War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Charles H. Townes, 1987

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Transcript

WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES A12144, A12146-A12149 CHARLES

TOWNES

Problems Presented to Townes Commission

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT BEGINNING OF HIS INVOLVEMENT THE MX BASING PROBLEM. WHAT DID

REAGAN AND WEINBERGER ASK YOU TO DO IN 1981?

Townes:

Well Secretary Weinberger asked me to review the MX basing systems and

recommend what kind of system would be best for basing the MX. I felt

that that was too limited a charge and hence suggested that really it

would make sense only in the context of looking at the overall

strategic weaponry and trying to get everything balanced. Together with

making recommendations on the whole strategic complex. And Secretary

Weinberger agreed to that and gave us then a very open charter to

examine the whole situation.

Interviewer:

WHY DID YOU LOOK AT WHOLE STRATEGIC FORCE STRUCTURE RATHER THAN JUST

THE BASING PROBLEM?

Townes:

Well because...We wanted to look at the entire problem because no one

part of it really is sufficient in itself. There is a famous triad of

the land-based forces with the, the missile forces, and the Air Force,

and then the submarines. That's the triad. Each perform a different

function, they have a different kind of a protection mechanism. And it

is the combination of those which is most important. If you look at one

single one, ignoring the others, then you really don't come out with an

overall good system. Especially because the land-based missiles are not

really as efficient in themselves, they are too vulnerable.

Interviewer:

DID YOU FEEL PREVIOUS STUDIES LOOKED TOO EXCLUSIVELY AT MX AND NOT AT

THE OVERALL PICTURE?

Townes:

Well I think there had been so many different studies, some groups had

looked very broadly, other groups had looked very narrowly. But

certainly, the immediate discussions and studies just before that,

during the previous Administrations, had been primarily concentrated on

the MX, and I think were a little bit too narrowly based. But in any

case I myself felt that it really didn't make sense to do it on that

narrow basis. And Secretary Weinberger agreed with me that we really

should look at the whole picture.

Interviewer:

WHAT DID YOU LOOK AT... AND FIND?

Townes:

Well. We had very broad scale hearings. We had a group of about ten

scientists, engineers and military people, retired military people. And

we reviewed the whole program. We had hearings from a lot of different

people. Some Congressional figures, The Air Force, Navy, the Army and

we worked this over very hard and thoroughly, trying to see what kind

of system might be viable. Because in fact, it was a very hard problem.

Land-based missiles are difficult to protect and it was almost at a

crisis state. In the past the Minuteman had been secure, it could not

be very easily attacked, in deep holes in the ground. It was accurate,

it could sit there until the President carefully made a decision

whether or not one should send them off. But because of increasing

precision of such weaponry it had become vulnerable. And that same

precision made almost any land-based system vulnerable. And so it was a

very difficult problem, to see if in fact there were any safe

mechanisms, any safe kind of basing modes.

Interviewer:

...WERE THERE AT THE TIME?

Townes:

Well the committee's conclusion was that there were no modes which we

saw that could be assured to be safe. But there were some possibilities

that we felt ought to be investigated because simply not enough was

known about them. There were several kinds of possibilities that ought

to be looked into, but none at that time was safe, and certainly not

the multiple protective shelter. I really relied on having so many...

so many aim points for the enemy that it would be ineffective for him

to try to get them all. However, the increasing precision and the large

number of missiles on the multiple warhead missile, large number of

warheads on multiple warhead missile systems, really in fact at that

time would have allowed the enemy to destroy each on of those, at a

cost which was less than the cost for us to build them. And that meant

that that system was really not effective. It had been planned at an

earlier time. The technical situation was a little different. And also

the emphasis was different. I think one has to recognize that this

whole problem is one which is ever changing. It depends on the state of

technology, it depends on the particular kinds of weapons which

opposing forces have, how quickly they can adjust to new kinds of

weapons, and so on. So it's a dynamic problem. And it had changed over

the previous decade.

Interviewer:

ASKS KEY CHANGE FROM AIR FORCE EVALUATION OF MPS AS OK, AND WHEN HIS

COMMITTEE LOOKED AT IT.

Townes:

Well I think it was basically an intelligent idea and it was carefully

studied. The biggest change was the increasing precision of missiles

and in addition the multiple warheads. But they had been around for a

while. But a high percentage of the multiple warheads meant that it was

relatively cheap to attack and destroy anything on the ground, where

you could do it with one or two warheads only, whereas previously it

seemed that you had to make a whole bombardment in order to get

something, because of the poorer precision. I would say that's, that

was the biggest technical change.

Interviewer:

ASKS CHIEF FLAW IN MPS SYSTEM.

Townes:

The primary problem with the MPS system was that it was relying on a

large number of aim points, scattered around over Utah and Nevada, and

these would be hard to attack because the enemy would have to hit every

one of them. However, as the enemy, the Soviets, developed additional

precision, they could shoot only maybe one warhead at each site. Or at

the most two. And still destroy it. And so it became rather efficient

for them to destroy the, destroy these shelters. We could build more

but they could destroy them and they could destroy them more cheaply

than we could build them. So it was a bad bargain and the big change

being this high precision. That the precision had been developed by the

Soviets, these simply were not the right kind of system for us to build

any more.

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COSTS OF BUILDING INCOMING WARHEADS TO

BUILDING SHELTERS.

Townes:

Yes. It's. The relative costs of these systems is a very important

matter because they are very expensive, they are very expensive for

both nations. And if it cost us much more to build something than it

does for an enemy to destroy it, if they can destroy it cheaply and

it's very expensive for us to build it, even though we can build more

and more and more, and possibly have a few left over, it's cheaper for

them to build more and more attack systems. And so it was a bad bargain

economically. And because the whole thing is so expensive, it's an

important, that's an important issue for any nation.

Interviewer:

ASKS HIM TO EXPLAIN.

Townes:

The Soviets could build accurate warheads to attack these missiles,

more cheaply than we could build more shelters with the warheads,

suitable for the warheads. So each new shelter would be attacked by

only one or two warheads and those one or two warheads are cheaper than

the shelters themselves. And so that's what made it such a bad bargain

for us.

Interviewer:

AIR FORCE SUGGESTED MAKING MPS SYSTEM ADAPTABLE WITH SOME BALLISTIC

MISSILE DEFENSE, AN ABM SYSTEM. WHAT DID HE THINK ABOUT THAT?

Townes:

We examined also the possibility of protecting these shelters with ABM.

And that was possible to some extent. The army was working on that

hard. And that was one of the background thoughts in the general

planning of the system. In fact, one could protect the shelter for at

least the first incoming one or two missiles. But once it was revealed

where the ABM itself was located, then the ABM could be attacked

severely, knocked out, and then the rest of the shelters could be,

could be destroyed too. So that while ABM was partially effective it

too was not advantageous from an economic point of view. That is, again

we would have to spend so much money building more and more ABM, it

would be cheaper for the Soviets to attack them than for us to build

them. And hence it didn't make sense at that time for us to build them.

However, our committee did point out the importance of ABM, the

potential importance, saying that we did not have a system that was

adequate at that time. But clearly research ought to be done in that

direction to investigate whether there could be adequate, adequate

systems.

Townes Commission Recommendations

Interviewer:

ASKS WHAT BASING MODES HIS COMMITTEE RECOMMENDED STUDYING.

Townes:

Well. We. We recommended further study of a number of systems which had

not been adequately studied at that time. One of them was the so-called

close-spaced system where the missiles were based so close together

that if they were all attacked at once, one incoming warhead would

destroy another incoming warhead.And so it was sort of

self-annihilation of the attacker so to speak because of this close

spacing. It was a perfectly real effect of that type. It wasn't clear

whether overall that would be a useful system but we felt that should

be studied. Another system was an air-borne system whereby the MX would

be flown in aircraft, aircraft which could last a very, very long time.

They would simply take off, they would go out to sea, and fire around

and stay there long enough that they were basically based there. And

they could be, the missiles could be fired from there. It was a mobile

platform in the air, relatively hard to detect and relatively safe.

That has some political objections in that nobody likes to have

missiles flying around overhead even if they are overhead at sea. But

technically it looked like a system which should be investigated. What

was needed was to find a good design for aircraft which would be

efficient and also of course to examine the political situation. Still

another system was to, was to very deeply base missiles, far down into

rock which could be bombarded by an enemy as long as he wished and the

would still be viable and they would dig, they would dig their way out

over some period of a couple of days perhaps, but still they could get

out and hence would be a reserve. Then there was another system which

of course has been followed up and that was the Midgetman. We

recommended a careful study of a single, a small, single warhead

missile.

Interviewer:

WAS THE PROBLEM IN FINDING A BASING MODE THE FACT OF ITS WEIGHT?

Townes:

Well. The MX missile was of course a fairly heavy system. It was not,

not any, not one of the biggest missiles, but it was moderately heavy.

On the order of 100 tons. And that meant one had to have a fairly large

aircraft to carry it. It meant also it was a fairly valuable missile,

it was to have about ten warheads on it. So the missile was a rather

valuable one and hence to put one of those missiles in any one place

where it might be attacked cheaply, would be, would not be a good

bargain. On the other hand, if you make the missile smaller and cheaper

and scatter them over a large number of places, then that changes the

economic equation. So it was its size, but not only its size, it was

its cost. Much of your, much of your goods you're storing in one place

so it could all be destroyed by one incoming missile, you see. This is

why the small missile was, was more attractive, and why mobility was

attractive so it could be moving around, couldn't be, it couldn't be

located in the track so easily.

Interviewer:

DID YOU AGREE WITH MAY AND TOOMEY'S PANELS THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN

BETTER TO DESIGN A SYSTEM FOR A 3 TO 5 WARHEAD MISSILE?

Townes:

Mobile missiles have been discussed in all sizes, of course. The

smaller the missile is the more easily it is mobile and the easier it

is to secrete and so on. I think there is no clear cut stopping point.

I myself favor, favor maybe one one warhead if that could be mutually

agreed to on both sides. On the other hand, it is cheaper to put three,

it's cheaper per warhead to put three warheads on. And you can do that.

And I think if there were no mutual agreement, you certainly might

reasonably argue for about three warheads. There is no sacred number

but more than one would be economically beneficial.

Interviewer:

THE AIR MOBILE SYSTEM WAS THEN THE ONE THE COMMITTEE FOUND MOST

PROMISING?

Townes:

Yes, we felt that that could possibly be the quickest secure solution.

The airborne form of protection of the missile we felt was the most,

likely to be the most immediately available secure protection. We

discussed airplanes which could stay a very long time in the air,

required a somewhat new technology but one which was developing

rapidly, and we felt could be foreseen fairly clearly what could be

done. Now. And those planes would then buzz around over the oceans

largely and be hard to find and hard to locate instantaneously in order

to shoot them down. The problem with it was really a political one. And

I think that killed it fairly early in Congress because Congress simply

didn't want to have missiles taking off from an airfield and even if it

spent most of its time out in the ocean. Now we were assigned the job

of looking at it technically. That was specifically the understanding,

that we should not worry about the political aspects, that those of

course had to be considered. But that our committee was to look at the

technical aspects, what really technically made sense. The political

and emotional factors and so on would, were to be considered by

political forces and that was natural enough. On the other hand I think

that also meant that it was easy for Congress to discount some of the

things we were recommending because they were not tasteful from a

political point of view.

Interviewer:

WHY DID AIR FORCE OPPOSE AIR MOBILE?

Townes:

Well it's easier... the Air Force. The Air Force was not enthusiastic

about an air mobile system. In the first place this represented a

change in their plans. And they were all geared up to make silos and

this is what they were thinking of and planning. But in addition a silo

is an easier thing to operate. It's in one place. The people can be

located there. And changing of crews and all of this is easier. It's

easier on the personnel, easier to control. If you have an airplane

flying for a week, let's say, at a time, with rotating personnel,

that's a new kind of a problem. That's a little bit like a submarine

problem. And that's not an easy operational problem. So, that was some

of the reason the Air Force opposed it. Of course the Air Force was

pushing very hard for the system that it had recommended, namely the

multiple protective shelters. So, in a sense, anything didn't look very

good if it competed with the multiple protective shelter system.

[END OF TAPE A12144]

Interviewer:

WHY WAS THE AIR FORCE SO COMMITTED AT THIS POINT TO MPS SCHEME?

Townes:

Well it... the multiple protective shelter scheme was one which had

been planned for a long time. They had worked hard on it. They had

contractors all lined up and they felt it was a useful and viable

system. It was certainly a very powerful system in the sense it could

deliver a lot of missiles in a hurry and it was accurate as, the

missile itself was a fine missile, and the multiple protective system

was one which had been worked on, I say, for a long time. People were

committed to it. Now in addition to that, it was unfortunate to the

case, there was no system that was really good that had been worked

out. So their choice was between doing something they had all planned

for and were all ready to go on. And waiting and struggling around to

see, well is there a system which can be used? And that obviously is

not nearly as attractive to them. So that, those are part of... those

are some of the reasons. I think in many cases they genuinely felt that

that was a viable system, but that was not what our analysis showed and

I think eventually most people agree that we were, we were correct on

that.

Interviewer:

WHY DID MAJORITY OF YOUR COMMITTEE RECOMMEND GOING AHEAD WITH 100

MISSILES IN 100 SHELTERS THAT COULD BE EXPANDED TO AN MPS SYSTEM?

Townes:

We were, the country was really kind of stuck with this problem, that

there was no good system, at the same time, land-based missiles were

quite important in terms of being able to get high precision, being

able to act quickly. They are closely under control because they are

really on your own home territory. People can be there all the time,

monitoring them all the time. They have many good features. Now in

addition to that, the Soviet Union has a very large number of them,

which we are eager to have decreased. And most of our committee felt

well, we couldn't afford to just say well, we'll just stop. Because

it's a difficult problem so we, we won't make any. And if one thing,

there might have, there may be a way of protecting them properly and a

number of ways which needed to be studied. We couldn't stop the

development of the missile and then start again later. That would be

very inefficient. In addition we frankly wanted to put some pressure on

the Soviet Union to come to terms. If they had the only big missiles

and most of the big missiles, it would not be very sensible then for,

to bargain them away easily. But when we were in the process of making

missiles and could make them, then there would be much more stimulus

then to come to some terms of equality. And I felt and I believe

essentially all of the committee felt that we should have these

missiles ready, we should start making them, make them slowly. We

didn't have to have a lot of them fast, but they ought to be in the

background and available, both to put pressure on the Soviet Union and

in addition, if there turned out to be a good system for them ... there

is still another answer to that. The question is, why, why was the

missile attractive to begin with? And that is in terms of the so-called

triad. Good missiles on land and good airplanes on land protect each

other. Neither system is sufficient in itself. But if you have both

bomber aircraft which can carry missiles, and land-based missiles in

silos, they protect each other. For somewhat intricate technical

reasons neither one is viable by itself but together they are more

viable. And so this is another reason we felt it was important to have

up to date, modern, good missiles on line that we could make. Not

necessarily to deploy a lot of them, but to have them available.

Interviewer:

WAS MPS A WAY TO GET THEM ON LINE QUICKLY? WAS THAT WHY THEY WENT FOR

MPS?

Townes:

At that time the MX missile had been in design for some time, and we

had no other missile coming along of that kind of character. And we all

felt that it would be a mistake to just suddenly cut it off and drop

it. Because we would lose a lot of time. So that was the available

thing and while it was not ideal, we felt it ought to be kept, not to

make a lot of them but simply have the ability to make them in case the

Russians made a move that seemed, that seemed threatening, and where we

had to make some kind of balance. So there is really a reserve. There

was really a kind of keeping these in reserve. To make a few, have

them, the possibility of making more, but not to make very many. And

this is why our committee voted to have 100 while the country could

think about it. I myself felt that we shouldn't deploy any at all at

that time, simply to have them available so that they could be

manufactured. But the majority of the committee felt, well, we should

go ahead and deploy 100 even if we didn't have an ideal system, to

deploy that much while we think about it further. It turned out of

course that in the long run we made, the Congress approved and the

President, and the Air Force even, recommended the immediate deployment

of, of only 40. With then further thought of what to do others.

Interviewer:

DID HE TELL WEINBERGER TO BUILD THE MISSILES BUT NOT DEPLOY UNTIL A

SUITABLE BASING MODE HAD BEEN FOUND?

Townes:

In our report we carefully pointed out, the majority opinion which was

to build 100 and deploy 100 in fairly straightforward silos. As well

protected as practical from the point of view of blast and so on. But

we also pointed out there was a minority of the committee which felt

none should be deployed at that time. I was on that minority, and while

we didn't publish the names, I told the Secretary of Defense that was

my own view and he knew who else was, thought the same thing. But it

was a, a modest minority of maybe 40, 30 or 35 percent of the committee

felt that way.

Interviewer:

ASKS HOW HE STATED HIS CASE.

Townes:

Well my... my primary assessment at that time was that we should have

that missile available to exert pressure on the Soviet Union and also

in case we found a good way of deploying it. Rather than to...to throw

it away and have a long hiatus when we couldn't do anything very much

of that, of that type. That we ought to have that in reserve. And just

hold at that point and delay and wait and see if we could, see what

happened. That was my feeling, that it was not necessary to deploy any.

We had enough missiles deployed at that time in my view. And 100 more

missiles wouldn't change things radically. So I didn't feel that we

should go ahead and deploy. On the other hand, other members of our

committee felt strongly that we should. We should at least deploy some.

And that was how the overall majority came out with 100, rather than a

200, 200 had originally been planned by the Carter Administration.

Interviewer:

WHY AN AIR MOBILE?

Townes:

Well, we weren't giving, if we had put these missiles in airplanes, we

wouldn't be giving up all the land-based systems. We still had a large

number of land-based systems. Now the problem was these land-based

systems, people recognized had become, had become somewhat hazardous in

that they could be attacked. They were vulnerable whereas for a long

time they were not vulnerable. But increasing accuracy made them

vulnerable. Now should we build some more like that or should we do

something different. And my feeling was the different kinds of things

in a sense adds to the triad. You might say this is still another,

another leg of the stool that... will... keep us standing. And I was

not in favor of giving up those missiles we had in the ground but I

didn't feel there was too much point in building more just like them.

And hence an airborne version of this I thought might be useful. Now,

one has to understand, that we only recommended that that be studied.

We said that looked like a promising mode, but it needed study. We did

not recommend that we go ahead with that. We simply said that was one

of the more promising modes and should be studied. Along with a number

of other modes including the small missile which is the one which is

most favored now. The small missile and also with some mobility and

hardness.

Interviewer:

WHAT ABOUT DRELL AND GARWIN'S IDEA OF A SMALL SUBMARINE?

Townes:

We looked very hard at the small submarine business too. Because we

were looking broadly at all strategic weapons, we of course looked at

submarines and other things. And our recommendation was primarily to

get an accurate missile for the submarines, so the submarines could

attack small hard targets, particularly military targets, for which we

previously relied on the land-based missiles. The D-5 missile, say, put

on the submarines, a new missile could be built more accurately and we

recommended primarily that, so far as the submarine force is concerned.

Now there were people pushing very hard for a small submarine, a small

submersible submarine. And that has some virtues. On the other hand it

would have been quite expensive, I think, the estimates of expenses by

the proponents and by the Pentagon, were very, very different. To the

proponents, they claimed it was very cheap. The best estimates we got

made it very expensive and to change over our whole submarine force to

small submarines with only one or a few missiles per submarine would

have been expensive. And also very difficult an operation. I think

people don't generally realize how difficult it is to properly man

submarines that are going to be out to sea for a long time. A group of

men alone, away from home for a long time. And maintaining the kind of

morale and proper operation is not at all easy. Having a bigger ship

makes it much easier. And so there were many operational reasons why

the Navy was very much opposed to that. And we felt generally they were

probably right. I would say the biggest discrepancy of all, thought,

was in the estimated cost. The, the newspaper stories from the

proponents about how much it was going to cost was, were very, very far

from the estimates that we, the best estimates that we could get.

Military's Role in Townes Commission

Interviewer:

WAS THEIR AIR FORCE/NAVY CONFLICT ON YOUR COMMITTEE?

Townes:

Well we very carefully... Our committee very carefully was balanced. I

chose the people myself, to see that it was a balanced group, with the

concurrence of the Secretary of Defense. And he was very open to, to

getting the right kind of people. And essentially it took the people

that I suggested. And we had retired military figures from all three

services, which I felt was quite important. Now every service, of

course, and every person, has their own particular bent. And of course

there were differences of view between the Army and the Navy and the

Air Force. But I would say for those people on our committee, it was

not, you know, it was not a bitter struggle. It was a discussion and it

was very helpful to have the different points of view there. We heard

stronger words from the active military as to what they believed, the

military who had retired and were on our committee and were taking, I

think, a really, a quite a broad generous view of the whole picture.

Interviewer:

WHAT DID HE HEAR FROM ACTIVE MILITARY?

Townes:

Oh well, they would, they would use pretty strong words about how this,

their system was obviously the right one you know. There just wasn't

any question about it. It was that kind of thing. And they would back

it up with all their data, some of which was pretty shaky maybe. And

give arguments which were, were just the kind of arguments a lawyer

might use in a courtroom, in pleading his case. Whereas the people on

our committee were more in a position of jury and judge, that tried to

probe and understand and, and discuss among themselves what, you know,

how does one really balance these various arguments.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS NAVY MOST THREATENED BY?

Townes:

The service which of course was most threatened at that time was the

Air Force because it was their system primarily that was being

discussed. The MX. That was the system they had planned. It would have

been their operation and so on The Army was involved too because the

Army had been planning an ABM system for that. Now the treaty would not

allow their ABM system. Nevertheless they felt it was very valuable and

maybe the treaty ought to be changed eventually and to allow on both

sides some protection of missiles specifically. As a stabilizing force.

And there is some value in that argument. So they were, they were

interested in the system. The Navy of course was particularly

interested in cruise missiles on shipboard and missiles in submarines.

They felt that those were the most important things. And so those were

some of the, some of the service-oriented issues. The Air Force

naturally wanted to go ahead with the thing which they had planned. And

the Navy of course wanted to expand, to expand the Navy's role in

certain ways that they felt, felt were reasonable. Actually there were

some ways in which neither service wanted to expand their role. They

just felt that it wasn't, it wasn't a particularly fruitful or good

way. And they were, they were clear-cut about that. But there certainly

were ways where they felt that they could contribute more and each

service of course was glad to see their responsibilities increased

generally.

Vulnerability

Interviewer:

ASKS PRIMARY RECOMMEND TO VULNERABILITY PROBLEM.

Townes:

The overall strategic problem is one which generates lots of heat in

public. Much of the attention is put on size of weapons and numbers of

weapons and so on. Unfortunately relatively little attention is put

onto the control of these weapons. And our committee pointed out very

clearly and said, as a number one item, that the most important

vulnerability problem and the most important thing for us to work on,

was what's known as command and communication and control. In other

words, to see that our missiles are adequately controlled, adequately

safeguarded, and that the control and communications could not be

destroyed by, by a... under reasonable attack conditions. And that that

was the thing that we should work on. Unfortunately it is not very

glamorous. And few Presidents have pushed it very hard. And the

military doesn't push it very hard. They work on it but nevertheless it

doesn't hit the news... headlines and so on, people don't talk about

it. It is a very, very important aspect. If you don't have these

weapons under adequate, adequate control, then they're no good to you.

And they are even dangerous. If they're not well controlled. So we said

that was the most important thing to work on. And the President

announces his program, accepted that. He said that was the most

important thing. And he himself, and... made some personal appearances

to emphasize that. Now, a second recommendation said that we saw no ...

no invulnerable basing mode for the land-based missiles at this time.

And we saw no reason to believe that they would be invulnerable in the

future. Various people had various possible solutions and we made that

very broad and general statement. We also recommended the development

of the D-5 missiles for submarines. So that if the land-based systems

failed, we would still have some high precision systems to attack hard

military targets, particularly other missiles and military, deep

military control centers and so on. Then we recommended a study of

various kinds of basing modes including as I said the small missile and

the airborne, airborne missile. We also made recommendations about

certain communication systems. Particularly communication with

submarines. As part of this command, control communication problems. So

the submarines would be in touch and we could be in...and the Commander

in Chief could be in touch with the submarines. And know what was going

on. And when, when to do what. So there were a number of what might be

called, you know, a not very glamorous, not very exciting little

recommendations. There were several of those. But ones nevertheless

which basically are quite important.

[END OF TAPE A12146]

Interviewer:

HOW WOULD IMPROVING COMMAND AND CONTROL GOING TO HELP WITH

VULNERABILITY OF OUR LAND-BASED MISSILES?

Townes:

Well the command and control communications problem is really a very

complex and multifaceted one. Well just imagine that we had had an

attack somewhere on some big center like let's say New York. And it had

cut out all the phone lines and all the communication. And so where our

missiles are, they don't know exactly what's going on. The Commander in

Chief doesn't know what's going on. And he gets some, some information

but not very full information, what's he going to do? He has to have as

accurate information as possible, he has to have time enough to suggest

it. The people in the field who are manning these weapons, have to be

sure they don't get false messages. That they get the right messages.

We also must be sure that some saboteur can't simply cut the cables and

destroy the, destroy the information. So there's both the question of

getting wrong information and firing off when one shouldn't. And the

question of getting enough information so that the Commander in Chief

and everybody knows as much as possible about what is going on so that

he can make sensible decisions. Particularly in the case of an

emergency. Even a false emergency. Some, just some rumor or something.

One has to be sure to get, get information. And then finally the

Commander in Chief has to be able to get a...a command out to the

forces that are going to release these things if we have to release

them. And they have to know, yes, that's the com... Commander in chief

and no they should really wait until they get that message and so on.

So all of that has to be very tightly safeguarded and secure and very

well thought out. And it's a very important problem in terms of safety.

You can imagine the, you know, a rumor getting started somewhere. And

so somebody is not sure. Well, has he gotten the message? Has a cable

been cut? Should he go ahead and fire because nobody can get to him?

And it's...we could really make some bad mistakes. In addition to being

vulnerable.

Interviewer:

WITH LITTLE TIME?

Townes:

And frequently there is little time. Now that of course is the

disadvantage of the land-based missiles, that they can be attacked

quickly, and so the time is very short. It's an advantage for the

submarine because there one can wait a long time and think about it.

It's an advantage too for the deep, underground missiles. You can wait

weeks to think about well now, do we want to carry this on or not, you

see. But submarines are particularly useful from that point of view. Or

mobile systems which give more time. Air craft also. Air craft can get

into the air and then you can wait before you decide whether or not to

actually drop a missile. And hopefully that will be thought through

carefully and we won't be just firing out of the quick reflex.

Interviewer:

WHAT DOES HE THINK ABOUT THE TOLLING BELL?

Townes:

The command and communication control is, while unglamorous, is

nevertheless an important part of our safety. For one thing the

Commander in Chief has to have accurate information as to what is going

on. He can't make decisions on some rumor or scare or something like

that. Even a piece of information of one particular city being

destroyed or something. He needs to get the overall picture.

Furthermore, we must see that the communication that he has with all of

his commanders, so that he can talk to them, is secure. That they get

the right information from him and that they know that they will get

the information, so they don't fire until they get a real command. And

the security of that communication network is very important in not

making a mistake. And holding everything. Now if it can be cut by a

saboteur or destroyed by a bomb at some particular center, our whole

communication system breaks down, that's...the country is obviously

helpless.

Interviewer:

VULNERABILITY OF COMMUNICATION LINKS WAS A MORE SERIOUS PROBLEM THAN

THAT OF MISSILES THEMSELVES?

Townes:

There are many ways in which the communications can be vulnerable, and

in general we felt that the getting of good information, good

information passage back and forth between the command centers, and

good information sent up to the people manning the weapons, was a more

important point than simply building more missiles. And attention to

that was more important than building more missiles, or than any one

type of new missile. And that's why we put that at the head of the list

and the President actually himself put it at the head of the list.

Interviewer:

THE PENTAGON IS A SOFT TARGET?

Townes:

The Pentagon, of course, if the Pentagon is destroyed the alternatives

planned, of course, there must be alternatives. Now, are there

alternatives good? Are they secure? How many alternatives do we need?

What...how many different command centers? How should they communicate?

There is a complex technical problem and its vulnerability is a very

important factor.

Interviewer:

COULDN'T THAT AIRBORNE COMMAND BE DESTROYED FAIRLY EASILY?

Townes:

One of the alternatives is an airborne command plane. Now the airborne

command planes are not easy to destroy. One might argue that any one of

them can be targeted and destroyed. But they're not so easy to track.

But furthermore we can of course have more than one. How many different

command centers we have an of what type is the kind of thing one needs

to look at. Obviously if everything is concentrated in one place, it

very likely can be destroyed.

Interviewer:

HOW SHOULD WE FEEL? SOVIET'S LAND-BASED MISSILES ARE 75 PERCENT OF

THEIR FORCE, MAKING THEM MORE VULNERABLE. SHOULD WE BE WORRIED THAT

THEY WILL REACT TO THAT?

Townes:

The Soviets have problems very similar to ours. But even perhaps

somewhat more exaggerated because they rely so heavily on land-based

missiles. Now to us that looks like they may be poised for an attack

when they are not expecting attack for us because they don't have to

worry about that and we think well of course, we would never attack

their missiles first. So they don't have to worry and they can rely on

land-based missiles. Nevertheless from the Soviet viewpoint that is a

problem. And this is one reason why I am rather in favor of their

producing mobile missiles. I think if they have a fewer number of more

mobile missiles, which are more secure, then they can be in a more

relaxed mode, and not as trigger edge and generally I think that's a

good move for them. And I, I recommended it to them. Before. Now as I

say, from an American point of view, well it's ridiculous to think that

we would be attacking them first. So they are in no danger. But that's

not, of course, their position, stated officially at least, they have

relied much more heavily on land-based missiles but they are now trying

to modify that and develop mobile missiles. They have some submarines,

they have a harder time with submarines because they don't have the

coastline.

Interviewer:

INCREASING ACCURACY OF EACH SIDE'S MISSILES PUTS THEIR OWN BASING MODES

AT RISK. IS THERE AN ESSENTIAL CONFLICT HERE?

Townes:

See you ask your, if one tries... If one tries to examine the overall

problem and say, well, should we... should we stop developing better

missiles, more accurate missiles, because then we don't threaten each

other so much? I think one can answer yes. And we should never have

nuclear weapons too. But we have them. And one country can't stop

another one, particularly from developing accuracy. Accuracy is

something that will be done on the bench, so to speak, in a laboratory,

developments needs to be tested outside, but most of it is small scale,

and very difficult to monitor. And just how accuracy develops. So

that's not something that can be stopped. We may be able to stop the

increase in the number of missiles, but we can't stop the improvements

in technology, and so each side is, is going to try to keep up with

that now. There may be some ways we can limit that, but it's very

difficult.

Interviewer:

SO WE WILL FACE THIS PROBLEM INCREASINGLY IN THE FUTURE?

Townes:

In the long run we are all vulnerable to each other. In the long run we

are vulnerable to each. In the long run we are. And any scientific

discovery which gives us more power to heal mankind, it also gives us

more power to harm mankind. The development of technology is a

two-edged sword, and I think the only solution is for people to come to

grips with the problem politically and ethically, morally, come to

grips with that problem. That's the only possible solution. There

really are no technically solutions in the long run. We must keep up

with technology. We have to be good at it in order to protect

ourselves. But that's not going to give us the solution. It's how you

treat people that's the real solution. And that's bound to be true. One

can't look to technology. You can't just stop technology. There's

nothing you do simply on the technological side which will solve the

problem.

Interviewer:

WOULDN'T THE CHEAPEST SOLUTION BE TO GO TO A LAUNCH UNDER ATTACK

POLICY?

Townes:

It's interesting that we had a number of people come into our meeting

to give their, their version of what should be done. Who said, well,

you launch under attack. So, if you see missiles come at you, you just

fire all of your missiles, and hence they get off the ground and they

can't be hit and everything's fine. So why do we worry about the safety

of our missiles in silos? Well the answer to that is because we don't

want to be trigger happy. We don't want to be in a position of having

to make up our minds in ten minutes to fire all of our missiles. I

think that would be absolute madness to have ourselves in that

position, when we felt we had to make up our minds in ten minutes now

whether to fire off all our missiles. Nevertheless a number of people,

many of my good friends, recommended that as well. And we'd save a lot

of money. Because we don't have to worry any more. When you're dealing

with that kind of problem, though, money is not the issue. And we feel

we must be able to wait it out and make decisions calmly and with a

little more time.

Presenting Report to Reagan and Cabinet Members

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT THE KEY RECOMMENDATION THE ADMINISTRATION SUPPRESSED AND

IGNORED.

Townes:

You asked me what recommendation we made that the Administration was

not happy with. I don't think of any.

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT AUGUST 1981 MEETING IN LOS ANGELES. LEW ALLEN PRESENTED AIR

FORCE POINT OF VIEW.

Townes:

Yes. We met in August '81, I guess it was to... I don't know, was it

August?

Interviewer:

DISCUSS.

Townes:

I met with the President and many of his Cabinet members at the end of

our study in 1981. This was in Los Angeles and I was invited to come

and present the report of our committee. General Lew Allen, head of the

Air Force, was invited to come at the same time and present his views

and rebut anything that he wished to rebut in what we said. And this

gave an occasion also to Cabinet members to say what they believed

about it. The ones I remember particularly are General Haig and of

course Secretary Weinberger was there. And there was a fair amount of

discussion. I presented our views, the President listened carefully and

asked a few questions. There was a good deal of discussion back and

forth between... Gen. Haig, representing the State Dept., of course,

and Weinberger, the Defense Department, and Lew Allen and myself. And I

felt it was a very, a very sensible, useful exchange. Differences of

opinion of course, but it was a gentlemanly exchange and pretty clear

cut statements being made. And I felt it was probably, it probably was

useful to the President. I never knew at that time what the decision

was going to be. We came with our recommendations and presented them to

the Cabinet and had a good discussion and then I went home. And I, I

didn't know for a while, until Secretary Weinberger eventually called

me up and told me what the President had decided. Because it was not a

decision on the spot, let me say.

Interviewer:

ASKS HIM WHAT WEINBERGER AND HE ARGUED FOR, AND WHAT LEW ALLEN AND GEN.

HAIG ARGUED FOR.

Townes:

The basic argument at that point really was whether or not to go ahead

with the multiple protective shelter system. The other recommendations

we made, I believe nobody particularly opposed, even though we felt

some of them more important than this issue, but nobody, nobody felt

like opposing those. On the other hand, the Air Force, one, was very

eager to go ahead with the 200 MPS system. General Haig supported that

strongly. Secretary Weinberger absolutely supported our committee's

recommendation. Just very directly, he was 100 percent for the

recommendation of the committee. He accepted the committee's work and

he supported that. And so the primary argument was really was over the

MPS system, whether to preserve that or not.

Interviewer:

VERSUS WHAT?

Townes:

The primary argument was over the MPS system, whether to go ahead with

the MPS system with its 200 shelters scattered around the West, sorry,

200 missiles... With a couple of thousand shelters scattered around the

West. Or to cancel that whole big project and reduce to our

recommendation which was to, to build and deploy in simple silos 100

missiles. So that would have been a very big reduction of that, of that

really very large program. And of course was a very important decision.

General Haig I think believed largely well we had to have this in order

to, both for protection and also as a, as a leverage in foreign policy,

and the Secretary, and the Secretary of the...or rather the, General

Lew Allen, head of the Air Force, wanted very much to go ahead with it.

He felt it was effective. Now Lew Allen is a scientist and a very fine,

intelligent person. And he recognized our arguments but he

nevertheless, in his overall judgment, he felt he differed with them.

Interviewer:

DID YOU RECOMMEND TO THE PRESIDENT WE SHOULD WAIT UNTIL WE STUDY OTHER

BASING MODES?

Townes:

I presented our report entire, entirely to the President, pointing out

the majority recommendation which was to build 100. And the minority

recommendation which was to build 100 but not deploy them. Not deploy

any at that time. I presented both of those viewpoints. I frankly don't

remember whether I said, well my own belief is this but I suspect I

did. I feel that I must have. I can't remember in detail. I feel I must

have said, "Well my own view was with the minority." Nevertheless the

majority of the committee recommended something different and I had to

present that fairly and squarely to the President. And he simply,

basically took the majority recommendation.

[END OF TAPE A12147]

Interviewer:

ASKS HIM AGAIN ABOUT HIS (WEINBERGER'S) OPINION, WHICH WAS DIFFERENT

FROM LEW ALLEN'S.

Townes:

At this meeting where I met with the President and a number of members

of the Cabinet, the principal argument really was between going ahead

with the full-scale MPS system of 200 missiles and about ten times that

many shelters scattered around the Western United States. Or, having a

very much curtailed system of simply building some missiles and

deploying maybe a few somewhat symbolically, and waiting. Now I

presented the findings of our committee. The findings of our committee,

the majority said we should deploy 100 missiles in shelters, which

included possibly silos at this point. And be prepared to expand that

later. The minority recommended not deploying any at this point,

building them but no deploying any. And that was own feeling, my own

very strong feeling, that we shouldn't, we need not deploy any at that

time. We could just wait. And of course I, I presented both of those

views, as a majority of the committee, but a minority said this. Now

the President ended up by taking a majority view, which was perfectly

reasonable on this part.

Interviewer:

WAS THIS AN ANGRY MEETING?

Townes:

It was a very interesting meeting to me, to see the Cabinet arguing

about these things, among themselves. To have a chance to present all

this to the President and he certainly listened closely. General Haig

in particular felt very strongly that we needed these in terms of our

position before the Soviet Union, that we needed the full 200 and we

needed to deploy them. General Allen also felt strongly that that was

the right thing to do. On the other hand, the Secretary of Defense, who

you might think would be on the other side of the fence, he fully

supported the recommendation of the committee, which was to not deploy

that big system. The other person I remember speaking at some length

was Casey. Well Casey discussed it back and forth and in general I felt

agreed with our committee's finding. I didn't know what the result was

going to be at that time. The decision of course was made after some

thought and later.

Interviewer:

AIR FORCE GENERALS FELT WEINBERGER AND PRESIDENT WERE NOT INTERESTED IN

MPS TYPE SYSTEMS BECAUSE IT WAS A CARTER SYSTEM AND GARN AND LAXALT

WERE AGAINST IT. DID HE FEEL THIS PRESSURE, ANY SENSE IT WAS

POLITICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO MOVE IN THAT DIRECTION?

Townes:

It's interesting how open at least Secretary Weinberger was to the

whole picture. I wouldn't have undertaken the job unless it were really

open to try to decide what was the best system. But I felt that's

really what he wanted, he wanted real advice on what should be done.

And on various occasions he took me aside and "I really want to know

what you think" and so on. So we had no political strictures. In fact,

we heard from some politicians, who came and met with us. Politicians

from the states which would be affected. By and large they said, "Well

we really don't want the system in our state. On the other hand, if

it's important for the United States, for the defense of the United

States, of course we'll understand and we'll do the best we can." I

felt the whole thing was done in a completely statesmanlike way. And we

had no, no political pressure to do one thing or the other. We

recognized the political pressures and what they were, but we also

assigned the job of making the decision on a technical basis. That was

Weinberger's request to us, advise him technically and he and the

President and others would worry about the political aspects.

Effect of MX Deterrence on Soviet Union

Interviewer:

READS QUOTE FROM REPORT. ASKS ABOUT DETERRENCE AGAINST SOVIET

AGGRESSION AGAINST MAJOR US INTERESTS ABROAD. DID HE THINK MX WOULD

PREVENT SOVIETS FROM MOVING INTO OTHER PLACES, AFGHANISTAN..?

Townes:

It's very difficult to know exactly what of our moves affect the

Soviets how. Sometimes we can judge that, sometimes we can't. It

becomes a difficult psychological analysis to say what it is that we do

has what kind of effect on the Soviet Union. Obviously, they respond to

a complex of situations. I think that most of us felt though that it

was important to be sure that we continued to match the Soviet Union,

and that we had some big missiles as well. They knew that we could

build more in order to prevent them from building a large number of

additional ones. Now what effect that has on the rest of the world is

again a judgmental matter. I think the rest of the world tends to be

pushed around by the Soviet Union if they know that they have no

protection. And so it's important for the United States to stand up and

afford some kind of protection, and for it to look to the rest of the

world like the Soviets, that we are not vulnerable. And so in that

sense, increasing armament gives some security for all the world. Now

how much one needs and how much affect a particular missile system has,

is difficult to judge. I think we all felt that it was, however,

important for us to have some missiles in that category. And be able to

build them for the future.

Report on Dense Pack

Interviewer:

CONGRESS WAS NOT PLEASED TO HEAR IDEA OF 100 MISSILES IN 100 SHELTERS

AND HE WAS CALLED BACK IN 1982 FOR A SECOND REPORT. ASKS HIM TO

DESCRIBE HOW HE WAS ASKED TO DO THAT.

Townes:

One of our... Several recommendations for study was a study of what's

known as a close, closed-based system, the so-called dense packs. Where

a number of silos would be close together, so close together that

incoming attacking missiles would just partly destroy each other and

that would safeguard the system to some extent. The Air Force became

interested in that system as an alternative. And so I was asked again

to chair a committee, this time to very specifically study that system

alone. I felt we had been over the overall strategic system and so it

made some sense to, just to look at that one system to see how viable

it was. And we made a report then on that system, how well it would

work, and what its problems would be. We made a report of that type to

the Secretary also.

Interviewer:

THIS TIME HE AND AIR FORCE WERE WORKING TOGETHER, NOT AT ODDS. RIGHT?

Townes:

In this particular case, in this study, there was a, there were a

number of variations of opinion. As to whether the whole system was

viable and useful. I personally felt that there were too many loopholes

in it, that it would work for a while, but not for a long time, because

the Soviets had various possible technical moves which could overcome

it. Some people felt well, it would take them so long to do that, that

it was ok. That was a... that's roughly speaking was the, was the

primary argument. Clearly it would stop the Soviet Union from attack at

present. But how long would it take for them to be able to successfully

attack it? That was the primary argument. I felt it would not take such

a long time. And because the whole system was expensive, it would take

a long time to deploy, probably was not worthwhile. The Air Force was

backing the system. The people on our committee were somewhat divided

on that. So what we did was to just to lay out what we thought, making

statements which everybody could agree to which in some cases were

vague, saying well, this is the uncertainty. And that's the kind of

report we then gave to the Secretary. Where something is were clear-cut

and other things were not clear-cut. There were all things to which the

whole committee agreed for the statements had to be rather loose, where

there was disagreement around the general.

Interviewer:

ASKS STORY ABOUT WEINBERGER ASKING HIS REAL PRIVATE PERSONAL EVALUATION

OF THE SYSTEM WAS.

Townes:

After this report was presented to the Secretary, he invited me in to

come listen to hear the Air Force's response to that report, as to how

they viewed it and what they thought should be done. And it was an

interesting discussion from the point of view of the Air Force and then

he said, well, "I would like really to know what your own private

opinion is. If you could sort of meet with me privately, tell me just

what you really think about the situation." I said, "Well, you know, I,

I really should write that down, because that's an important thing

you're asking me and I should write it down. Let me write you a letter

and I'll tell you just what I think." And that letter pointed out, made

more clear I think than our report could, where the uncertainties were,

and what I thought were really the sticking points. And what the more

important points. It was more a discussion of the report and where one

had to think carefully about what the difficulties were. It however, I

guess, sounded somewhat negative about the system, and I was a bit

negative about the system. He sent that to the head of the Joint Chiefs

as a, as a...as I said in my letter, the head of the Joint Chiefs, so

he could look at it and he could discuss it with the head of the Joint

Chiefs. Who then asked, well, could he share it with the other chiefs.

And so Weinberger said well, yes, ok. So he shared it with the other

chiefs. And then within a couple of days it was out in the newspapers

and Congressmen had it and so on. And so... I think, that kind of

killed that system. Because my letter was pointing out the flaws and

the difficulties and I think that kind of killed that system. It's a

poor way to govern, by leakage of classified information. But it had a

very powerful kind of effect, I believe on Congress in particular.

Interviewer:

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT STORY.

Townes:

After our report was in I delivered it to Secretary Weinberger and the

Secretary then asked me to come and meet with him and the Air Force to

hear the Air Force reaction to our report. And... it was in part a

rebuttal of some of the points they didn't like, and part an

affirmation of the points they did like. And it was a good report. But

the Secretary then asked me after the meeting to please meet with him

privately and tell him just what I personally thought about the whole

situation. And about our report. He wanted to be sure he got my own

personal views. I told the Secretary then that, you know, that was

something I really should sit down and think about carefully and write

you a letter about, rather than just talking. So I wrote this letter.

That letter then pointed out what the loopholes were, and how one, I

felt one should look at the report, and what kind of questions one

should ask. And what the difficulties were. As well as some of the

strengths. The system clearly had some strengths, but then it had some

weaknesses too. And I tried to spell those out in rather more bold

relief than the report, the report could. He apparently liked the

letter and he showed it to the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who

then asked, could he share it with the other Chiefs. And Weinberger

assented to that. Yes, he could share it with the other Chiefs. It was

a classified letter, of course. But in spite of that, within a couple

of days, it was out in public and quotes from it in the newspaper and

Congressmen had it and so on. And nobody knows how it got there, but

there it was, and that had a very big impact on Congress, of course.

Interviewer:

CONGRESS GOT THE OFFICIAL REPORT, AND THEN IT GOT THE INSIDE STORY. WHY

WAS THERE SO MUCH PRESSURE ON THE COMMISSION TO PRESENT A FAVORABLE

REPORT TO CONGRESS ON THIS PUBLICLY?

Townes:

Our committee was not assigned to present a favorable report. Our

committee, however, was made up of a very carefully balanced group of

people, some of them specifically recommended by the Air Force, for

example. And I felt that was a fair thing. We wanted to get all points

of view. So we had a committee of varying points of view and they

simply couldn't agree on everything. The report came out as a mildly

favorable report but without strong endorsement and with statements

which were let me say ambiguous in some cases. Those were the kinds of

statements we could agree on. And where there was uncertainty and where

there was disagreement, we simply had to leave that out. We didn't

particularly try to present a favorable report. We tried to present a

report which all the committee would agree to. And everybody agreed it

had some strong points. There were some things in favor of it, and

there were some things that were more questionable.

Interviewer:

WAS THAT A BAD POLICY--TO TRY TO PUSH DENSE PACK THRU CONGRESS WHEN

THERE WERE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS?

Townes:

Almost anything that we do technically has some uncertainties.

Interviewer:

INTERRUPTS.

Townes:

Almost anything that we do has some technical uncertainties. If it is

at all new, it's going to have some uncertainties and one has to try to

evaluate those. How uncertain they are, how serious might it be, and so

on. And there are bound to be differences in evaluation of how

difficult those things are. But if you're going to plan a new system,

one has to make those evaluations and it leaves uncertainties, and a

room full of difference of judgment. And it was those kinds of

differences which, which plagued us. One could not wait until the whole

system was built and check it to see well, did it really do this and

that. That would be too expensive. You have to evaluate it beforehand.

And that's true of any big system. Almost anything that we do that's

new or newly planned. There are going to be uncertainties. The classic

example is going to the moon. That was frightfully uncertain. There

were many things we just didn't know at all. But we managed to work

them out and some people felt it could be worked out, other people felt

it couldn't. In this case we had pretty good information on what the

system would do and what it wouldn't do. But still not complete

information. And I think one has to recognize that, and technical

decisions are not always clearcut.

[END OF TAPE A12148]

Related Proposals and Alternatives

Interviewer:

WEINBERGER PREFERS SDI TO MIDGETMAN AS SOLUTION TO VULNERABILITY. WHAT

IS HIS EVALUATION?

Townes:

Well there is a question whether we should go ahead with the Midgetman

or should push harder on SDI as being the answer to vulnerability and

so on. Now, clearly, ballistic missile defense can reduce vulnerability

of silos. And it probably is economical at this point to do it that

way. It would, however, open up problems with the ABM treaty. And the

ABM treaty is very valuable in itself and so I think that's not a

direction to go without a great deal of careful thought and a very high

payoff in other directions. So far as the Midgetman is concerned, I

think it will give us some extra security if we can have a mobile armed

Midgetman. It also is very expensive, though. And it may be we don't

have to go ahead with that. I think the present reduction of weapons

and so on may be, may allow us to avoid that. Nevertheless it is a

viable system, it will give us extra stability, and it's useful from

that point of view. Perhaps it's too expensive. An all-out SDI program,

to protect everything including people... I don't think will work in

the long run. I don't believe one can protect a large city, many large

cities and huge populations. We can protect individual spots,

individual silos and so on, probably fairly efficiently. That doesn't

mean we shouldn't be working on research on the SDI. But I am not very

hopeful that it's going to provide the overall global solution that

President Reagan and others would like.

Interviewer:

SHOULD WE, AS WEINBERGER SUGGESTS, BE PUTTING MONEY INTO BALLISTIC

MISSILE DEFENSE OF OUR MISSILES, RATHER THAN BUILDING MIDGETMAN?

Townes:

At this particular point, I am not enthusiastic about going ahead and

building the Midgetman. Primarily because of its cost. It will be

stabilizing, it's a useful system. If we could exchange some of our

present missiles for that, with no cost, I would be delighted. But on

the other hand, I don't think it's terribly important for us to go

ahead now in the light of possible reduction of missiles. We could

certainly go ahead with careful study of ABM systems and I, and we are

doing that. I think we should continue. That doesn't necessarily mean

we should deploy them. We certainly ought to know what can be done and

we can figure out then at what time and when and if it really is

sensible to deploy them. I hope we don't have to deploy them. Because I

think the ABM treaty generally is a useful thing and it would be nice

to preserve that. Nevertheless a study and research on it I feel sure

is something we ought to push.

Interviewer:

ASKS HIS FEELINGS ABOUT SCOWCROFT COMMISSION REPORT.

Townes:

The Scowcroft Commission report came along after the two, two studies

that I had headed myself. It recommended the Midgetman and then I was

on a study to study the Midget-man, but this time not chairman, but

just one of the members. I think the Scowcroft Commission generally did

a good job. They did a very different kind of job from what we were

doing, in that they were trying to pull the political forces together,

and to get overall agreement of a number of different points of view.

Overall agreement on a national program. In that respect I think they

were successful. In bringing people together, to try to outline a

national program. And they felt, I believe, that their commission was

to take into account the political, political situation as well as the

technical. Whereas ours had been simply the technical. And that was a

weakness in a sense, that the political things were added on later,

political considerations, whereas Scowcroft tackled the whole batch at

once, both political and technical.

Interviewer:

DOES HE FAVOR 50 RAIL GARRISON MX?

Townes:

I would hope at the moment we could hesitate in deploying more

land-based missiles. I think we should have that possibility available,

but I would hope we can hesitate and hopefully get things worked out

with the Soviet Union to have an overall reduction and avoid the

necessity of building such systems. We do have a good many already and

I don't believe we really need badly to add more at this point.

Arms Reductions

Interviewer:

WHAT REDUCTION DOES HE WANT TO SEE?

Townes:

I think overall we could well reduce the total number of systems by a

factor of two, right away. And it seems like a big factor to get rid of

half of, or half or our total system. In fact it will not change the

world situation very much. We can still destroy each other. But I don't

think we should decrease more until we've had time to think about it,

analyze that, see just what it does. Then maybe we can reduce another

25 percent or another factor of two. So I think we should try to

approach it is a stepwise, a substantial reduction at any one time, but

stepwise. Decreasing down to what would be a more tolerable number.

Interviewer:

HOW WOULD HE LIKE TO SEE LAND-BASED REDUCED? JUST MIRVS, ETC.

Townes:

If we were to choose the most dangerous missiles in the sense, the ones

which are most likely to lead to instabilities and mistakes and the

possibility of a, of a surprise attack, those would be the large

land-based missiles with multiple warheads. So I would like

particularly to eliminate the large land-- based missiles with multiple

warheads. Now the problem is that that's what the Soviets have been

counting on, that's their primary arsenal. And so it's difficult for us

to ask them to get rid of their primary arsenal while we keep a lot of

other things. Nevertheless, I believe there are compromises possible.

They are building mobile missiles now and I believe that one can in the

long run get rid of most of those very big multiple warhead missiles

and I would hope we can.

Interviewer:

DOES HE FEAR THAT IF WE MAKE DEEP CUTS IN THE MISSILES, WE'LL HAVE TOO

FEW BASKETS FOR OUR EGGS?

Townes:

There is some limit to the number of, number of warheads that we are

going to have to have in the long run. I suppose that limit really is

going to be the order of a few hundreds, which would be enough to take

care of what could be hidden, or which small nations could build. But

that remains for careful analysis. I think it's rather ... a rather

tricky matter to decide just how many do we need of that kind of

safeguard. Now in addition we want some variation in the type of

missiles, just as we have the triad now, it's going to be important to

have some variation. And we don't need as safe, as safe a system, we

don't need a system which is safeguarded quite so carefully if nobody

else has missiles which can destroy those, of course. So my view is

that maybe we could reduce to five or six hundred. And then that could

still be safe assuming no one else has, has appreciably more.

Challenge of Basing MX

Interviewer:

ASKS HIS COMMENTS ON HOW HARD IT WAS TO FIND A PLACE TO PUT THE MX, AND

ABOUT THE STRUGGLE.

Townes:

The long struggle to find a base for the MX missile really grows out of

history, because silos and land-based missiles have been sort of THEE

important successful big weapon of the past. And they were

invulnerable, and safe, and secure. And they could just sit there and

relatively low manpower required to keep them going. It was from the

point of view of efficiency, a fine system. It was a dangerous system

of course as any nuclear weapon is. When it comes to nuclear weapons,

it was a good one. Now, we are very much locked into that. The whole,

all countries were. And... however, as the technology changed, that

became less viable. Nevertheless, we had already geared up to making

more of them. And making additional big missiles. And the Soviets had

lots of those missiles which were, could strike with the great alacrity

and... so... it was a difficult question to know, well, could we stop?

Or should we keep trying? And I think it was important for us to try

very hard, and over some period of time, to make sure there was no

something we were missing. It was difficult for the country, of course,

because it represented so much indecision and no clear-cut solutions.

But sometimes I think one has to face that as psychologically and

technically, I believe, we have to go through that.

Interviewer:

WE HAVE FAILED TO FIND A SAFE PLACE FOR THE MX.

Townes:

If one looks at it overall, I would say, well, we haven't found, yet

found a real solution, a good solution. Of course we haven't found a

good solution for nuclear war, either. But that doesn't mean we should

stop trying. And I think the question as to what extent can those kinds

of considerations add to our stability, and what we found after a lot

of study is that, generally, that doesn't add to our stability. But now

we are satisfied with that, by and large. More satisfied than we would

have been if we hadn't worked it over thoroughly. And we have also

moved off, and as a result of these studies, moved off in some other

directions. With emphasis on, as I say, command and communication

control, and submarines and various other kinds of, various other kinds

of safeguards. A new bomber which can get off the ground much quicker.

That's an additional safeguard. So the overall study has, I think,

yielded a better result than if we hadn't struggled with the problem.

Interviewer:

WHY DID WE NEED THE MX?

Townes:

Many people of course feel well, if you have one kind of weapon it will

do the job, why worry about another one. And however, that really poses

exactly this question of the triad. It's basically, the problem is so

important that you need more than one safeguard. We can never predict

the future perfectly. Submarines may be, will be attacked at some

point. Maybe there will be ways of attacking submarines. And we know

there are some ways of attacking land-based missiles. We know there are

some ways of attacking submarines. Submarines are relatively safe, but

maybe they won't be safe in the long run. Who knows? And we don't have

turnaround time to do something else. In addition to that, submarines

are not so easily controllable. The communications of submarines is

chancy. We can communicate to them slowly but they can't get full

information. They can't respond quickly. So we need a variety of

systems. It really is a question of spreading your chances. You spread

your chances because you can't really count on anything, any one thing,

when it becomes so important. You really must use additional

safeguards.

Interviewer:

IS THERE ANY KEY MISTAKE IN THE HISTORY OF THIS MISSILE?

Townes:

I think looking back on the situation one might argue that we should

never have developed the MX missile. That of course was started quite

along time ago when the technical situation was different. Some people

would argue we should only have missiles with single warheads, now

small missiles with single warheads are better. We shouldn't have the

MX missile. I think that's a reasonable argument. The counter argument

is that well, the Soviets have these very big missiles, much bigger

than the MX, multiple warheads. And if we're going to persuade them to

get rid of them because they are hazardous, we need some too, so

they'll realize we're giving up something. So there is some counter

argument there. Overall, I believe though if we had known what we know

now and started again and let's say in the Carter and the pre-Carter

Administration, we might well have just built small missiles and worked

harder on trying to persuade the Soviets to do the same thing.

[END OF TAPE A12149]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Charles H. Townes, 1987

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-4f1mg7fv7p

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Description

Credits: Interviewee2: Townes, Charles H.
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 7176e13f529058df41f6c9696a9e57604a753147 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Charles H. Townes, 1987,” 1987-12-19, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 4, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-4f1mg7fv7p.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Charles H. Townes, 1987.” 1987-12-19. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 4, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-4f1mg7fv7p>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Charles H. Townes, 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-15-4f1mg7fv7p