War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Norman Dicks, 1987

Right. I guess you're right. All right well. For all of us. Well yes the administration I think made a very serious mistake in judgment by giving up on the MP s the multiple protective shelter system of the Carter administration. And I don't think they did it on on very solid ground and after that they struggled for two years to try and come up with their own base a moat. And they basically failed in the ultimate failure was when they set up a dense pack which was rejected overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives and of course after that. Some senior members of Congress and senior members of the administration convinced the president that he had to name a national commission on the ICBM modernization which became known

as the Scowcroft commission to deal with the chaos that existed in the strategic ICBM program. Well at least we were able to get the money for it. When the answer went well there was always there were always problems you had problems politically out there in the states of Nevada and Utah but there was the votes in both the House and Senate to go forward with that approach. But the problem was a political one. The Reagan administration had campaigned against MP s and because it had been thought up during the Carter administration it was it was rejected almost at will when they came to power over the objections of the Joint Chiefs and particularly

General Jones who very strongly argued that this there was a consensus built around this approach. And then if the administration attempted to come up with a new approach they were going to have problems and they did. Well I no one knows for sure just what was said but obviously Paul Laxalt was chairman of the Reagan campaign and he was very much opposed to this being in Nevada. So when the president you know rejects the approach one has to wonder whether the senators had some influence there or not I assume that they did. Well because you what you basically had were 200 missiles in a in a very tight configuration and there were all kinds of issues raised about what would happen if you barraged over

the Soviets kept by exploding warheads right above that dense pack that you probably wouldn't be able to get missiles launched. Now the whole thing is highly scientific and very technical but it looks like you might you know spend all this money to get 200 missiles and have them all destroyed before they were ever a launch Plus bringing down a huge attack on the United States itself. So it just didn't go anywhere in there and it was basically on technical grounds that people just weren't convinced that it was going to work. But it's always difficult on the Hill because congressmen and congressmen and women. Right right. OK. Well meaning Congress could understand that the problem was that the

scientist and the people from the administration who tried to explain it weren't very convincing. And you have to come over here and persuade a lot of people who are pretty bright that something's going to work and this thing just didn't sound right. And you have a lot of outside experts saying that there were grave reservations and doubts about it. Plus it didn't just didn't ring true. How could you put 200 missiles together really closely spaced and create survivability just ran counter to common sense and maybe it's true maybe the Congress couldn't understand the impacts of fratricide and other things but it just didn't sell up here it was defeated overwhelmingly. Well that's right. And all of a sudden we're coming together with something it's very you know a tight configuration and it just didn't sell. Though I can't remember that specific letter remember Terry.

I think there were enough reservations that the same just never got off the ground it looked like the administration was desperately searching for a way to base the new missile the Amex and you know they had. The Senate had the summer before basically told them that they had to start over and come back with something new and different and they just couldn't do it. That's why the mistake was made at rigidly in rejecting the multiple protective shelter system because there was a consensus around that and it was moving ahead. So what they really did was they they killed an approach that had been accepted by the Congress and the American people and they didn't have a new replacement I mean they had big bird in the ditch and all kinds of different approaches. A lot of very funny speeches made in the House of Representatives for his house were presented by the way by Congressman Dellums about the

various basing modes but this one just didn't sell. Well I mean it was just I mean it was just one after another you had big bird you you know you're going to put this thing up in an airplane and you had it in a ditch and you know it went on and on and on are just so many different approaches that had been thought about and rejected. And that's why this was a very major mistake in judgment by the Reagan administration 1:1 of course the one that the supposedly they showed the president of a cartoon and they had the MP s system and it actually was three different bike shelters and in one of the shelters missiles post-bin showed the bear going home and a base that based on that apparently President Reagan rejected the MPI system. Well that's not what we call systems analysis but that's about what happened in this administration the president's understanding of these issues early on was not

extensive. Yeah that was rejected by the Senate. See I never had a problem with that and I think the MP s system was was a better system. But putting them in silos now is that there's a stability question. But the question is will the other side preempt and attack those silos because they are vulnerable because they're at a fixed location they can be attacked. And my own assessment was that you had a synergistic relationship between your bomber force and your submarine force that made it impossible for the Soviets to consider a preemptive attack but. But a lot of people rejected that and wanted the ICBMs to be survivable in their own right so they wouldn't draw fire and wouldn't create crisis instability and and so that was the reason why you were looking for a more survivable system. And

that's the reason why had today we're we're looking at this midget manned mobile missile because it does give you enhanced survivability. Yeah yeah yeah. Well I mean but the problem was you it's one thing to build a missile but you got to base it. And the difficulty is that an ICBM is vulnerable. And what you're trying to do is create less vulnerability by using one of these various basing modes and and obviously the administration and you had certain rules under salt on the salt agreements about making these systems verifiable. So you had to have a lid and you had to build a show when he only had one nestled in the

23 silos and all those things all those kind of complicating things and searching for a. A basing mode but the basing what is very important because it affects the survivability of them the so on and has a major effect on stability. So there was valid reasons for trying to come up with a survivable basing mode. And we're still doing it Ron Rale Garrison right now we're taking a look at that as a potential way to to base an Amex in a mobile fashion. Well that certainly was part of it. Congress was insistent that if we could come up with a credible basing mode that we ought to do it. And and it's very expensive. It's much cheaper to put the missile in a thick silo and have come up with a very complicated basing system that is soft

compliant and at the same time survivable was a much more expensive proposition. So Congress knew it was doing and was trying to you know enhance survivability for stability purposes. Right. Well certainly I mean people understood that. You know I have in my district at the time I had the Trident submarine base and and so we became a target because of that it's probably one of the very top targets. So I have sympathy for that but everybody has to do as I said to Senator Laxalt one time we're down the Greenbrier talked about this. I said we know Senator Jackson and I had to accept the responsibility of going forward with a tritone base even though we knew it complicated things that in our area and that all of us have certain responsibilities. And

I frankly felt that if we pushed ahead on this and we could've worked out an impact assistance program of sorts that would of compensated the people for the problems associated with that base I went out there and heard the hearings and. And you always have opposition. Any time you talk about something like strategic weapons you're going to have opposition inherently. And there wasn't really any more in Nevada or Las Vegas I mean Utah than there was would have been anywhere else in the country. In fact might have been even a little less. Well I think the day their charge was to see Dick to try to come forward with a blueprint for modernizing our strategic weapons and trying to rebuild a bipartisan consensus be behind a policy of the administration. And that's what they attempted to do they tried to work with the Congress and get input from leaders in the House and the Senate people who are understood these

issues. They went outside of the government. They have their own people were very distinguished panel. And I think they came up with a basic framework for kind of a policy that could be could receive bipartisan support in the Congress and it could be implemented. And he did a very good job. Well I was one of a whole host of people that were consulted. Congressman Aspen played a very major role here in the House Congressman Foley. You know basically my message was that what we were looking for up here was a commitment from the administration that they were going to have reasonable and credible positions in the arms control talks that they were going to do more than just posture that they were going to negotiate seriously. I also was interested in seeing us go forward with a small ICBM with a single warhead because that weapon is

enhances stability compared to an Amex for example. And I was prepared to support modernization building some additional annexes and building the. The small missile. If the administration was prepared to make a commitment to vigorously pursue arms control as a rational choice. Well a lot of us were worried about it at the time. Was it the Reagan administration was really you know they were there with the administration of the the evil empire and they were taking a very harsh and very aggressive approach towards the Soviets. They were not approaching arms control in in a traditional way. And there was a lot of concern up here about whether we could have a bipartisan consensus behind any policy in this. Well there was concern up here whether there could be support for a

bipartisan kind of an approach. All right. Well. Yeah I think what we tried to do was say you know when there was a group we met in this room many times of kind of moderate Democrats and Republicans who said basically that we're prepared to go ahead with modernization of the emacs 50 to 100. If you were going to commit yourself to a more credible Arms Control Policy and that was basically the the deal and here we are now. Seven years actually five years later and I think it was worth the effort because one we've got an IMF agreement too. We could well be on the verge of getting an agreement on a 50 percent reduction in strategic weapons. There were certain elements in the House that said don't cooperate with the Reagan administration don't work

with them because they'll never do anything an arms control they're just totally opposed and we rejected that we said you know you don't give up on an American president you try to work with them you try to see if you can convince them to move in a traditional approach to these issues. And after a while and with a lot of help from say in it and camp a woman and Schulte I think this administration is on the verge of making major accomplishments. And part of it was because we did modernize our forces both. And in this in this sense both are. Purging to stand our ground launch cruise missiles. We want to head and build those there was tremendous opposition in the house to those two systems and we went ahead with M-x and d5 and and research on SDI all of which gave us leverage in the negotiations with the Soviets and what I've argued is you can build a strong defense posture and at the same time be willing to

negotiate. So I basically support the approach that this administration is taking I didn't have support with Mr. Perle Mr. Weinberger were doing because I thought they were undercutting the president at every step in his efforts to try and make some progress in the arms control. So until they're leaving now makes the prospects much better. For getting something done. Well basically I led the fight along with congressmen to dabble as members of the Defense Appropriations Committee he was chairman I was one of the ranking members. And basically we put together the votes on the Democratic side along with some Republican support to defeat this overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives and that's what really caused the crisis and the creation of the Scowcroft commission was that the administration after a good year and some months of struggling you know had been repudiated

in the Congress on its approach to basing the M-x missile. OK well Congressman I dabble and I led the fight on the dense pack proposal and basically lined up the votes on the Democratic side with about 50 Republicans as I recall and that gave us the votes to defeat the administration's newest basing mode dense pack and that's what created the crisis and the necessity for the creation of the Scowcroft commission recommendation. The administration's basic policy on basing the M-x had been repudiated. Well yeah we our group sent a letter to the president and we

had about I would say 25 30 signatures I think of a group of moderate Democrats and Republicans basically laying out some questions that we wanted answered before we agreed to go ahead and support the basic recommendations of the Scowcroft commission. And it included whether they were committed to going ahead with a small ICBM. What their approach would be in the arms control area. And and that letter was sent to the administration and then they sent back a response and it happened to be that my subcommittee was marking up on the defense bill. And on the AMEX in particular. And so the letter came to me it was during Norman It was it was published in The New York Times in The Washington Post in fall. It was considered a very important letter because in a sense was a policy statement by the administration about what they would do

to implement the recommendations of the Scowcroft commission and answer the questions that we had raised. Yes I was I was attacked personally. Al Gore. Les Aspen on the House side. We all were. We were became very unpopular with the liberal wing of the party. I mean I had one member from Ohio walk up to me and said I hope that your children can forgive you for what you've done to our country. And so it was and I was you know I was censured by the Democratic Party in the state of Washington in my own district they had the state meeting and they censured me because because of my support for M-x modernization. Now maybe it was my own fault for not explaining my position better. What we were trying to do is say we were prepared to give the administration some support but out of that we received a commitment to the small missiles single warhead missile which I think adds to stability in the long run and is the right approach in the long run both for ICBMs and SLBM

eventually. And we got them to commit to treat arms control in a more traditional way. And I thought it was worth trying to bring the administration around and I think will be vindicated if we get the 50 percent reduction in strategic weapons. Right. And then there were just a book the belief by some members of Congress that this administration would never be serious about arms control and it was my assessment that just like the Nixon administration the Reagan administration had enormous potential. Because you have a conservative president who has a much better chance dealing with the Congress of getting one the things they need in terms of building up our defense credibility but also to get any agreement he negotiated through the Senate. So I didn't feel you are you ought to waste that opportunity. Plus some

of the people in this administration I thought from the start were were very committed. One was Paul Nitze who I thought had that kind of talent and ability to get agreements with the with the Soviets along with Max camp a woman who I also had a great respect for. Right. You know what I don't think that's so I don't believe in bargaining chips either. I think what you're talking about is leverage. And at some point the other side big you know if they see that you're following a steady prudent policy you're keeping your strategic weapons modernized. In this case I think one of the driving forces has obviously been the Strategic Defense Initiative research. You know all of a sudden the other side says let's let's sit down and work out some accommodations. And that's basically where we are today. And but

I think it takes us. A commitment to modernization the same people who are saying that you couldn't get the Reagan administration to deal were also opposing every part of the program to increase our overall military strength. And so you know my of my view was that was wrong and that the only way you make real progress in this country is through bipartisan cooperation. It takes sensible moderates in both parties to get together and provide the votes for a credible approach. And if the Reagan administration was willing to move away from the rhetoric of the evil empire and start talking about double bill downs and different creative approaches to arms control then I thought it was worth taking the risk of supporting a program which had been started under the Carter administration. Many people think M-x was a creation of Ronald Reagan. It was Jimmy Carter's missile and ascents effect I think was started during the Ford administration the early work on it and it was a it was just another

modernization step. And so you know if we're going to make any progress in this country to get anything done. And that's what we're here to try to do in the Congress is accomplish something. You have to work in a bipartisan way. And there are some in Congress who come here to to oppose. And there is a role for opposition when the other side's wrong you oppose it. But when they're willing to compromise and you can find a consensus position that I think you have a better chance to achieve something. So that's why we got a group of about 40 50 members who made the difference. We could make the difference we could defeat the M-x Nestle or we could provide the votes to see that it was funded. But we weren't going to do it unless there was a quid pro quo. And the quid pro quo in this case was a commitment by this administration to arms control that they had not been making up to this point. Up to that point and a commitment to develop the small ICBM. And I thought it was a deal worth taking the risk

to pursue. Well I don't know I never saw a weapon system the Cap Weinberger didn't like. But maybe that's true. Well I think there's been a kind of a lukewarm approach to this whole thing by this administration and the fact that they put down in Geneva a proposal to ban mobile missiles certainly wasn't in my view a good faith. Keeping of their promise to develop a small single warhead ICBM and that was something that we jumped on him about. Now that was a negotiated negotiating ploy because of the fact the Soviets had already moved ahead on the SS 24 and SS 25 that's debatable point. But you know things kind of fell apart.

When Congress kept DMX at 50 which I supported in fact I told. Bud McFarlane this very room that I didn't think and some Al Gore was here that we could we we probably would only get 50 out of Congress and after that there wouldn't be the political support to go forward. And we wanted the administration to understand that going in that you know we were committed to 100 but we might have to set aside settle for 50. So but I would say that I think it's going to be the next administration that has to make the final decision on ICBM modernization. And I can understand the problem here because if you add you know 50 more of X's you get 500 more warheads deployed. It's a lot less expensive than building 500 single warhead systems. But the 500 single warhead systems restore survivability to the land based leg. And when you consider survivable warheads it's a much better bargain.

So even though it's more expensive it does what we need to have accomplished and therefore it's worth the investment in my view. OK. Well I'm I'm committed to the small ICBM and I would vote to to cut out the funding for the rail mobile carriers and the only way I would even consider rail mobile Garrison is if you were going to take the Fifth DMX is that it's already been deployed and put make them mobile. Now that might be a more attractive venture because then it would enhance the survivability of those those 50 and the axis. But. But I don't think that's going to happen either I think the best thing to do here is just not go forward with rail mobile Kerrison and just commit ourselves to staying with the legislative cap of 50 M-x and that's it no more.

Right. Well I just don't just don't agree with that at all first of all we're nowhere near a time when we're going to be able to deploy the Strategic Defense Initiative or Star Wars we're not anywhere near that. And so we need to make decisions now about what to do about modernization in the context hopefully of a 50 percent reduction in strategic weapons. And clearly in that context if we're talking about 6000 warheads then going to a single warhead system which increases the number of aim points and improves crisis stability is the correct way to proceed. So you know as we make progress in arms control I think the case for a small single warhead system becomes stronger not weaker. And let's face it SDI is a long ways down the road. Senator Wilson and other

true believers think it's just around the corner. But people who are out there doing the work at Los Alamos and Sandia and Livermore who I have talked to personally say this thing is a long term venture that there are major technological breakthroughs that need to be made. So I don't want to rest my case on a fantasy at this point. Not particularly I think we I think we can live with 50 m X's an existing silos. I don't think we need to go further on that area I don't think there's a support for it in Congress. I think it's wishful thinking on the part of the Reagan administration to even be pursuing that. So if I were in their shoes I would settle in now and do the work to get the ice small ICBM program moving ahead and and and and make that the modernization program of the future. Now what they haven't got the votes in either the House or the Senate to accomplish that. That is politically

impossible short of a total breakdown in U.S.-Soviet relations and in fact things are going the other way. Things look better in terms of overall U.S.-Soviet relations so I don't see any any support up here for. I mean some support obviously but not nearly enough to create a majority in the house for 50 additional M-x nestles is just not going to happen. So we've already bought them. They're already purchased most of them are in the ground. And frankly the Amex does do one important thing. It gives us some prompt hard target capability that has already moved the Soviets out of their vulnerable silos into a more survivable configuration. That's one of the things one of the lessons of Scowcroft was you needed a certain amount of M-x capability in order to get the Soviets to go mobile. And because mobility creates enhances survivability on their side and what you

want is both sides to be secure not threatened so that there isn't a crisis no reason to preempt. So even with 50 m axes we've accomplished what we intended and that is to get them into a more survivable posture which they will do over a period of years. Well I mean it's not just to go after their silos I mean it's also leadership command control and communication. You want to be in a position where. They think you know they're deterred from attacking us because they know we have a capability to to attack what they hold dearest to them and to their society. And a lot of this is all theoretical I frankly believe that the kind of capability we have out there has deterred both sides for 40 or 50 years and I think you know slight changes in either side really will make that much difference but I do think

what we should be looking at long term is to move towards a single warhead systems because that way there's no reason to preempt Now if you can destroy an M-x say a SS 18 with two incoming RV. And you can and therefore you can kill 10 of there are these in the in the ground. That's a 5 to 1 return on investment and so it gives you an incentive to attack. If you had single warhead systems on both sides I'd say the United States and the Soviet Union both had single warhead systems. And honest sir on the theory that either takes one or two to kill one of the other ones or you can even find it if they were mobile. Maybe then there's no incentive to attack and it creates a situation where in a crisis no one feels the necessity to preempt. That's what we need to move away from. That's where the murder systems are more a more provocative and more dangerous. And so you know I think that's where our long term you know approach should be.

Right. Well we modified the phrase It was a phrase that basically said until we reach an agreement that's both neutral and verifiable that modernization will continue. A lot of people here wanted a unilateral freeze on our side only and that was rejected overwhelmingly in the house. Once that was in once there was a you know. An accommodation reached on the floor of the house which I was involved in seeing happen. Then then you you could basically say that we would you know we could go along with the idea that both sides would hold at current levels. I've been arguing the same thing in a sense under salt too that we ought to have interim restraint that if we're really trying to get a 50 percent reduction and often see weapons we don't need to be adding to current

levels we can as we add new systems take all systems out in a sense that kind of a freeze I thought made sense. Some people want to freeze technology and they want to do a lot of other things that may not be in our security interest if it isn't mutual between the United States and the Soviet Union. And so it was it was a modified freeze but it didn't give political impulse in the country that there were people very concerned about the arms race and I think it put pressure on the Reagan administration to be a little more reasonable and rational and forthcoming in terms of the positions that were taken at the negotiating table. And I think it helped put pressure on the administration to get back in the mainstream of traditional American thinking on these issues. Right right. Well I've seen it used very effectively during the Carter administration. President

Carter had brought down about 40 or 50 Congressman. He had Clark Clifford Harold Brown Cyrus Vance. So they knew Brzezinski that the top people in administration and they made an incredible pitch about the necessity of restoring military assistance to Turkey. So when we were down to one of the very crucial votes on M-x I thought it would be worthwhile to have that same kind of a dinner at the White House where you had the secretary of defense Mr. Weinberger and Secretary of State Mr. Shultz and I can remember who was I guess was McFarlane who is a national security adviser or Bill Clark. Jim Baker and the president of course and Brant Scowcroft representing the commission. And then there was a whole series of members there. And unfortunately when the members got up to start asking the president questions about this strategic stability the kind of answers they got back were. While the to put as kindly as possible were not very helpful

and so the dinner time kind of turned into a fiasco the president made it very clear that he was going to build DMX no matter what we needed it and we were going to go ahead with it. And you know the Russians unilaterally disarm we're still going to build it almost and it was almost that bad. So it didn't help our cause but. But at least it showed an a willingness and this was during the first term of the administration during those first three or four years to try and work with the Congress and that they did get actively involved and they brought members down and they worked the problem. Once Mr. Baker went to Treasury and Donald Regan came to the White House there was very little. Effort by the White House during the second term to try to work with the Congress in on it. Well you know the question comes up about you know was this was all the concern about the basing mode or the missile.

My view is that. One of the major concerns was how much hard target capability United States was actually going to deploy between the DMX and the Minuteman 3. Were we going to present the Soviets with the threat of a first strike and that that was another major issue in this debate and when you look at M-x Minuteman 3 and the D5 on the on the submarines all of a sudden we develop a tremendous amount of hard target capability that could give the Soviets the impression that we were trying to develop a first strike potential especially if we then would have a limited defensive capability to soak up a ragged Soviet response to us first for a strike. I don't think that's our policy and that's one of the reasons why we limited M-x to 50. We did not want to present it now. Well I don't think our policy is to have a first strike against the Soviets but they go

they look at us the same way that we look at them they look at our capabilities and all of a sudden they see a hundred or 200 M-x missiles with 10 warheads each and they see a whole host of Trident submarines with D5 missiles with hard target capability and they're going to think we're trying to achieve a first strike capability. And it's not our policy but they're going to look at what we've got not what we say. Well that's one of the reasons why the Congress limited DMX to 50 missiles because with 500 warheads. I mean you're talking about an ability to take out 250 Soviet launchers and they have far more than that so we wouldn't present them with a first strike capability. I think that's a question that's up in the air at this point in time. I think there's tremendous support for it in Congress the

ministration has basically blessed it. But there are certain forces within the Congress who don't want to build it. And that's going to be an ongoing struggle. In fact just the other day the Senate Armed Service and appropriations committees are owed the money for so that a serious problem one that will have to face when the House and Senate has its conference. But my gut instinct is we're going to go ahead with a small missile program. There is enough support for the. Well I mean I think there's a couple lessons here one that if you're going to modernize your weapons systems you better think very carefully about how you're going to base those systems and you have to take into account the necessity for having as survivable a basing mode as is possible and that any kind of new program is

going to be highly controversial. I think also there's another lesson important lesson that is try to develop a bipartisan consensus behind your policy. I mean in the next administration I think the first thing they should try and do is to sit down with leaders in both parties in the house in the Senate and try and come up with a kind of a consensus policy about what needs to be done in terms of modernizing these strategic forces to try and avoid the kind of divisive debate that we've had during the Reagan years. And also I think you've got to start thinking long term. What kind of a force structure do we really want to see both United States and the Soviet Union have 20 or 30 years from now. And that's where I would hope that we would start thinking about moving away from these highly Merve systems either on submarines or on land based missiles towards this single warhead system which takes away the incentive to preempt. And in my view we could

possibly see a world 50 years from now or the United States and Soviet Union only have a say 500 of these systems when total non-time by bombers I'm talking about ICBM warheads SLBM warheads and you know and configured in such a way that they would be purely for deterrent or defensive purposes. Now in that kind of a world some form of limited defense to deal with an accidental launch wouldn't be out of the question. But you know this these are the kind of things we need to be thinking about as we move into the Hopefully the new Democratic administration in 1089. Well no I think well I don't think there's many people over there who really think we're going to have a first strike approach I mean that is not a policy that's ever been accepted.

I mean I think some people like to have the capability because they feel that that kind of capability is the best kind of deterrence. When the Soviets feel threatened that they feel the happiest. I disagree with that. I think you want a situation where either now or in a crisis neither side feels that they're going to be hit with a preemptive attack that there's no incentive to preempt in fact in the kind of world that I envision the attacker would be actually in a worse position because it would take more warheads to destroy a certain portion of the other side's force thus leaving the attacker in a worse position. And that's the kind of stability that we're trying to build into any kind of a modernization program. Well because we made a commitment to work with the administration and we felt that it was

worth the risk that we thought that there was a prospect of getting the Reagan administration to be serious about arms control and that we can make real progress and that you shouldn't write off an American president and that's what some of our colleagues were saying they were saying that there was no hope of the Reagan administration ever doing anything on arms control and we were being suckered in. Well I think the proof is quite the contrary. I think right now we're going to see the president in a few near-term signing an IMF agreement and we may get an agreement in principle on a 50 percent reduction in strategic weapons. Those are real significant accomplishments. So I felt that that there was a chance to make that kind of progress and that we shouldn't give up on Ronald Reagan just because he made a lot of bad speeches before he ran for president only was running for president when he became president that you still needed to try and move him in the right direction. And that's what this is all about and I think we accomplished that. Well I mean I think we the first vote we had after the dense pack went down

in the spring of 1903 when we clearly established that we had the votes. Now that margin got narrower and narrower but you know as each book became narrower and narrower our influence with the administration became greater and greater. So it was always a difficult situation. And then of course when the Soviets walked out of the IMF talks and things kind of broke down in terms of the arms control talks for a while then and the election occurred and you know things changed in the next several years and frankly in the last few years we've been putting a lot of pressure on the administration. The same people I asked and myself on a series of arms control amendments to try and make sure that the administration lived up to its commitment to pursue arms control vigorously now I never give them much credit for what they did. I just think as you know as things evolved and you had good people like NITSA and Shultz and Camp M and their

that and the opportunities started to. You know present themselves and Gorbachev's ascendancy to the leadership of the Soviet Union as someone who could deal and had the political strength to make proposals that the all of a sudden the opportunities were there. But I would argue had we not modernized our intermediate nuclear weapons in Europe had we not gone ahead with a strong defense policy that those opportunities might not have ever presented themselves. And so I would say we were right and they were wrong on this particular issue. Yes. Yes. I don't think was purely political obviously there were technical capabilities of the next missile

that were certainly not just political symbols but my own assessment is that part of deterrence is the ability to execute a policy to go ahead and say hey we're going to go ahead and modernize and we're going to get the votes in the House and the Senate to accomplish that because it leads us to a stronger deterrent policy. And by not being able to let's say we had fallen apart let's say under the pressure of the Soviet Union we had not been able to go ahead and deploy the intermediate weapons in Europe then then our whole knaidel policy our whole policy of containment and deterrence in Europe would have collapsed the same thing's true here if we had not been able to modernize our strategic forces and there'd been disarray in the Congress. The Soviets might not have felt any necessity to negotiate with us because we were self-destructing in front of the entire world. But we showed here I think was that good people in both parties can pull together after a

major defeat on dense pack on the merits it was defeated because it was not the right way to go come up with a credible policy. Yes part of it was political but execute it. And and because of that I think were now on the verge of getting what all of us who supported it wanted in the first place and that was a solid agreements of the Soviets that are going to make the world a little safer in the future.