War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Lew Allen, 1987

When you first start working let's talk let's see what was seen as the ideal theory. The replacement of unmanned 3 was an issue for many years in the Air Force and many different configurations of missile were studied. And many different employment schemes in the late 60s and early 70s. I'm not clear on what was the prevailing thought at that time. But there had been a series of examinations of a rail mobile system. There had been discussions of different kinds of Silo basing many variants which were being discussed of the basing and in the lakes and the different kinds of mobile systems all trying to address the questions which were foreseen as the Soviet missiles became more and more accurate. The missile itself was seen. Well the the the late 60s early 70s or a little early

for the thought to have been congealed. It was really more the mid 70s when it was very clear that merging it as multiple independent re-entry vehicles was the technology which would change the future in a number of different ways that the principal one of which was that it made the ability to leverage warheads substantially more economical. That is one could put 10 reentry vehicles on a single missile and pay the costs then only for one vessel while achieving 10 to weapons. And that clearly began to change the thinking very rapidly during the 70s whereby the mid and latter part of the 70s one clearly was talking about missiles with a number of warheads on them and 10 was the number that was settling out. Wow. I'm not sure there is a a magic reason that 10 was the optimum number of different numbers were discussed at varying times. But

but 10 was a number which would fit on a missile that seemed to optimize in terms of its cost effectiveness. Yes you're right. The Soviets were building harder and harder silos and there's no question that the additional hardness of their deployed missiles and the evidence that they were building other hardened structures for commanding control were causing the Air Force a great deal of concern in the in the late 70s at least and therefore accuracy became very much a consideration. Is that your that I know that. No the formula immediately but the general. Yes yes the law. The the most important point about hardness and

accuracy really is a conclusion that that seems to be to be true for in placed missiles and that is although we have been surprised by the increased hardness which the Soviets have been able to build into their super hard silos. The technology fact remains that the missile accuracy can improve faster than the hardness can improve. Therefore it is. It has always been clear that even with a great deal of effort in hardening a silo one could design a re-entry vehicle hard enough to give a satisfactory probability of kill. So we read. Yes on the right. The the the the ICBM's have always been an important part of the of the triad. They each element of the triad has its own strengths and

weaknesses. And the the existence of the triad has been a source of great comfort to the United States as the Soviets have made it dances in one direction or another. Certainly the submarines are the most invulnerable of the three elements of the triad. The bombers have the advantage that they can be launched in under cases of warning and then recalled if one is concerned that the situation didn't develop as as you expect it. Bombers also have the ability to have their their striking power increased during periods of tension by increasing the alert status that great strength of the ballistic missiles has been their accuracy. On the one hand but but the more important one these days is the very tight command control of the missiles which gives a great assurance of the ability to issue the commands to them properly and and promptly.

We hear the the the ICBM's. Today provided accuracy which is only slightly greater than that of the planned D5 missile on the Trident submarines. Therefore as time has gone on in recent years the uniqueness of accuracy of the ICBMs has has been diminished. The ICBM still though play a unique part in the Triad and the United States although it's considered giving up the ICBMs the land based missiles a number of times has always found it a very uneasy thing to do under circumstances that the Soviets play such a large amount of their reliance on land based missiles and even though it's hard to quantify the reasons for

it there is a feeling that too much a symmetry that is differences in the deployed forces of the two countries can create some some circumstances which would be which would be unstable and therefore the United States has even though it's considered giving up the land based missiles it has always concluded that it was unwilling to do so. Unless they could negotiate with the Soviets for a very large reduction in the land based missiles which we really. Yeah right. There certainly seem to be a a turning point the turning point was in the. Late 73 or 74 I forgotten just exactly the date but it was when the. A second team was put together to examine the intelligence

estimate of that year and although that team was put together for a number of different reasons and a number of different varying conclusions came out. One of the things that they assembled was a re estimate of the progress that the Soviets were making and in the precision guidance of their ballistic missiles. Prior to that time there had been a a notion that the United States was quite alone and very far ahead of the Soviets in the ability to guide missiles very precisely. And the evidence uncovered during that that the alternate team's examination of the intelligence of data that was available indicated very clear that the Soviets were making progress and and missile accuracy which had not been properly anticipated. And therefore they the thinking began to change very very rapidly following that report as to the accuracy that the incoming new generation of Soviet missiles would have.

Oh yes I said I think it's true that in the early 70s the replacement for the man had accuracy as its foremost objective. But that certainly changed very rapidly and by the time we reached the mid 70s because from that point on the the vulnerability of the basing scheme for the replacement missiles of the Minuteman became the dominant consideration. No one was right you know. Whenever we examine deterrence we have to recognize that the deterrence has many facets and. The United States always

relies heavily on the on all legs of the triad. For example if the Soviets did consider that a preemptive attack against our missile fields knock them would knock them out. The United States is still able to rely upon the submarine force and the bomber force to provide a very substantial degree of retaliation. But at the same time the reason one has a triad is of course that an unexpected vulnerability in one leg of the triad is compensated by the strengths of the other and therefore it although one does not foresee it and did not at that time foresee it. It is not impossible that some vulnerability would arise in the submarine force that is that a breakthrough in the submarine warfare would occur and that one would need to rely on the other legs of the triad. That aside the submarines. Similarly the bombers have to face a very awesome Soviet air defense system and the progress and developing improving bomber technology to penetrate those defenses is one that is not without its own share of controversy. So

once again even though one would consider it quite unlikely the Soviets would see advantage to a bolt from the blue attack against the US land based missiles it still is true to the keep that to keep our deterrent capability robust and at all times credible. One wishes to have a survivable land based missile force. And as the Soviets examine the equation of whether there could be any advantage in a nuclear war in order that we can be sure they are deterred they have to consider what the capabilities of each of the attack got out of our retaliation forces are how the Soviets have gone to a great deal of effort to harden many facilities in the Soviet Union particularly the leadership facilities control bunkers deep underground facilities of various kinds and

as well as their emplaced missile forces. So it is important that the United States have some means of holding these hardened facilities at risk. Yeah. The rationale is that if the Soviets had worked as hard as they have worked to make these facilities survivable then they must have some notion in their minds that if there is a nuclear exchange that the survivability of these leadership functions and of course of the missiles themselves will put them in a more favorable situation in order to ensure that the war to them as it does to us always looks to be a very unattractive proposition. We wish to hold each of the things they hold dear at risk. I'm not sure on this as well. We also don't have to worry you

know do we also try to protect our own and keep me. The situation is not entirely symmetric the United States over the years has not invested as much in hardening. And it's it's to me at least somewhat unclear as to why this difference exists between the two countries I. I suspect it is that the United States really has accepted a deterrence philosophy and really does believe that there is very little merit in waging a nuclear war and very little opportunity to to survive effectively and therefore we've worked a little bit less harder on the survivability of commanding control and leadership of elements of the United States. Now the Reagan administration has attempted to change that to some degree and has directed that a great deal more attention be placed on the survivable elements of command and control and

leadership and some progress is being made in that in that area. It may be the Soviets believe that that any nuclear war that winning a nuclear war or surviving to meet your national ject is after a nuclear war is is more possible the United States does. But nevertheless I think that we are. But I'm convinced that Soviet leadership does not believe that the results of a nuclear war would be very happily very happy for the socialist state and therefore I think that they do share with us the view that that one is really at a state of extremis when one resorts to nuclear weapons. Yes.

Just for that yeah. During the nine thousand seventy seven early seventy eight time period the Air Force was in the midst of weighing several basing alternatives which included tunnels that is almost a subway like structure under the ground through which the missile would move. It included widely spaced vertical silos in which missiles could be in placed and removed and included horizontal structures. And there were really other variants on these as well that were were considered. Many of the strategic thinkers in the area and in the technical side were influential in advocating one scheme or another or arguing against one particular scheme in another I recall and in late 77 that

that Albert ladder formerly of RAND Corporation made a very strong pronouncement to me personally which I think he had done publicly in other arenas advocating a particular aspect my recollection is that at that time he was a particular advocate of the vertical silo and had some numbers which led him to believe that would be much less expensive than that in the tunnel. But in any event there was a very vigorous dialogue during that period of time to try to settle in on what would seem to be the the most optimum scheme. That the tunnel had as its major flaw simply expense. That is it was necessary to design the tunnel to be hard over its length and to permit the missile to move back and forth in the tunnel rapidly and still be survivable as it would went to various locations. As we worked through the details of it it simply appeared that that was a more expensive solution than

was the one that we ultimately settled on which was the horizontal silos. There were concerns about the tunnel. Simply having to do with the fact that it was it was connected. That is therefore an effect that one part of the tunnel could be propagated down the tunnel in a manner that was entirely predictable. We thought we had answers to that but the answers themselves were fairly complicated and it was part of their reasons for for ending up choosing the independent horizontal silos connected by surface roads as contracted to two hardened locations along an underground tunnel. So there you go. Somewhere in this 77 78 time period John Toomey who is a Air Force Major General and one of the best of the strategic analysts of the Air Force

led a team to examine the various alternatives that existed and to make recommendations as to which of those the Air Force should follow and the these choices ran between the the vertical silo with an argument being made that with a fairly cheap silo and a smaller missile one would have a more inexpensive set up than some of the other alternatives that were examined. The horizontal basing was also examine of the tunnel basing was also examined in those studies. So. Yes the the the ballistic missile office had favored the tunnel for some time although the reasoning for it wasn't all that profound it's just necessary to make choices and they had made a choice which said that the the tunnel was the better system so they had invested a certain amount of their effort in making that one more

well-defined concept than the others. However it was still best described as a as a period of vigorous debate because there was not all that much to choose between the various choices that is each one of them could be varied in such a way that you could make the advantages and disadvantages overlap. But the ballistic missile office chose the tunnel approach. Some of the thinkers outside of the Air Force were advocating smaller missiles and more proliferation of those of those missiles. And it was a it was a vigorous debate to settle and the final choice was there. Why don't you hear me. Where are the the arguments having to do with the number of warheads on a given missile. I

have gone back and forth many times and DD is one of the most prominent arguments on the strategic scene today. At it what has happened in each of these analyses is that when one is down two to the final examination of costs which in general include the operational costs that is to to maintain and operate the missile over a long period of time the larger number of warheads on the missile turns out to be cheaper. And therefore the Air Force and all of the studies and initially favored somewhat smaller configurations but in finally working through the cost would end up settling in on the larger number of reentry vehicles which is that 10 warhead impacts. Now that argument continues today of course because the recognition of the vulnerability questions have led prominent people in the United States in particular the Scowcroft commission to recommend major effort on a on a single warhead ballistic missile. Which has very large advantages

in terms of the survivability of the force but it also has very large operational costs and that is that debate which is facing the country today. Everyone sees so heartily sorry. The final selection of horizontal or vertical is lost a bit in the arcane analyses and cost estimates but was was finally made and in my recollection of the key arguments on the basis of cost. That is it appeared simply easier to construct the roads in the transport vehicle and the shelters if they were horizontal and the ease in being able to make the deception effective which involved putting a heavy weight dummy into a silo as you

remove the missile seemed also to be somewhat easier in a horizontal structure. Is it so tough to do. The United States and examining these questions of survivability has always been at a relative disadvantage with the Soviets. First of all forward for true mobile missiles the United States has has not found it really possible to move missiles freely about the countryside. The concern of the citizenry and the lack of very large spaces which are completely under government control have made that approach rejected whenever it's been been considered the subbase you know and have have true mobiles moving about on roads and they don't seem to have to worry so much about the public reaction to truly mobile missiles. So United States has always been forced into

some kind of system of looking for mobility in order to provide survivability. But having to have that mobility constrained in some manner which would make it acceptable to the public as it as it moves about the when one does that then one needs to include some deceptive techniques that is some way of ensuring that within the restricted space that you now have confined the movement of the missiles that you can keep the actual location the missile uncertainty of Soviet espionage satellite observational techniques and that's proven to be a challenge a challenge that the Soviets don't have to face in the same way. Yes I became confident that the the basing system that we worked out in which there had been a great deal of attention given to the methods for preserving uncertainty about the location of the missile within the various bases would work. They was going to be difficult and require

care over the years of the system would operate but I believe that it could have been made to work. That's a lot of people right. Right. It was just you know words like that. But what was your response. I was very disappointed that the particular scheme that we had worked out very with a great deal of difficulty with the Carter administration and President Carter had his own particular ideas about the features of the systems that have it it was difficult to accommodate those we had gone to many many different design variations in order to exam obtain the acceptance of the Carter administration and the system that we that we did finally attain. I believe it was a reasonable design compromise to meet the objectives which the United States had. Some of the features that President Carter wanted

were abandoned as the system evolved for example. He was concerned about a circumstance that might arise if we lost our secrecy of where the missile was and therefore he continuously asked us questions about what happens if you wake up one day and find that a spy or someone has revealed to the Soviets were each of the missiles are and therefore he encouraged us to to include in the system a rapid movement capability. Unfortunately that came to be known as the racetrack and we never quite were able to lose that. That name for the system even when we abandoned that particular idea and it added a bit to the to the to the Rube Goldberg character which people ascribe to this particular approach as we would have implemented I think the Rube Goldberg character was was not correct. I think the provisions that we had put in to both make it compatible with arms control were useful and set a good precedent for

mobile systems that could be verified and the pains that we went to to preserve the location uncertainty I think were both needed and would have been sick if successful when the Reagan administration came in. Unfortunately it had been a part of Mr. Reagan's campaign that this was a a very bad approach and therefore he clearly was not very enthusiastic about this particular particular basing scheme established. Several studies very early in his administration to to look at. Those studies were very much prejudiced against the acceptability of this because they did not allow the consideration of an arms control environment. And part of the assumption was that the Soviets would likely proliferate their accurate warheads to very large numbers in which case any system that the kind of on not having multiple locations would not look good under those under those assumptions. That was unfortunate because it caused us then to to

abandon the multiple basing mode but without having an acceptable alternative. As it's turned out now I think it's a bit ironical that a bit ironic that at the end of the Reagan administration where arms control is now back in vogue and that one no longer finds it necessary to imagine these very large proliferated number of accurate warheads on the Soviet side they model basing scheme could have been successful. It was. Oh the system that we designed in the Carter administration. Because of the clear limitations on cost would end up having a finite number of locations in which the missile would be missiles would be hidden. I think the one that about the end of the Carter administration would have had twenty three hundred missile horizontal silos to be stored

and the skinny on how to take a break. What particularly are the. But at the most you've even yours you haven't got time. We went through we went through two hundred missile and we went through 100 and you're saying at the other Carter ministration it was to it. OK well I thought I stand corrected on that one and then back up to that sounds. At the end of the Carter administration we were looking at a configuration which would involve 200 missiles deceptively located in some 40 600 horizontal silos. Now 40 600 is a finite number and of course it becomes expensive to add more although we went through the cost exchange numbers if we had to increase that number of silos. But the the 40 600 is always already a very respectable number. That is it negative eights for instance the entire capabilities of the Soviet SS 18 force which contains some 3000

very accurate warheads. Therefore it was our view that under any condition where there would be. Some kind of arms control salt too for example. Even with all of its limitations of only providing caps still provided an upper limit of the number of accurate RB's which the Soviets would have. And that particular basing of M-x would have been an effective deterrent under conditions of adhering to Sol 2. Therefore when the Reagan administration didn't wish to have to assume those limits it was disappointing that it became less evident that that would be an acceptable system. During the period of time that we were examining the environmental impact of placing these missiles in there and there was road structure in silos in the deserts we examined actually a number of different sites we

examined sites in Texas and New Mexico in the Sonoran Desert Colorado and Arizona and in the deserts of Utah and Nevada. As it turned out after examining all of these the the deployment areas in Utah in Nevada turned out to have the least environmental impact and had other advantages in terms of cost that we felt were important so we settled in pretty well on Utah. And the bottom that we anticipated concern of the citizenry obviously spent a great deal of time anticipating those concerns and trying to deal with them. I made visits into into the area made visits into to talk with the leadership in the state of Nevada and then with the leadership in the state of Utah and I flew over every one of those valleys and looked at them to try to get a feel. For myself of the kind of terrain that we were going to be to be altering the concern about all this matter was such that the then under-secretary the Air Force Antonio Shays

devoted almost full time to addressing the questions of the environmental impact of that of the MXR basing system. And although it was difficult and certainly not everyone in those states was enthusiastic about it not about the basing systems. I believe that we would have prevailed and that it would have. It could have been done in a manner which would have been acceptable to the to the principal people involved and done with minimal environmental impact. If in the Reagan administration there had been continuing support of the M-x the deceptive basic scheme. I believe that we would have been able to handle the situations in Nevada and Utah clearly not everyone was enthusiastic and there would have been difficulties and there had been certainly opposition

mustered but the need was great and with the president a strong as President Reagan and with as much public's support as he had. Had he chosen to endorse that scheme I think we would have been able to base it in those areas. Yes you are right. There were signs that you radically so. I do indeed. You might comment on that. In the end describing how deterrence works and what the advantages of one system or another are it's difficult to find the right words. That is one is talking about building a system which has characteristics such that it will not be attacked. But then one never imagines that anything is successful if the war actually

occurs and that the missiles have to be attacks I want is describing a system which when the Soviets view it will be viewed as being being unsuitable for attack. And one of the early speeches in describing this particular element of strategy and describing how this septic basing system would Negat the effectiveness of the Soviet accurate Harveys I made a grave sematic error that is I chose to describe this as a sponge which would which could absorb the accurate RB's of both the Soviet SSA teens and indeed many other SS 1000s as well. That was not intended to be a picture of how a war would be fought. That would be a picture of how the Soviets would view the system and therefore be deterred and not attack. But unfortunately the people in whose backyards these systems are going to be in place didn't much like the word spawns that it was one that I had a hard time living down. What on the one about sponges are you alright.

Whenever one is describing publicly deterrent forces. It's a concept which is awkward to describe because one is is talking about forces and their survivability. And in terms which are seen by the by the Soviets such that they will not attack so one imagines that the the having forces which are truly survivable will have the effect of the Soviets not wishing to attack them. For example in the M-x and as did the sept of basing mode one of the strengths of that system is with the number of proliferated shelters. If the Soviets were having to view an attack on the United States they would have to employ all of the warheads from their SSA tienes that a major portion of their land base force and many of the warheads from their other systems as well. If they were to contemplate knocking out these these in MX missiles and it would be hard for them to attack and

not contemplate knocking them out. Therefore we believe that that ability to survive such a massive attack was a real contribution to deterrence. Unfortunately in describing all of that very early on these debates. I use the word sponge and as indicating something that could soak up this the Soviet attack but still have it keep building retaliate while the sponge was an unfortunate word to use because it gave the connotation for the people in whose backyards we wish to employ these missiles being something that would attract an attack instead of a terror one. So I regretted ever having used that term. The Reagan commission the Reagan administration was very wise in appointing the Scowcroft commission to re-examine all aspects of the of the Humax missile on that nuclear principles of deterrence. This was a commission that was put together of people with such high credibility

that their report achieved a very large degree of acceptance and in their report they re-examined these principles of deterrence tried to find grounds on which there would be a political compromise that people could accept. And and although they were faced with a moderately unsolvable situation nevertheless they did make out first a report which clarify the thinking of people in the country I think a great deal and then made some recommendations which I think were very very sensible. The main one of these I think was the movement to a single warhead missile. Just shortly after having heard you were here you were here for you. You talked there during the period of the candidacy and later in the

first year. Oh well so you know how to answer that. I personally had had no contact with the Reagan administration during the time of the election or really in any particular detail during the time of transition but very soon after President Reagan came into office and Mr. Reinberg or became secretary these issues associated with the missile basing our came to the fore. And it was very clear that because of the statements that Mr. Reagan to major in the candidacy that there was a great lack of enthusiasm for the the deceptive basing mode which we had established one of the early actions then of the Reagan ministration was to put together a commission under Charles towns of the university California. To review the situation and to make varying recommendations that come particular commission which was composed of very competent people

examined under a set of ground rules which they were provided which were basically a no arms control circumstance that is even the limits of salt who were not to be employed but instead they were to examine the circumstances in which the Soviets were presumed to have increased the number of weapons on their very accurate missiles considerably. As a matter of fact almost without bound under those circumstances a system of deceptive basing does not look attractive and indeed the town's commission ended up recommending that that since the system could be overwhelmed by very large numbers. Weapons on the Soviet side that it was inappropriate to continue it. And then they made a set of recommendations which were really a list of alternatives of other kinds of of basing schemes. They included the idea of a very large airplane which would carry missiles around and stay in the air for very long periods of time. And they

included those super hard silos. It it turned out that these were in my view not very good ideas that is they they rejected the scheme that we had for reasons that dealt with their views of arms control. But the alternatives picked were not very attractive alternatives. And so as a result the the issue has continued to have to be examined somewhat and satisfactorily ever sense. So I thought I had opportunity to explain to both Secretary Weinberger and and at least on one or two occasions to President Reagan. The arguments which I felt were in favor of the basing system that the Air Force advocated these meetings were on were not successful.

Now let me be sure that with what with what somebody else said that the meeting that I recalled in that timeframe was a meeting that was held in Los Angeles OK which is I'm not sure I'm in a see meeting is quite the right title although it contained a lot of memory but let me go ahead and describe that. There was one particular point in the in the dialogue. Where we were discussing the pros and cons of the M-x basing system in which I was called to Los Angeles because the president was here on on one of his trips and he convened a meeting at the Century towers were a number of his advisors appeared including Secretary Weinberger and Secretary Haig and others of that

of the cabinet. And it which Charles Townes was president and I was present and General Jones the chairman of the Joint Chiefs are present. And we. Made our arguments as to why we thought that the next facing system was the preferred system. And Charles Townes presented the results of his commission which led to a different conclusion. The president didn't indicate his decision at that time but it was he was rather clear that the predominance of advice that he was listening to was unfavorable to our particular approach here. I think at that particular meeting that I can't recall the the actual way in which General Jones and I framed our arguments but they did. They did I'm sure include a rebuttal to the

very large Soviet weapon assumptions of Charles towns that are under assault to cap and hopefully further progress in arms control that those arguments were not the ones that would really drive. And that if one allowed. The Soviets are was in a situation where the Soviets would increase the numbers of warheads targeting us the Soviet Union almost without bound. That the United States had many other problems with sides the survivability of the annex basing system and that we pointed out to him that that really wasn't the conditions one wished to to encourage that that it was really acceptable to go the way we were saying couple it with arms control and. And obtain deterrence and that fashion. But the present at that particular time and the early parts of it missed his administration clearly want to do establish a principle that he would not rely upon arms control to provide

the security for the United States and therefore he simply wouldn't accept that that line of reasoning. Right. Right. I don't know I can make a sentence on that if you want me to do it right. Wow. It was of course disconcerting to me and to the Air Force in general to the to General Jones as the chairman as well that the efforts we had undertaken with such difficulty during the Carter administration since he was no big enthusiastic of land based missiles in the first place were being God discarded. We felt that we had forged a a fragile but still workable consensus in the Congress and among the people

in the states that were affected and among all of the strategic thinkers who had gone through all of the agonizing list of alternatives which we had examined. Therefore it was disappointing and disconcerting to have all of that unravel so quickly. You're right. I don't recall doing that. And the town's Commission report. One of the arguments which he made was that it was cheaper for the Soviets to add weapons to their missile systems by by proliferation that is by increasing the the number of multiple A independently targeted warheads on

each missile that it was for us to build additional shelters to out to compensate for that. And that argument of course is true. That is if there are no other restrictions the advantage goes to the off chance in the end very high degrees of a ploy for ation. We muster the best arguments we could against that but in the in the final analysis if if the ground rules were that they were to be no arms control environment all that is no restriction on the amount of proliferation which the Soviets would be assumed to follow. Then it was very difficult to have a have an acceptable deceptive basing mode. The the deepest concern of course that the Air Force had was that in the absence of a basing mode we felt that that Congress

while or any time many thinking people would simply not be in favor of the emic system at all. That is an Amex missile without a and acceptable survivable basing system is simply not the best investment for the country to make. Therefore since the result of the town commission town's Commission had in our opinion not resulted in an acceptable alternative basing on the rejection of the basing mode in which we had worked so hard put the entire program in severe jeopardy. Now at this particular time the regen administration had not decided to to reinstate the B-1. So our concerns were really quite deep that that administration was coming into office whose pronouncements in favor of strengthen national security were very positive but whose actions were putting the strategic retaliatory capability United

States and in substantial jeopardy and therefore we were deeply concerned right here. The. One of the schemes that has been examined over the years is to place the missiles in aircraft and then two to fly the aircraft in order to provide invulnerability. This has been examined many times and has almost always failed in several tests that one would like to provide for it cost being one of those. But also the the particular scheme that the town's commission examined was the idea that one could construct a new kind of airplane an airplane which would be very inexpensive to fly for very long periods of time and

that therefore they might overcome these serious cost objections that had been been raised in the past. The. That there were several problems with that particular scheme that caused it to go the way of all of the air mobile schemes. The first one was the cost numbers did not seem to stand up under the under close examination. It involves some fairly radical technology which just didn't really seemed to be there. And the second one was that the difficulty of flying nuclear armed missiles. In a manner which is safe and fully acceptable the public is a. Matter which is just simply not been resolved. One imagined airports on the West Coast the United States that would be located away from people and where the flying would be done in such a way that there would be no hazard to crashes on the ground and where the deployment area would be selected areas of the ocean over which the

aircraft would fly and no others. In order to limit the circumstances of the aircraft being in places where its or its crashed or could could cause harm. But as one looked more and more at the details of that it they began to look look less and less attractive and therefore that particular air mobile scheme like others seemed to fail the real test that we wanted to apply to. Wow. You know the following the the recognition of the improved accuracy of the Soviet systems coupled with the recognition of the SS 18 was being deployed under in a mode in which it had at least 10 warheads on it. The United States began

to become more and more concerned about the survivability of the Minuteman force. The calculation is that we would do under the assumptions that the Soviets would put perhaps two of these warheads on each Minuteman silo and they had enough re-entry vehicles to be able to afford to do that yielded an inability of the Minuteman system to ride out the attack. And survive with with except of all numbers and all. Now we still believe very much that the United States should strive to have a triad of forces so that each leg of that triad can offset the weaknesses which another leg might have. Therefore it was our desire to to find some way to restore the capability of that land based missile force. It was during this period of time for example that the term window of vulnerability came to be used referring to the vulnerability of the Minuteman system. Unfortunately

that term got to be applied as though the United States itself in its entirety was vulnerable which of course was incorrect. And the Scowcroft commission pointed that out very well that the other leg of the triad provided robustness during a period of time when one was concerned about the land based leg. But the fact remains that the that the Minuteman force was both old in terms of the missiles themselves and their technology. And we were looking 15 years downstream. And it it would seem as though we needed both to replace that missile and to replace it in some system that would provide survivability. Did during during President Reagan's campaign one of the the

military advisers that he used and I presume relied to some degree on who was William Van Cleave of California. Dr Van Cleave. I did not think very highly of arms control at all and he certainly didn't think very highly of the particular schemes of basing and weapon choices that the Air Force had made and therefore he advised President Reagan that we were on the wrong track. And then immediately after President Reagan was elected Dr. Van Cleave came to see me and informed me that that that I that my ideas were wrong and he hadn't had to clearly inform the president that that those ideas were incorrect. But then he went away. The the arguments which the Scowcroft commission formulated for putting 50 M-x and silos were making the best of a bad situation. I think that I am never comfortable

with with putting missiles on which one is spending good money into a basing system which is not not survivable. But the Scowcroft arguments were largely that that was an appropriate interim step to do and that there were a number of other approaches which needed to be examined concurrently. One of those which I personally think is an appropriate response to the very difficult situation that we have found ourselves in is the single weapon the ballistic missile. The reason for that of course is that then. Obtains its own survivability by requiring for the Soviets to attack it properly to not to devote a weapon to to a missile which can be moved about and and that turns out to to to enable one to have a single RB system in a basing system that will be survival much more

easily than a than a missile which has a large number of weapons on it. Oh god I didn't explain all the problem for it is right that they're probably there. There probably are some better words somewhere that they yet the let me let me try get a little bit. There that's my yammering. The. The x missile with its 10 warheads represents if you like an attractive target to a Soviet style weapon here because he can then assign me a single weapon to that missile. And in the process destroyed 10 of our weapons. The approach was the Scowcroft commission discussed we had of course examined it earlier and rejected it for various reasons. It was to look very carefully at a at a single weapon missile. That then would increase the Soviet targeting targeting problem

greatly. Now that the trouble with that is that that then becomes very expensive. The one is lost the advantages of scale that come from 10 weapons permissible by going to only one weapon per missile. And at this at this present time the Air Force is finding it very difficult to address the very high costs of that system. But I personally think its the direction in which the country needs to move right. Because of cost and because we felt that we were obtaining the same yes. We rejected the single weapon missile earlier because of cost arguments that is we obtained a higher degree of economy by having 10 weapons on a missile and then having more than 10 locations for each missile. So he obtained the same effect of and even a little bit better of a single weapon missile and were able to do so at less cost.

So but when one is lost that abandoned that particular deceptive basing scheme than the single weapon missile becomes a much more attractive approach. The Strategic Air Command. Not now. And I presume others in the Air Force as well are advocating the rail Garrison mode of deployment of the annex. This again is a is a system that has been examined over the years and is another way of obtaining mobility. It will have its own problems because it doesn't afford a very easy way to base them survival survivability during periods of low alert. But it does provide a way to get the mobile during periods of tension. In less time.

Right. So let's see. I'm I know I'm coming as quick as I can. The the history of trying to find an acceptable home for the land based missiles has been a very painful one. It's one in which this country has found the the differences between ourselves in the Soviet Union particularly awkward to accommodate their large real estate their ability to move missiles in amongst the population. Are things which we don't share in the same degree. I believe that a land based missile compound of the triad is important I believe in fact that it's important that it be based on the homeland I don't believe that you have acceptably turrets if your deterrent forces are all located at sea for example. So we have faced a very difficult issue we have not found answers which are fully

acceptable. And I believe it's necessary to continue to address that until we find a solution that we can all live with.