE NUCLEAR FREEZE MOVEMENT. CAN YOU TELL US, HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?

HOW DOES HE GET INVOLVED, WHY DOES HE GET INVOLVED?

Waller:

Well, the nuclear freeze movement had been sputtering and kind of

moving off and on in late 1981, but nobody was really paying attention

to it in Congress. In early 1982, Congressman Markey was putting

together legislation on nuclear nonproliferation, which is a whole

different aspect of the arms control problem. It's the effort to

prevent other nations from acquiring nuclear weapons that don't already

have them. He realized at that time that integral to putting together a

nonproliferation policy was some type of policy to control the nuclear

arms of the weapon states that already have them. That is, you can't

convince other nations not to acquire nuclear weapons as long as you're

building up your own nuclear arms, and by "you" I mean the United

States and the Soviet Union. So, he was investigating other arms

control agreements that might apply to the United States and the Soviet

Union. In doing that study, he ran across the idea of a nuclear freeze,

and sent some of his aides out to Denver in early 1982, where the

nuclear freeze was holding a convention, to investigate the movement

and see whether it had some political potential that he could

capitalize, that he could put in legislative language and push through

Congress. And I was one of the aides who was assigned to investigate

this idea, along with several others on our staff.

Interviewer:

DID YOU GO TO DENVER?

Waller:

I didn't. Congressman Markey's administrative assistant, Peter

Franchot, was the one who actually went, and was struck by, I guess,

what he saw the potential power of the movement out there. It was still

a small movement, but it seemed to be made up of politically savvy and

very politically energetic people. And he came back very excited about

it, and said this was something that we ought to get out in front on

with a resolution, which is what we did. We spent several months

talking with arms control experts around Washington to just ask them

what was wrong with freezing the arms race, what was wrong with both

sides halting the production, testing and deployment of nuclear

weapons? And we got a lot of criticism and a lot of skepticism, and

some negative reactions. And I can recall initially being skeptical of

the idea myself. But the bottom line was, there's nothing wrong with

halting the arms race. And there's no problem with this type of idea,

as long as both sides do it and it's verifiable, which is what the

freeze called for. So it made good common sense. And I think my boss,

Congressman Markey, realized that, that it had some political

potential. And this is why it was having some effect across the

country. It just made simply good sense.

Interviewer:

NOW, IN FEBRUARY OR MARCH OF '82, MARKEY AND SENS. KENNEDY AND HATFIELD

ANNOUNCED A JOINT RESOLUTION IN CONGRESS, I BELIEVE, AT AU.

Waller:

American University.

Interviewer:

YEAH. SENATORS GET INVOLVED?

Waller:

Okay. Sen. Kennedy had been, in visits back to his state had been

struck by the fact that people were coming up to him, asking him about

what he thought about the nuclear freeze, and what he thought about

halting the nuclear arms race. And keep in mind, this was during a

period when the economy was the major issue. We were getting into the

recessionary period that would come about in late 1982. And I think it

surprised Sen. Kennedy that an arms control, foreign policy issue would

be something that would be raised in town meetings. Generally, public

enthusiasm and support for foreign policy issues runs very, very

shallow across the country, and very, very fleeting. Sen. Hatfield also

experienced the same type of reaction out in his state. Interestingly

enough, Sen. Hatfield had also sponsored an early freeze type

resolution during the Senate consideration of the Salt II treaty, so he

had been acquainted with the idea. When Kennedy came back to Washington

after these visits from the state, where he had been, in effect,

lobbied on the freeze idea, he ordered his staff to look into the idea

and put together legislation himself. Some time, I guess, in late

February, early March is when Kennedy and Markey got together and

decided they'd produce a joint resolution that would be introduced on

the House and the Senate side. This culminated on March 10th, 1982,

when Sen. Kennedy along with Sen. Hatfield and Congressman Markey and

Congressman Jonathan Bingham of New York introduced the freeze

resolution and held a joint press conference at American University.

Interviewer:

WERE YOU THERE?

Waller:

Yeah, it was a media extravaganza that day. Sen. Kennedy's office had

called literally every arms control expert in the country, and we had a

number of luminaries there at the press conference, from Averell

Harriman to Paul Warnke, to a number of religious leaders. I can

remember the auditorium was packed with press. It was a huge media

event. Intentionally so. I mean, it was designed to do that, to present

this as a national issue. You have to keep in mind that, at this time,

Kennedy was running for the presidency. He hadn't formally announced,

but was doing all the things that presidential candidates-in-waiting

do. So, what he intentionally wanted to do with the freeze was thrust

it into the national limelight, make it a number one foreign policy

issue, which he succeeded in doing.

Interviewer:

SO MAYBE WE OUGHT TO GO BACK?

Waller:

Well, it was interesting, you were getting what I'd call regional press

coverage up until then. You were getting sporadic feature stories in

the Washington Post, in the New York Times, and even in the

newsweeklies about this movement that seemed to be bubbling up across

the country. You had town meetings in Vermont. You had a referendum

campaign going on in California, and you had everywhere from South

Carolina to Virginia to North Dakota, little peace groups springing up,

calling for the freeze, none of it coordinated, none of it controlled

in any way, but it was what happens when a grassroots movement gets

started. And the press was picking it up everywhere. I can remember in

early, well, late 1981 reading news stories about Soviet officials and

US officials meeting in town meetings in New England, in church groups,

talking about arms control. It was interesting. It wasn't anything that

I thought that sent political tremors through Congress, but it was kind

of the beginnings of a brushfire, so to speak.

[END OF TAPE D11021]

Interviewer:

I HADN'T THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE, BUT AS YOU REMIND ME OF THIS HISTORY

AND KENNEDY OF COURSE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AT THAT POINT, OR AT LEAST

THE EXPECTATION HE MIGHT RUN FOR PRESIDENT, THIS ALMOST BECOMES KIND OF

LIKE THE FIRST BIG LIBERAL STATEMENT OF THE REAGAN YEARS. IS THAT AN

UNFAIR CHARACTERIZATION?

Waller:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, one of the reasons I think the freeze movement

took off, there were a number of reasons: there was a grassroots

campaign, the idea itself was appealing to a great number of people,

the religious community was behind it, and eventually labor, education,

other interest groups got behind it. But one of the spark plugs behind

the movement was Kennedy's acceptance of the idea and the willingness

to thrust it into the national debate. By doing so, he, in effect,

thrust it into presidential politics. Any other member could have

introduced the freeze resolution, sponsored it, advocated it, or

whatever, and the White House could have ignored them. But Edward

Kennedy was running for the presidency then, so he laid the issue on

the doorstep of the White House. The White House couldn't ignore it.

Which they didn't. They immediate attacked the resolution. You had

Alexander Haig coming out the next day, literally, after we introduced

the resolution, saying the freeze was bad arms control. Of course,

nobody could figure out how halting the arms race was bad arms control.

And then you had Ronald Reagan shortly afterwards talking about the

freeze movement being a threat to national security, talking about it

being inspired by the KGB, saying a lot of nasty things about the idea.

And it of course further fueled the debate and fueled the interest and

the press interest in the whole issue.

Interviewer:

NOW, HOW DOES A RESOLUTION LIKE THIS, OR WHAT IS IT?

Waller:

It was a joint resolution.

Interviewer:

HOW DOES THAT WORK ITS WAY THROUGH? JUST TELL US THE MECHANICS. WHAT

ARE YOU DOING?

Waller:

Well, the legislative mechanics are fairly straightforward. It's

introduced in the House and introduced in the Senate, and you try to

collect cosponsors on it, try to build some political momentum for it.

And by the time we introduced the freeze resolution in the House in

particular, we had over 100 House members cosponsoring it, and I think

they had about 20 senators cosponsoring it on the Senate side, which

was, of course, a much more conservative chamber and more difficult to

collect cosponsors on it. After it was introduced, the next legislative

step was getting committee hearings in both houses for the resolution,

because the resolutions immediately referred to, well, on the House

side to the Foreign Affairs Committee, on the Senate it's the Foreign

Relations Committee. We started holding those hearings I guess in April

and May of 1982. Interestingly enough, one of the things that Senator

Kennedy decided to do was hold his own hearing on the freeze. He was

not a member of the Foreign Relations Committee or the Armed Services

Committee. His main committees dealt with domestic issues. But he

decided to hold a forum or an ad hoc type hearing where he brought in

senior arms control specialists, he brought in Hiroshima survivors and

members of the freeze campaign, to talk about the freeze resolution and

to answer questions in a hearing type format. This, again, provided

some political momentum for the whole issue. The whole strategy around

this time was to keep the ball rolling. Fortunately, the administration

helped us out quite a bit by criticizing the idea, and they were fairly

ham-handed in their criticism, so it made a counter-criticism from the

freeze folks fairly easy.

Interviewer:

LET ME GO OVER A LITTLE OF THIS. NOW WHEN YOU'RE SEEKING COSPONSORS,

DOES CONGRESSMAN MARKEY GET ON THE PHONE, DO YOU GET ON THE PHONE?

Waller:

Sometimes it's done at staff level where, if it's a member who we think

would support the resolution, it's a matter of the staffs' talking, and

so-and-so's staff talking to his own member about it and him agreeing

to sign onto it. In other cases, Congressman Markey had to go person to

person and talk to them. And I can remember him stuffing his coat

pockets with little slips of paper and whip lists of people he had to

talk to. And I can remember him sitting by the couch in his office, by

the phone there, calling up member after member, particularly around

March 10, when we were trying to build up a large number of cosponsors.

On the House side, this can be a very time-consuming process because

you have 435 members, so you have to kind of work wholesale, in a

sense, and try and get on members in tens and twenties and 50 groups.

So, it involved an awful lot of phone calling on his part. On the

Senate side, it's a little different situation because there are only

100 senators. You work what I'd say more retail, one-on-one, and it

took a lot more time to get the senators that Senator Kennedy did get

onto the freeze resolution, particularly because the Senate was a much

more conservative body than the House, it still is.

Interviewer:

NOW, 100 MEMBERS JOINING THE FREEZE RESOLUTION, A LOT OF THOSE MEMBERS

MUST HAVE ALSO VOTED FOR REAGAN'S DEFENSE BUILD-UP?

Waller:

Well, initially, they were mostly Democrats, a few liberal Republicans.

As we proceeded with the freeze resolution through that year, we

started to get more moderate Democrats on board and more moderate

Republicans, ones who had supported the initial Reagan defense budgets.

In fact, all along we got a number of folks that did support a defense

build-up, but supported the freeze. And it tracked with the public

attitude at that time, because it was interesting that in many states

where the freeze was passing by a healthy majority, they were states

that Ronald Reagan had carried by a healthy majority, too. And people

who did opinion polls around this time discovered that people supported

the Reagan build-up, but they didn't want it at the expense of arms

control. That is, they wanted a strong defense, but they wanted a

strong arms control policy, too.

Interviewer:

DID YOU TAKE PART IN THE PLANNING FOR SENATOR KENNEDY'S HEARINGS?

Waller:

We were, not really. His staff handled that. Congressman Markey

participated in the hearing, so we spent most of our time preparing him

for it. Senator Kennedy devoted a huge amount of resources among the

Senate staff to that whole effort. In fact, Kennedy and Hatfield

produced a book on the freeze almost in record time. It took like two

or three weeks to get the book out, again all designed to keep the

momentum going on the movement.

Interviewer:

WERE YOU PRESENT AT THOSE HEARINGS?

Waller:

Yeah. Again, it was a media extravaganza, and it was carefully set up

to, as I say, convey different types of endorsements of the freeze. We

had George Ball there, who was former undersecretary of state, one of

the deans of arms control, testify on behalf of the freeze. I think we

had Admiral Tom Davies there, a former military man, testify on its

behalf. We had Hiroshima survivors who could give the media kind of a

first-hand view of the horrors of nuclear war. Again, it was designed

to keep the momentum going after the introduction of the resolution. I

think one of the problems in any type of legislation is, after the

initial introduction of it, sometimes there's a dry spell there. And

sometimes if you're opposing that legislation the best thing to do is

ignore it. But I think Kennedy insisted and planned that it would not

be ignored, and it wasn't. As I say, the Reagan Administration helped

him out quite a bit on that by criticizing it. But he also helped the

process along by creating political events to get it before the news

media. I mean, it was key that the national news media pick up on the

freeze idea. It was fine to have regional papers and scattered stories

here and there on the whole idea, but until the networks, the news

magazines, the New York Times and the Washington Post began to cover it

on an intensive basis, until that time you would not be getting it

across as a national debate, which it eventually became. It became the

cover on the newsweekly magazines. You had various networks devoting

documentaries to the whole idea. I mean, 1982, we had more talk about

the threat of nuclear war than I think any year we've ever had in the

mass media communications arena.

Interviewer:

THIS IS PROBABLY AN IMPOSSIBLE QUESTION, BUT I WONDER, WHO'S DRIVING

THE TRAIN? I MEAN, IS CONGRESS DRIVING THE FREEZE TRAIN OR IS THE

FREEZE MOVEMENT OUT IN THE COUNTRY DRIVING CONGRESS? DO YOU HAVE ANY

OBSERVATIONS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MOVEMENT OUT THERE AND THE

CONGRESSIONAL MOVEMENT HERE?

Waller:

I don't, you know, it was kind of like a comet. We didn't really know

where the head was and we didn't know who was hanging onto the tail. I

don't think there was anybody leading it in any sense. There were

people putting political energy into it. You had the grassroots folks

building up there base in community halls and town meetings. You had

the political leadership in Washington capitalizing on this. You had

the media interest in it, which in turn fed more middle America

interest in the movement, too. One of the strengths of the freeze

movement was that it was a middle American movement. It wasn't just a

movement of peace activists or traditional anti-Vietnam War activists.

It was a movement that was born in town halls and community centers and

church basements. It was made up as much of doctors, teachers, lawyers,

computer operators as it was, you know, the traditional Joan Baez

activist, so to speak. And this gave it political strength. It also had

quite an effect on members of Congress, because anything that becomes a

middle class movement becomes a movement of voters, because it's the

middle class that votes, predominantly.

Interviewer:

WHAT ABOUT RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MOVEMENT ACTIVISTS OUT THERE AND STAFF

MEMBERS OR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS? WAS IT A COMFORTABLE RELATIONSHIP? DID

THEY THINK, "OH, THESE BATSO LEFTIES OUT THERE"? WHAT WAS THE --?

Waller:

Initially, most staff people were skeptical of the movement, because it

was something that wasn't hashed out in Washington, you know, it wasn't

hashed out in the State Department, it wasn't hatched out of the

Brookings Institution or the American Enterprise Institution or one of

the traditional think tanks around here that is supposed to do most of

the thinking about arms control. This was an idea that was born out in

the grassroots. And, yes, it was rough on the edges, yes it still had a

lot of thinking-through to be accomplished on it, but it was an idea,

as I say, that made good common sense to most folks. It's like the poet

Emerson once said, "Nothing astonishes so much as common sense." And

that's what astonished the folks out in the grassroots. Around here, I

think initially there was a skepticism over the whole idea. I had

questions like, "Well, how are we going to implement it? How are we

going to verify it? It seems totally impractical. We ought to continue

the traditional arms control process of SALT II. We ought to have SALT

III, SALT IV. This is too big a leap forward." That staff reaction, of

course, changed when, as more members of Congress became interested in

it, because I think more members of Congress demanded that their staffs

become interested in it, too, because the people back home were

interested in it. And there's nothing like the people back home being

interested in an issue to get Senate staffers and House staffers

interested in it, too. So there's a political force here that brought

that around. A lot of it was helped out by the Kennedy sponsorship of

the movement. As he was running for president, he had obviously

accumulated a fairly large, what I call an extended political family of

experts around him, and he brought a lot of those experts into the

idea, to endorse the idea.

Peak and Decline of the Nuclear Freeze Movement in National Politics

Interviewer:

NOW, OBVIOUSLY, THE MOVEMENT, IF YOU LOOK AT IT IN TERMS OF A FLOW, IN

CONGRESS NOW, IT HAD A PEAK, AND THEN IT FELL OFF. AND I WONDER, CAN

YOU MOVE ME TO THAT PERIOD OF TIME? CAN YOU TELL US HOW IT BUILT UP TO

THAT PEAK, WHAT THAT PEAK WAS, AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTERWARDS?

Waller:

Oh, okay. In 1982, we had a vote in August on the freeze resolution,

which we lost. That was the bad news. The good news was we only lost it

by one vote, which served as, again, another political lightning rod

for the idea, because we were going into the midterm elections in 1982,

and one thing grassroots movements need or thrive on is a definable

objective to shoot for. And in this case, changing one vote in Congress

or at least in the House of Representatives is about as definable as

you can get, which... So, it served as a tangible goal for them to

reach out for. As a result of the 1982 midterm elections, we had a net

gain of about, oh, 20 or 30 freeze supporters in the House. These

weren't folks that were necessarily elected to Congress because of the

freeze issue, in a few cases they were, still the economy was the major

issue around that time. But be that as it may, the mathematics looked

better for us for winning the resolution the next year. When we finally

went to the floor in March, we had probably one of the longest debates

the House has ever had, certainly on an arms control issue. It lasted

until May. Had just literally hundreds of amendments offered on the

freeze resolution. We eventually passed the freeze resolution in May of

1983, by a very healthy margin, had a number of people who supported

the Reagan arms buildup vote for the freeze resolution. After that, we

moved into 1984 and the presidential elections where, for the first

time the freeze organized as a political action force, let's say. Now,

obviously, the freeze didn't help Walter Mondale win the presidency,

but I don't think there was any issue that would have helped him at

that point. The freeze, though, did become very effective in selected

Senate and House races. If you total it all up, what happened to the

freeze after that period, after '84, '85 was, I think, the bottom line

is it became a victim of its own success, in many ways. Did the freeze

movement halt the arms race? No, it didn't. Did it result in any

conclusion of an arms control treaty around that period, 1984? No, it

didn't. But what it did do was force a different attitude by the

administration and by Ronald Reagan in particular toward arms control.

Keep in mind this was a President who walked into office in 1980

totally opposed to arms control, had opposed every arms control

agreement that had ever been signed, and promised the nation a military

build-up. What did he promise the nation in 1984 after he had beaten

Walter Mondale? He promised them more energy and effort devoted toward

arms control. And I think that change in attitude can be credited to

the freeze movement. It also resulted in, I guess, the middle class

enthusiasm for the freeze movement, or the grassroots movement in

general, starting to fizzle out around that time, mainly because they

accomplished, I think, what they realistically could have accomplished

with this administration, which was to change its attitude toward arms

control, be more accommodating toward the idea of negotiating

agreements with the Soviet Union.

[END OF TAPE D11022]

Interviewer:

DO YOU REMEMBER MY QUESTION ABOUT YOUR PERCEPTION OF SELLING OUT?

Waller:

Yeah, there is, I know there's some bitter feelings out in the movement

that... Yeah, there were bitter feelings, I know, out among the

grassroots, that they should never have gotten involved with Congress,

with the freeze resolution. The original game plan of the freeze

movement was to spend, and this was beginning of 1982, the original

game plan of the freeze movement was to spend several years building a

strong base at the grassroots level and then maybe in 1983, '84 come

into Congress and accumulating the votes for final passage of the

resolution. The sponsorship of the freeze resolution by Kennedy

telescoped that whole process, shortened the time span there

considerably. So we had a major freeze vote in the House barely eight

months after the issue first came to national attention. I think this

was a good thing for the movement, personally. I think you have to keep

in mind some basic facts of life about arms control and foreign policy,

and those are that the President wields a big stick in this area,

constitutionally he does, and by the very fact that he's

commander-in-chief of the armed forces, that he has command of the

entire intelligence community, the State Department. He is the head of

foreign policy. Now, Congress can guide, it can restrict, it can get in

the way, it can prod, whatever. But the President, by tradition and by

law to a great extent, is a leader on foreign policy. And presidents

can do an awful lot to set the agenda on foreign policy, irrespective

of a grassroots movement. I think one of the amazing things about this

whole period, from 1981 to 1983, was how the Reagan Administration gave

up the agenda to the grassroots movement. I mean, we always, during

this period, were waiting for the day when the President would pull a

rabbit out of the hat. Let me say that over. We were always waiting for

the day during this period that the President would pull the rabbit out

of the hat, would have some October surprise or something that would

deflate the entire freeze movement. He never did. Instead, he chose to

attack the movement in a very lead-footed type fashion that only served

to stimulate it even more, keep it going. But when he did seize the

agenda and seize the initiative was when he became more accommodating

to arms control, started meeting with the Soviet Union, started meeting

with Soviet leaders. That's when he took over the agenda, and that's of

course when the freeze movement succeeded halfway in what it was trying

to do. So, they didn't accomplish what they set out to accomplish, but

they got further than anyone else ever has. And I think there's, I

don't think many people in Washington expected the freeze movement to

negotiate a freeze treaty with the Soviet Union. But they saw this

movement as a political force to get the President more interested in

negotiating some type of treaty with the Soviet Union.

Reaction to SDI Speech

Interviewer:

SPEAKING OF RABBITS AND HATS, DO YOU RECALL AS SOMEBODY WORKING ON THE

FREEZE, FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE, THE PRESIDENT'S MARCH 23RD, 1983 SPEECH,

THE SO-CALLED "STAR WARS SPEECH"?

Waller:

Yeah, I'll never forget that night. It was right in the middle of the

freeze debate.

Interviewer:

(SIDE COMMENT)

Waller:

I'll never forget that night, March 23rd. It was right in the middle of

the freeze debate. And we were expecting the President to offer the

same type of attack on the freeze resolution and the freeze idea, and

we also expected him to offer up bar charts and statistics on how, that

showed selectively how the Soviets were ahead of us militarily, which

he did. And we expected that type of presidential address to have some

erosion on our support. I mean, after all, if the commander-in-chief

gets on national TV and tells the American people that a particular

resolution is a threat to US national security, you're going to have

some people fall off the deck as a result of it. And I can remember

taking notes on the speech, trying to put together in my own mind what

some of the rebuttal arguments would be that my congressman would have

to make the next day. And all of a sudden, toward the end of the

speech, were wedged in these three or four paragraphs that talked about

"Star Wars," or what became known as "Star Wars" later on, talked about

making nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete, and launching a national

research program to eliminate the threat of nuclear ballistic missiles.

And I can remember just kind of falling back in my chair and thinking

to myself, "My God, I don't believe what he's just said." I guess about

a minute after the President's speech was over, my phone rang, and it

was Congressman Markey on the other line. And he asked me, I'll never

forget it, he said, "Did he say what I thought he just said? Are they

talking about introducing an anti-ballistic missile system for the

United States?" And I said, "Yeah, it is." And he said, "I just don't

believe it." And I think we talked further and he hung up. What

happened the next day was, instead of the speech picking off some of

our supporters, serving as a momentum against us, it became a lightning

rod for further criticism of the Reagan Administration's arms control

policy. And you had House liberals, in particular, getting down on the

floor and talking about "Star Wars" and "Darth Vader" and ridiculing

the whole idea. So, it was another instance of, I assume at that point

he was trying to deflate the movement in Congress to pass the

resolution, but unintentionally so sparked a counterattack from

liberals, who thought the idea of "Star Wars" was, at that point, just

ridiculous.

Congress Votes on Freeze and Nuclear Weapons

Interviewer:

GOING FORWARD NOW A LITTLE BIT TO THE VOTE, AFTER THE VOTE SUPPORTING

THE FREEZE RESOLUTION, TWO WEEKS AFTER THAT THE HOUSE VOTES FOR THE

MISSILE SYSTEM. A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE MOVEMENT WOULD SAY, "THIS JUST

SHOWS THE HYPOCRISY, AND THE FACT THAT YOU CAN'T TRUST THESE

CONGRESSMEN TO VOTE FOR THE FREEZE ONE DAY AND THEY VOTE FOR A MAJOR

WEAPONS PROGRAM TWO WEEKS LATER."

Waller:

Yeah, it was, you know, it was a classic flip-flop in thinking on the

arms control. Although a number of House members who supported the

freeze movement, or the freeze idea, did so because it was a bilateral

type resolution. That is that we didn't halt any nuclear weapons

development until the Soviets halted nuclear weapons development, until

the Soviets reciprocated, so that they saw no problem with voting on

weapon systems as long as the Soviets were continuing to build up their

own weapons systems. It was just, you know, it was a fact of life

around here that we had not gotten, with the freeze idea, to the

hardware stage, so to speak, to actually cutting off the hardware. We

had a hard enough time getting the idea itself accepted. The next step

would have been to go to the appropriations process. Now, keep in mind,

though, that even though they voted for that MX, at that time, the

later Congress capped the MX program at 50, or half what the Reagan

Administration wanted. So, in the long run I think the freeze, that

whole, well, the freeze movement and the movement for arms control

succeeded. And I think you have to look at it more in a longer-term

perspective. Yes, that one vote was a definite setback for the

resolution's supporters out in the grassroots. It left a lot of bitter

feelings.

Legacy of the Reagan Administration

Interviewer:

YOU'RE A HISTORIAN. IT'S 50 YEARS FROM NOW, WHATEVER THAT IS, AND YOU

HAVE TO WRITE TWO SENTENCES ABOUT THE REAGAN YEARS IN TERMS OF NATIONAL

SECURITY POLICY. HOW'S IT GOING TO BE CHARACTERIZED 50 YEARS. WHAT'S

GOING TO BE SEEN TO BE THE ESSENTIAL THREAD OF THIS ADMINISTRATION?

Waller:

It's going to be seen as an administration that walked into office

opposed to arms control that saw a wave of support for arms control

toward the midterm, and changed its mind toward the end. That's, I

think that's the bottom line. I think the administration will claim

that its tough attitude toward the Soviets is what has brought them to

the table, and maybe there's some truth in that. But I think, as Soviet

attitudes have changed at the negotiating table, the administration's

attitudes have changed even more.

Interviewer:

WHAT ABOUT THE STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE? DO YOU THINK THAT WILL

PLAY A ROLE IN THE HISTORY BOOKS?

Waller:

We'll always now have a vigorous research and development program into

SDI. I think SDI, because the President has chosen for it not to be a

bargaining chip, has been a major impediment in the second Reagan term

for achieving a strategic arms control agreement. Luckily, we were able

to disengage the intermediate nuclear force talks from it, and

negotiate a treaty on those weapons. But I think it served as a major

impediment on the strategic arms talks. I don't think you'll ever see a

"Star Wars" system erected. You certainly won't ever see a leak-proof

system erected, and most military experts in the Pentagon and outside

the Pentagon agree with that assessment. We will probably end up

spending billions and billions of dollars on the program. A lot of it

is going to be wasted, and eventually come to the conclusion that it

won't, it just won't work, or at least won't work the way the President

wanted it to work.

Congress at Beginning and End of the Reagan Administration

Interviewer:

I'D JUST LIKE TO GO OVER ONE THING. THE FIRST QUESTION I ASKED YOU

ABOUT, AND YOU WERE JUST A LITTLE MORE NERVOUS THEN THAN YOU ARE NOW,

SO I WANT TO... LET'S TRY AGAIN, IF YOU COULD, JUST TO REALLY CALL UP

AS VIVIDLY IN YOUR MIND AS YOU CAN, YOU KNOW, FOR THE VIEWER, THAT

FEELING, SITTING IN A LIBERAL CONGRESSMAN'S OFFICE ON INAUGURATION DAY,

IN THOSE FIRST FEW DAYS, JUST RECALL FOR US, IF YOU WILL, WHAT THAT

FELT LIKE.

Waller:

I can remember being in Congressman Markey's office that day of the

inauguration, and we were in the Cannon House office building. And I

can remember our office just being quiet as it could be, nobody walking

in, or, if there were, very few people. I can remember looking outside

down the long halls of the Cannon House office building, from the

Republican offices, you'd see parties and receptions and women coming

out in mink coats, and what obviously were fat cat donors from back

home carrying bloody marys and screwdrivers and generally having a

great time. In our office, we were all kind of gloomy. And I can

remember going out to the west front of the Capitol, the ground was

frozen cold, but it was a sunny day, it was still chilly and

everything, but it had been miserable all that week in Washington. But

for President Reagan's inauguration, it was like the skies opened up

for him. A Hollywood director couldn't have asked for a prettier day

for an inauguration. And all around town, I never saw so many

limousines and fur coats and news articles on different designer

dresses being sported. It was a Republican day. You had them from

Lubbock, Texas, to Bel Aire, to the suburbs in Springfield. The

Republican party, the Hollywood community, the right wing, the hard

right wing was out in droves here to celebrate the inauguration of one

of their own. For liberals, for Carter Administration officials, it was

a day to pack your resumes in brown envelopes and head on out of town.

Interviewer:

IT REMINDS ME, ONE MORE QUESTION, NOW, EIGHT YEARS LATER, WHATEVER IT

IS, SEVEN, EIGHT YEARS LATER, YOU SEE THE PRESIDENT'S EARLY SUPPORTERS

LEAVING THE ADMINISTRATION IN DROVES FOR PERSONAL REASONS, OBVIOUSLY,

BUT THERE CERTAINLY IS A SENSE OF THIS ALL BEING OVER. WHAT'S IT FEEL

LIKE UP HERE ON THE HILL?

Waller:

I guess, among Democrats, moderates and liberals, there's a sense of

excitement that we can, that the idea of government as an enemy might

finally be out the window, so the idea of government as a tool or a

creative tool, something, it might get back in vogue. I think most

people on the Democratic side of the aisle feel, or agree, that the

Reagan revolution lost steam, exactly when it did nobody can really

pinpoint. But you see more of the sparks around here flying within the

right wing, each side criticizing the other on who's going to carry the

torch forward. Where I think the general mood of the place is that the

revolution is over.

[END OF TAPE D11023 AND TRANSCRIPT]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Douglas Waller, 1987

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-7s7hq3s110

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Description

Credits: Interviewee2: Waller, Douglas C.
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 25c5d0d037a63789a80ebf441cec074eacea9b0e (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Douglas Waller, 1987,” 1987-11-24, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 13, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-7s7hq3s110.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Douglas Waller, 1987.” 1987-11-24. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 13, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-7s7hq3s110>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Douglas Waller, 1987. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-7s7hq3s110