War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Paul Nitze, 1987 [1]

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WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES A07056-A07057 PAUL NITZE [2]

SALT I negotiations process

Interviewer:

OKAY, 1969 MEL LAIRD APPOINTED YOU TO BE A REPRESENTATIVE ON THE SALT

DELEGATIONS. THE QUESTION IS WHAT WAS LAIRD'S VIEW OF THE ARMS CONTROL,

OF THE PROPOSAL OF ARMS CONTROL NEGOTIATIONS AND HOW DID IT DIFFER FROM

THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE ARMS CONTROL DISARMAMENT AGENCY IN THE STATE

DEPARTMENT?

Nitze:

I wasn't really appointed by Mel Laird. It's a more complicated story

than that. I was asked, called up by Bill Rogers who was Secretary of

the State. And I came in to see him and he asked me whether I would be

prepared to accept a position as Mel Laird's representative on the arms

control delegation to be headed by Gerard Smith. And I consulted with

my wife and finally came to the conclusion, yes, I would be prepared to

do that if they really wanted me. And so I saw Bill Rogers again and he

asked me to go and see the President and Henry Kissinger. And he made

an appointment for me to go over and see them so I went to see

Kissinger and Mr. Nixon. And Mr. Nixon had a very dim view of Gerard

Smith and of Bill Rogers. And said what he really wanted me to do was

to be his eyes and ears on the delegation, to report directly to him.

And I said, That's impossible. You know, a delegation doesn't work that

way. If you're on a delegation, you can't have any different point of

view than that of your boss. You've got to work with your boss and

everything has got to be done as a team and what's more, Gerard Smith

has to report to Bill Rogers and to nobody else. And he gets his orders

from Bill Rogers and so it isn't going to work that way and I won't do

it. And we argued about this and finally it was agreed that in any

case, they wanted me to do this. And then I asked whether or not really

Mel Laird wanted me. And I was assured that he did and I went to see

Mel Laird and he said, yes, he did want me. Even though Mel Laird and I

had been on opposite sides when I was a Democrat and testifying before

his appropriations committee. But we got along well. So that it wasn't

really a, a question of differences of point of view at that stage of

the game. It was a question of trying to help develop the position

which would be intelligent for the United States with respect to a

negotiating position with the Soviet Union.

Interviewer:

WHY DID PRESIDENT NIXON AND HENRY KISSINGER HAVE MORE TRUST IN YOUR

PERCEPTION AND PARTICIPATION IN THE SALT TALKS THAN THE REST OF THE

DELEGATION?

Nitze:

I don't know. I'd known Mr. Nixon for a long period of time, since the

time that he was a congressman. And he'd -- I think he had some degree

of confidence in me. I'd had differences of opinion with Henry

Kissinger for many years but I think he was sure that I'd worked on the

problem and worked seriously on it.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE SPECIAL CONCERN THAT YOU REPRESENTED ON THE SALT

DELEGATION THAT REPRESENTED THE CONCERN OF THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT AND

WHAT ITS AIMS WERE IN THE SALT I?

Nitze:

You see, I don't think that was the issue. It really wasn't a special

concern on the part of the defense department. Although it is true that

the secretary of defense is responsible for a different, different

focus on world problems than is the secretary of state. The secretary

of defense does have to look at the military and defense aspects of

those problems that are both political and military, while the

secretary of state has to put primary attention on the military. But

they both look at the same problems and it isn't that diverse a point

of view.

Interviewer:

WELL WHAT WAS SEEN AS THE NEED IN THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT -- WHAT WAS

YOUR MOTIVATION? WHAT DID YOU WANT TO GET OUT OF THE SALT TALKS? AND

WERE WE IN A STRONG POSITION TO ACHIEVE THOSE GOALS?

Nitze:

Well I can remember very well the discussions within the delegation.

And it's ad... advisers prior to the time that we went to Helsinki,

trying to figure out exactly what it was we should try to accomplish.

And what our initial statements to the Soviets should be. In fact I

think I was the primary drafter of first three or four statements to

the Soviets when we got to Helsinki. But there wasn't really that much

difference between the various participants at that stage of the game.

Just to outline what the main points we had in mind were: The first

point was that under any circumstances, arms control agreement or no

arms control agreement, we proposed to maintain a thoroughly adequate

deterrent to anybody who might wish to think of ta... attacking either

the United States or its allies. And we were sure that the Soviets had

a similar point of view about themselves and about their allies. The

second point was that we thought it was possible to work out some of a,

a regime of limitation upon strategic arms, which would make this

basically different this not confrontational but opposed relationship.

Make it much more workable and satisfactory for both sides if we tried

to work at it. And the third point was that the depth of an agreement

would depend upon the degree to which we were to give, were willing to

give information to each other, not only about our forces, but about

our intentions for the future. That if, -- we for instance certainly

did not wish the Soviets to have any misconception as to what we had or

what we, what the purpose of the weapons was that we had. And we hoped

that that was reciprocated by the Soviets. They took quite a different

view of it. Their view was that if anybody attacks the USSR or any of

our allies, they will be utterly destroyed. They chose to look at from

the standpoint of exchange of threats or threats from their side. They

didn't understand what I was saying or what we were saying was in fact,

in this essence the same as what our first point had been, that we

didn't propose to let our own defenses deteriorate to a point where we

didn't have a fully adequate deterrent.

Interviewer:

OKAY. WHEN YOU WERE IN HELSINKI AND VIENNA AND AT THE SAME TIME THE US

CONGRESS WAS DEBATING WHETHER OR NOT THEY WOULD BE FUNDING THE

PRESIDENT'S ABM PROPOSAL, DID THAT CREATE SOME CONCERN FOR YOU THAT YOU

WOULD LOSE SOME SORT OF POWER OR LEVERAGE IN THE BARGAINING SESSIONS?

Nitze:

That had all preceded the first negotiations at Helsinki. In the Spring

of '69 there had been an important debate in the Senate on the question

of the authorization bill with respect to the ABM program. And during

that period, I had ere-created together with Dean Acheson and Albert

Wohlstetter a little committee called the Committee for a Prudent

Defense Policy. And we rather spearheaded the effort to support the

idea of the ratification of the government's proposal, the executive

branch's proposal, that it be authorized to go forward with an ABM, a

limited ABM system of our own. And one of the reasons that I advanced

at that time for supporting this proposal was that I thought Mr. Nixon

was quite right in saying that he wished to negotiate with the Soviets

in the limitation of strategic arms including defenses, ABM defenses.

And I did not see any way in which one could usefully negotiate with

the Soviet Union unless the United States was prepared to have an ABM

system of its own. If we were, if the S-senate determined that this was

not to be, then there wasn't anything for the Soviets to negotiate

about. They would have then -- be assured of a monopoly of defenses. So

the only way we could have a negotiation was if the Senate were to

authorize this program to go forward. And we won by only one vote. It

was a very close thing.

Interviewer:

THERE WAS A FLAP OVER THE BACK-CHANNEL AGREEMENT THAT PRODUCED THE

COMPROMISE OF MAY, 1971 AND LATER ON THAT RESULTED IN THE SLBMS -- THE

FLAP WAS OVER SLBMS BEING LEFT OUT OF THAT AGREEMENT WITH THE SOVIETS.

THAT WAS MADE WITH DOBRYNIN. AND LATER ON HENRY KISSINGER, CLOSE TO THE

'72 SUMMIT WAS PUT IN THE POSITION OF SORT OF EXPLAINING TO THE SOVIETS

THAT THE 950 SUB-LAUNCHERS WAS NOT GOING TO ALTER THEIR PLANS. AND ALSO

EXPLAINING TO THE NSC AND PEOPLE HERE THAT IT WAS A SIGNIFICANT

ACHIEVEMENT, THAT IT WAS GOING TO BE SLOWING THEM FROM BUILDING

FURTHER. WHAT DID YOU MAKE OF THAT?

Nitze:

That doesn't correspond to my recollection at all. My recollection is

that the -- I think Mr. Dobrynin proposed to Henry Kissinger that we

solve the, the or that they solve the stalemate that had arisen in the

negotiations in Vienna at that stage by concentrating upon the ABM

Treaty and dropping any thought of a c... of a parallel agreement

limiting offensive forces. And that Henry wouldn't agree with that. And

it insisted that their, that they, he was prepared to have the focus be

upon the ABM part of it, but that there must concurrently be some kind

of an agreement with respect to the offensive forces. And then Dobrynin

asked Dobrynin asked him whether or not this should include both ICBMs

and SLBMs and he finally, after consulting with Mr. Nixon, said that

well, it was a matter of not that much importance to us. And the upshot

was that the Soviets from that point on felt there was no necessity to

include any restriction upon the SLBMs. The Joint Chiefs of Staff took

a quite a different view and they were actually adamant that if there's

to be a limitation on ICBMs, there must also be a limitation on SLBMs.

So that that became a very difficult negotiating point for us, not only

in Vienna and Helsinki, but subsequently when Mr. Nixon and Kissinger

went to Moscow in the week before May 12th I guess it was.

Interviewer:

APPARENTLY ALONG WITH THE LAST MINUTE NEGOTIATIONS THAT OCCURRED ON

DETAILS OF THE AGREEMENT AT THE SUMMIT, WE'VE HEARD THAT YOU WROTE A

SOMEWHAT FACETIOUS BUT SOMEWHAT SERIOUS PIECE CALLED THE LAST 20

MINUTES OF THE NEGOTIATION ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT AND THAT YOU'RE A

LITTLE PERHAPS DISTURBED BY SOME OF THE IMPORTANT DETAILS THAT WERE

BEING WORKED OUT IN THE LAST MINUTE WITHOUT SOME OF THE EXPERTS THERE.

CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHY YOU WROTE THAT, WHAT THE SETTING WAS AND HOW YOU

WERE FEELING?

Nitze:

I wrote two pieces. One was an entertaining piece on all the details of

what happened during the last week, not the last 20 minutes. And you

know, just the mechanical problems that arose. Another piece about the

serious part of it, about the negotiating difficulties that we faced at

that time. You're asking me, I guess, to comment on the second one --

Interviewer:

I UNDERSTOOD THAT YOU WERE A LITTLE BIT ANNOYED AND WORRIED THAT IN THE

LAST MINUTE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE DELEGATION IN HELSINKI, AND HENRY

KISSINGER TRYING TO WORK OUT SOME OF THE TECHNICAL LAST MINUTE

COMPROMISES ON HIS OWN, THAT WE WOULD BE GIVING MORE AWAY TO THE

SOVIETS UNDER THAT POINT OF PRESSURE.

Nitze:

I was not somewhat worried. I was furious.

Interviewer:

CAN YOU ACTUALLY DESCRIBE THAT? SAY I WAS FURIOUS AND DESCRIBE WHY AND

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED?

Nitze:

Well... there were the phrase twenty min... the last twenty minutes

comes from a remark which was made to me by Ambassador Semenov who was

then head of the Soviet delegation. The year before I'd become

concerned about the amount of time we were s-spending, that we weren't

making the progress that I thought we should make in arriving to a

useful conclusion on these issues. And Ambassador Semenov tried to

comfort me. And he said, no, Mr. Nitze, you know, it isn't that bad. In

a negotiation of, of this kind, you know, normally one makes about 30

percent of the progress in the first two months. And then normally it

takes another two, three years to make the next 30 percent of the

progress. And the last third of the progress generally is, is made in

the last 20 minutes when the important issues just have to be decided."

So I'd borne in mind and Semenov was more or less correct because the

important -- and we worked out all the lesser issues at our level in

Geneva, I mean in, in, in Vienna and in Helsinki. But s...

Interviewer:

CAN YOU START THINGS OVER AND SAY -- WE WORKED OUT ALL THE...

Nitze:

We worked out all the lesser issues at Vienna or Helsinki because the

delegations moved from -- we spent some time in Vienna and then we'd go

to Helsinki for some time. Then we'd go back to Vienna. But we worked

out d-during the negotiations at that level, we worked out most of the

reasonably easy issues to solve. And the ones that were really very

difficult go put off. Got put off. And they were all accumulated for

the last period. Now some of those most important ones we did in the

last few days work out at our level in Helsinki 'cause the last

negotiation between the delegations was at Helsinki. In fact we worked

out some of them after Mr. Nixon had arrived at Moscow for the final

five days of negotiation there. But af... but some of them were dealt

with directly by Mr. Nixon and Kissinger. Now they sent us a telegram

telling us what they'd worked out. And Gerard and I and the rest of us

felt that the agreement that they'd worked out was improper and not

good for the United States. And so we sent back a message saying we

recommended against signing of the interim agreement on offensive

forces. We thought it was unfair, so that we were not happy with that.

But then, subsequently there was an all night session, well, not an all

night session, but a session from I think eight o'clock to, in the

evening to eleven o'clock at night in which Kissinger and a man by the

name of Smirnov, whom none of us had -- well, I guess I was the only

one who'd ever heard of him before -- appeared to negotiate on the

Soviet side. And the upshot of that was that they, Henry and he finally

worked out the final details. Now I was, I was not happy with those

final details although they were an improvement upon what had earlier

been suggested. So that the final agreement in my view, that the ABM

Treaty, even though it had difficulties and it was not a perfect

agreement by any means. But I felt that was net --

Interviewer:

START THAT OVER. I THOUGHT THE ABM TREATY...

Nitze:

I thought the ABM Treaty was not a perfect agreement. One of the

principle points in the ABM Treaty was that there be a precise

definition of what was testing at an ABM mode, because everything else

depended upon that concept. That's the only way in which one could know

whether a radar was an ABM radar, was whether it was tested in an ABM

mode. And then an ABM interceptor -- it was an ABM interceptor because

it was tested in that mode. But we had g... we had presented a

unilateral statement as to what we considered to be testing in an ABM

mode, but the Soviets wouldn't agree to that.

Interviewer:

CAN I JUST INTERRUPT YOU HERE? WHAT I WANT TO GET BACK TO IS A MORE

CONCISE STATEMENT ABOUT WHAT MADE YOU ANGRY ABOUT THE LAST --

Nitze:

This is exactly what made me angry.

Interviewer:

BUT INSTEAD OF THE DETAILS MAYBE TALK MORE IN THE TERMS OF THE

GENERALITIES, THAT IMPORTANT DETAILS WERE BEING WORKED OUT WITHOUT THE

EXPERTISE OF THE DELEGATION THERE.

Nitze:

But that isn't what made me angry. It was the substance that made me

angry. I have trouble.

Interviewer:

IF YOU COULD MAKE A CONCISE STATEMENT ABOUT IT STARTING WITH WHAT MADE

YOU ANGRY AND WHY YOU WROTE THE PIECE THAT YOU DID AT THE SUMMIT.

Nitze:

Well, what I was angry about was that there, in the last two or three

days, when Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were in Moscow and we were in

Helsinki the communications between Helsinki and Moscow were difficult.

We presented our de... and we spent messages back giving our views on

these issues. But the final upshot was an agreement which, certainly I

felt, represented a misunderstanding on Henry's part as to what he was

really agreeing to and it was not correct and that it was

disadvantageous to the United States as far as the interim agreement on

offensive forces were concerned.

[END OF TAPE A07056]

The Back Channel

Interviewer:

It's not unusual to use a back channel in an important negotiation,

particularly at the final stages of such a negotiation. The two sides

got locked in to some very important positions on both sides. How does

one explore some way of resolving those important issues? The usual way

in which that is done that some, somebody on one side together with

somebody on the other side gets together and tries to informally,

without rep... giving away his side's position negotiate with the other

fellow who's not giving away his side's position, and see whether they

can't get to some compromise which then both sides can agree upon. So

that this is not an unusual way of doing it. It is, however, important

that the person who does that really understand the problem. I think

the difficulty involved here was that on our side Henry was not quite

adequately versed in all the details while Mr. Smirnov, who was the

person on the other side who worked out these details, was in charge of

the entire nuclear weapons production program for the USSR, and knew

every detail to h-his fingertips. And so that the agreement that

finally resulted was in some respects different than what I think Henry

understood it to be. Subsequently it was corrected, but I think at some

cost to ourselves by a subsequent corrective agreement.

Interviewer:

I JUST WANT TO JUMP AHEAD TO 1974. AT THIS POINT YOU REMAIN ON THE

DELEGATION, YOU'RE BEGINNING THE NEGOTIATIONS ON SALT II AND THE UNITED

STATES IS A LITTLE BIT IN CRISIS BECAUSE OF WATERGATE. AND YOU HAD

SPECIFIC CONCERNS THAT LED TO YOUR RESIGNING FROM THE DELEGATION. AND

I'D LIKE YOU TO TELL US WHY. WHAT THOSE CONCERNS WERE.

Nitze:

I'd spent a good deal of time worrying about what the objectives of an

arms control agreement between the US and the USSR should be. And this

is a very complex problem, that it is not right that there's just one

single objectives, objective -- there are a whole series of objectives

and there are whole series of restraints and difficulties involved in

actually getting to an agreement. And I'd spelled all that out in a

piece of paper. And that paper had cleared with the Joint Chiefs of

Staff, with Laird, with people in ACDA, with others in the government.

But I was unable to get that piece of paper approved by highest

authority in the government. And I continued to argue these points and

the points that flowed there from to the best of my ability. And when

it became evident that... that highest authority was not going to pay

any attention to this, then it seemed to me I had exhausted everything

I could do within the government and that I'd had the feeling that Mr.

Nixon wanted to maintain negotiations with the Soviet Union and get to

some kind of agreements. Primarily because of the fact that his

relationship with the Russians was his best defense against

impeachment. And I thought that this was going to lead to a, an

improvident agreement on the part of the United States. And I'd done

everything I could to prevent that. And I felt I'd better get out. So I

resigned.

SALT I

Interviewer:

SO YOUR FEELING WAS THAT BECAUSE OF THE DOMESTIC PRESSURE AT HOME THAT

NIXON WOULD BE WILLING TO GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY TO THE SOVIETS JUST TO BE

ABLE TO HAVE A MAJOR FOREIGN POLICY VICTORY?

Nitze:

I think. In fact, I think he did a few months later when he met in

Moscow and entered into the Moscow Agreement which gave up on the idea

of having an agreement with respect to limiting offensive forces of

indefinite duration. And settled on the idea that we, the two sides

would agree on merely an agreement that would cover ten years from that

date and that's after all what SALT II did. It was scheduled to expire

in 1985 and that period of time to my view was not adequately long,

cause it takes you at least ten years to develop and deploy a new

weapons system and restrictions which last for only ten years would

really have no useful effect that I could see.

Interviewer:

WHAT, IN A NUTSHELL WOULD YOU SAY WAS THE MAJOR EFFECT OF WATERGATE ON

THE SALT NEGOTIATIONS.

Nitze:

Well it... Are you referring to the fact that Mr. Nixon was under the

threat of impeachment, or are you referring to...?

Interviewer:

YEAH. THE CLOUDS GATHERING OVER HIM. I DON'T IF THE SOVIETS ACROSS THE

TABLE--

Nitze:

I've just said what I think was the major thing.

Interviewer:

OKAY. JUST TAKE YOU BACK TO ONE OTHER CONCERN. I KNOW THAT IN

DEVELOPING PROPOSALS FOR SALT I, YOU WERE VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THE

LARGER SOVIET MISSILES AND THAT THAT CONCERN WAS ROOTED IN THE FACT

THAT SEVERAL YEARS DOWN THE ROAD, THOSE MISSILES COULD CARRY LARGER

PAYLOAD OF WARHEADS, AND THAT WOULD MAKE OUR LAND-BASED MISSILES -- PUT

THEM IN EXTREMELY VULNERABLE POSITION. AND YOU ADVOCATED DEEP CUTS IN

THE LARGER MISSILES. I WAS WONDERING IF YOU COULD ADDRESS THAT AND

ALSO, WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND ABOUT IT MYSELF IS WHY YOU WERE OPPOSED

TRYING TO PURSUE SOME SORT OF LIMITATIONS ON MIRVS TO SOLVE THAT

LAND-BASED VULNERABILITY PROBLEM.

Nitze:

That's two entirely different questions. We better separate those two

questions. First of all you've asked me why was I opposed to the

deployment of large, fixed ICBM missiles which could be MIRVed. I had a

very strong feeling about that, because it was clear that the threat to

the survivability of our ICBMs depended upon whether or not the

Russians could develop warheads which were sufficient size and weight

so that their yield was large, and also develop sufficient accuracy so

that when those weapons hit, they would destroy the silos in which our

missiles were deployed. This would be a very destabilizing threat to

the survivability of what I considered to be an essential leg of our

deterrent on which our security depended. Therefore it seemed to me to

be much better if one could get an agreement which would limit the

weight and the size of the missiles on each... on each side. I felt

strongly that this was the way in which to reduce the instability, the

danger to both sides which would occur if we both had these big

missiles which could threaten the silos of the other side.

Interviewer:

OKAY.

Nitze:

And I think everybody agrees with that. This was not a unique view to

me. It's a perfectly obvious consideration which everybody has agreed

with. The difficulty has been could you get the Soviets to agree to

that. And we all tried, including Henry Kissinger.

Interviewer:

OKAY. JUST A CONCISE ANSWER TO HOW DID YOU FEEL AFTER THE TREATIES WERE

CONCLUDED? DID YOU SUPPORT THEIR RATIFICATION IN THE SENATE AND SUPPORT

THE JACKSON AMENDMENT?

Nitze:

I felt that net, the virtues or the advantages of the ABM Treaty were

such as to outweigh the defects in the interim agreement which in any

case was supposed to last only a few years. It expired by its terms in

five years. And it was agreed by both sides that it was to be replaced

by a permanent of indefin... a treaty of indefinite duration to be

promptly negotiated between the sides. So that if that really had no

long term merit, no long term commitment on either side, then one could

forget about its, or take lightly, more lightly, its defects. While the

ABM treaty was a treaty of indefinite duration and if it had merit and

could be further improved in the future which it was, then that was

something that merited being for. You couldn't get one without the

other so I did testify on behalf of the package.

[END OF TAPE A07057 AND TRANSCRIPT]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Paul Nitze, 1987 [1]

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

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Credits: Interviewee2: Nitze, Paul H.
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

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Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Paul Nitze, 1987 [1],” 1987-02-12, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed October 17, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-8c9r20rx4b.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Paul Nitze, 1987 [1].” 1987-02-12. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. October 17, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-8c9r20rx4b>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Paul Nitze, 1987 [1]. 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-15-8c9r20rx4b