War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Herbert York, 1988

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Transcript

WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES E13011-E13017 HERB YORK [2]

Nuclear Weapons Research

Interviewer:

THIS IS THE FIRST TAPE OF AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. HERBERT YORK IN LA

JOLLA, CALIFORNIA ON MARCH 12, 1988. DR. YORK THE FIRST THING I WANT TO

ASK YOU IS TO JUST TELL US WHO YOU ARE AND A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT

YOU'VE DONE.

York:

Well, I'm Herbert York. I became involved in nuclear issues at the

tender age of 21 when I was a student at the University of California,

the University of Rochester and was recruited into the Manhattan

Project, recruited to go to the Radiation Laboratory at Berkley,

California and then I worked both at Berkeley and at Oak Ridge on the

Manhattan Project. After the war I thought that I, like everyone else,

was demobilized for good but four years later the Russians shot their

first atomic bomb. I got re-involved in the nuclear arms race again at

that time and I have been in one way or another ever since.

Interviewer:

I WANT YOU TO TRY TO DO JUST ANOTHER VERSION OF THIS WHERE YOU

INTRODUCE YOURSELF AS A PHYSICIST AND HAVING BEEN A WEAPONS LAB

DIRECTOR AND ARMS CONTROL ADVISER.

York:

You want those also?

Interviewer:

MAYBE JUST THOSE.

York:

O.K., just those.

Interviewer:

I WOULD LOVE IT IF MAYBE YOU USED THE WORDS YOU USED TO TITLE YOUR NEW

BOOK THAT YOU'VE SPENT YOUR LIFE MAKING.

York:

I'll put them in at the end.

Interviewer:

O.K., READY?

York:

Now, you want me to go all the way back to the beginning?

Interviewer:

JUST TRY THIS ONE WITHOUT THE HISTORY, SAY I'M HERBERT YORK AND I-

York:

Yeah, I'm Herbert York and--

Interviewer:

--START OVER BECAUSE IT WAS A LITTLE CLOSE.

York:

I'm Herbert York and I was recruited in 1952 to be the first Director

of the Livermore Laboratory. While I was there, after I had been there

about five years, the Sputnik went up and as a result of another

concatenation of events I was recruited to work first in the White

House as part of the President's Science Advisory Committee and then

after being there a few months I moved over to the Defense Department

where I became successively Chief Scientist of ARPA, and Director of

Defense [Research and] Engineering. Shortly after Kennedy became

President I returned to California and again worked primarily on things

not relating to the arms race for the next few years. Then when Carter

was elected, I was invited to be the chief negotiator for the United

States at the Comprehensive Test Ban Negotiations and I worked on those

for the last two years of the Carter Administration. The net result of

it all is that I spent my entire life on the one hand making weapons,

and on the other talking peace.

Interviewer:

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO DO A ONE SENTENCE VERSION OF IT WITHOUT FOCUS

SAYING I'M HERBERT YORK AND I AM OR I HAVE...

York:

But what do you want me to put in that isn't historical?

Interviewer:

THAT YOU'RE A PHYSICIST AND THAT YOU SPENT YOUR LIFE...MAKING WEAPONS

AND THE SECOND HALF, SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

York:

I'm Herbert York. I'm a physicist, I've spent my entire life either

making weapons or talking peace.

Interviewer:

THAT'S TERRIFIC. WE'LL HAVE TO FIND A GOOD END TO IT THOUGH. JUST MAKE

THE SENTENCE END WHEN YOU DO IT.

York:

Well, I don't know any better end than that.

Interviewer:

NO, I MEAN THE CADENCE. IT SOUNDED LIKE YOU WERE GOING TO GO ON.

York:

Well O.K. I'm Herbert York, I've spent the, I spent essentially the my

entire professional life either making weapons or talking peace and I

suppose that I'll continue that way for some time more.

Interviewer:

HOW DID YOU FEEL AS A YOUNG MAN WORKING ON SOMETHING AS IMPORTANT AND

EXCITING AS THE MANHATTAN PROJECT WITH SOME OF THE BEST PHYSICISTS OF

YOUR TIME?

York:

Well, I found the Manhattan Project very exciting and interesting and

precisely because I knew it was a very important project and it did

involve a number of the most important scientists of the time.

Interviewer:

HOW OLD WERE YOU AND HOW DID YOU FEEL?

York:

I was recruited into the project just before my 21st birthday, I stayed

on at the University of Rochester for another few months and actually

went to Berkeley in the Spring of 1943.

Interviewer:

WHAT I WANT IS TO TELL ME HOW OLD YOU WERE WHEN YOU WERE RECRUITED IN

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT AND THEN HOW IT FELT TO BE WORKING WITH SOME OF

THE BEST PHYSICISTS AT THE TIME.

York:

Well, didn't I just do that? I don't know what you want me to do that I

haven't already done.

Interviewer:

I'M KEEPING AN EAR TO WHAT YOU SAY IS A SPIKE (?) I COULD TAKE AND USE

IN THE PROGRAM AND IT WASN'T.

York:

O.K. I was recruited to I was at the University of Rochester as a young

physics student when recruiters from the University of California at

Berkley came around in the Fall of 1942 recruiting people to join the

Manhattan Project. I joined the Project the following Spring, I went to

Berkley and I found it to be an intensely interesting activity in an

extremely memorable part of my life because the project itself was of

such intrinsic importance and because the other people working on the

project were among the most important scientists of the time.

Interviewer:

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU THOUGHT WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD THAT THE BOMB HAD

GONE OFF OVER HIROSHIMA SUCCESSFULLY?

York:

Well, I--when the bomb first went off over Hiroshima I heard about it

that morning. I was on my way to work at the laboratory in Oak Ridge

and one of my young colleagues said to me, have you heard they've just

a biscuit on Japan? I don't know why he called it a biscuit. It wasn't

the normal nomenclature but I of course immediately knew what he meant

and and I felt, I'm sure at the time, the way I remember it now is a

mixture of emotions that we had accomplished something very important.

There was no doubt in my mind that the war would be over very soon, the

most murderous and destructive war in history. Um, in the subsequent

you know in subsequent days and moments talking about it with other

with other colleagues I thought I learned that many of the my seniors

who were certainly older and wiser than I felt that in the long run we

had done something which would make war obsolete and there was clearly

another good thing. On the other hand, we were aware, I was certainly

aware that something had happened that could easily get out of control.

I don't think we used the word nuclear arms race at that time but

nevertheless we were aware that something that had those dimensions was

going to happen and that would be you know full of dangerous importance

for us as well as the rest of the world. So both in terms of what I

thought immediately and in terms of what I thought in the next few

days, it too was that mixture of ideas. First that we had done

something extremely important and momentous and second that it was

going to have con, it could easily have consequences that we wouldn't

like.

Interviewer:

I THINK THE PHONE RANG OVER A SECTION I WANT TO HEAR CLEARLY WHICH IS

SOMETHING YOU DESCRIBE IN YOUR BOOK THAT WHEN YOU HEARD ABOUT THE BOMB

ONE OF YOUR FIRST THOUGHTS WAS THAT PERHAPS IT WOULD MAKE WAR OBSOLETE

BECAUSE IT WAS SO HORRIBLE.

York:

Well, how do you want to do that? Just take..

Interviewer:

JUST MAKE BACK THE STATEMENT AFTER YOU LEARNED ABOUT THE BOMBING OF

HIROSHIMA ONE OF YOUR FIRST THOUGHTS WAS PERHAPS...

York:

After I first heard about the bomb my first emotion was one of elation

that we had done, we had done, that I had participated in a project

whose purpose and whose result had been to end the most murderous and

destructive war in history. Ah I also remember thinking at that time

and hearing my seniors discuss the idea that the atomic bomb with its

especially great horror and destructiveness had achieved, would make

war obsolete and that was also a good thing, but we also knew and I

knew that the whole thing could easily get out of hand that something

we now call the nuclear arms race was going to happen. I don't think we

called it that at the time but that something like that was going to

happen and it would have results that would that could easily be for us

and for the world as a whole.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEING SWEPT INTO THE...? YOU WERE CALLED BACK TO

LAWRENCE LIVERMORE AFTER THAT. WHAT WAS IT LIKE THE ATMOSPHERE OF BEING

SWEPT BACK INTO THE NEW TECHNOLOGY, NEW WEAPONS PROGRAMS THAT WERE

HAPPENING AT THE TIME?

York:

Well, it really started with the Russian atomic bomb. Shall I start

with that?

Interviewer:

SURE.

York:

Ah, after the war I returned to Berkley, became a graduate student and

in four years I earned my Ph.D. but the same year that in the Fall of

that same year the Russians exploded their first atomic bomb and step

by step I was drawn back into the process of being involved with

American national security particularly as it involved nuclear systems.

At first my job was to help the Los Alamos group with experiments they

were conducting out of Enewetak in 1951. Experiments to designed to

explore the basic possibilities of thermonuclear reactions. After doing

that successfully in the Spring of 1952 as the program was being

expanded, my involvement in it expanded and in the Summer of 1952 I

became the first Director of the Lawrence--what is now the Lawrence

Livermore Laboratory.

Interviewer:

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COLD WAR WHAT DID YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES AT THE

LAB CONSIDER YOUR ROLE TO BE?

York:

Well, the Cold War was getting worse all through those years. The

Soviet atomic bomb sort of reinforced the in our minds the importance

of the problems. The invasion of Korea only about nine months later

further reinforced our concerns. Scientists generally began to

re-involve themselves in what was called defense work. Laboratories

were established whose purpose was to explore the possibilities of

mounting an air defense. An the nuclear program was expanded in many

different dimensions. One of those dimensions was the establishment of

a second laboratory at Livermore.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE ATMOSPHERE THERE? WAS THERE EXCITEMENT YOU WERE THERE AND

YOU HAD THESE FACILITIES TO DO THIS INVESTIGATION?

York:

Well, given the Cold War's background and most importantly the fact

that the Korean War was at a peak at the time were establishing the

Livermore we were engaged in establishing the Livermore Laboratory. All

of us there thought that we were again doing something that was very

important for the future security of the United States and the western

world. It was made doubly interesting by the fact that it was such a

challenge to go out to a new site there in the countryside east of

Oakland and establish a wholly new laboratory.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS YOUR CONCEPTION OF THE SOVIET UNION AT THAT TIME AND OF THE

COMMUNIST MENACE? DO YOU REMEMBER HAVING IMAGES OF IT?

York:

Well, that was the that was the, those were the waning years of the

Stalin era and I was aware of the various purges and other terrible

things that had happened in the Soviet Union before the war there were

signs of those things beginning to happen again. It was a totally

closed society. There was virtually no tourism or exchange of any kind

between us and them, intellectual or any other kind and it was very

easy to believe the worst in a situation like that with so many other

bad things happening, the Korean War, the Berlin blockade, the Soviet

atomic bomb and so on.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE WORST THAT YOU COULD BELIEVE.

York:

Well, especially given the establishment of the Sino-Soviet Bloc, it

looked as if the West was faced with an enemy which declared itself to

be devoted to the establishment of a of a very particular kind of

regime in the world and we simply saw the West as being faced with

horrors was the way people described it at the time, of people whom,

the only way we could imagine coping with the threat facing us was

through the application of high technology which was our strong suit

and that especially meant nuclear technology but there were other

things as well, rockets and so on.

Interviewer:

YOU TOLD US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE H-BOMB STORY, WHEN THE H-BOMB WENT

OFF, WHAT THE EMOTION THAT YOU FELT AT THE TIME.... WHAT I WOULD LIKE

TO GET AT IS THAT YOU HAD WORKED ON THE H-BOMB AND WHEN YOU HEARD THAT

IT HAD GONE OFF WHAT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IT WAS TO YOU.

York:

Now I, because I told you two closely connected stories, one was the,

one was about Teller describing how to make an H-bomb and the other was

when it actually went off... When the first American H-bomb, called

"Mike", was tested in Enewetak I was in my office at the Livermore

Laboratory listening to signals which were being broadcast from the

site, coded signals which would indicate when the bomb had actually

exploded. My purpose was to know when zero time was and then to call

that in to Edward Teller who was sitting at the seismograph in Berkeley

ready to look and see if he could see the jolt at the right time. The

zero moment came and I remember then and I remember today that I felt

as though it really was one of those junctures in history, that things

would never be the same again.

Interviewer:

IN WHAT WAY WOULD THEY NEVER BE THE SAME?

York:

The hydrogen bomb had turned out to be, as people has predicted, had

predicted essentially one thousand times as powerful as the atomic

bomb. It was as big, it was as big a jump above the atomic bomb as the

atomic bomb had been above the chemical explosive used before that. It

was a weapon of such extreme dimensions and power that it seemed

evident to me at that time that its introduction into the world would

have, had to have very important consequences.

Interviewer:

DID YOU FEEL A SENSE OF SORT OF IMPENDING DOOM OF AN ARMS RACE THAT IT

WOULD COME ABOUT?

York:

Well, I had mixed feelings about it and one set of feelings was that

this was a technology which we had to exploit to the best of our

ability in order to keep American safe and the West safe and at the

same time it was obvious to me that the Russians would soon come along

with an H-bomb of their own and that again we would be faced with a

greater threat to them before.

Nuclear Arms Control vs. Technological Developments

Interviewer:

YOU SAID THAT THERE WAS A TURNING POINT FOR YOU IN THESE EARLY YEARS, I

THINK WHEN YOU WERE UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE.

York:

There were two.

Interviewer:

YEAH, AND LET'S TAKE THE FIRST ONE OF THAT AND MAYBE YOU CAN SAY THAT

WHILE YOU WERE UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING

AND WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH.

York:

You want the second one. The first one was when I went to work in the

White House.

Interviewer:

AND WHAT YEAR WAS THAT?

York:

1957-'58.

Interviewer:

LETS HEAR THAT.

York:

O.K. The first turning point for me in terms of my views of the problem

occurred when I went to work in the White House right after Sputnik in

the end of 1957, the beginning of 1958. Prior to that time I had

focused entirely on the question of military preparedness and

especially its nuclear component as the essential elements of American

national security policy. I soon learned after joining the President's

Science Advisory Committee that no less than President Eisenhower

himself felt very strongly that wasn't that couldn't possibly be the

whole solution, that diplomacy, arms control negotiations had to be,

were an essential element of American national security policy and I

soon became persuaded after studying the problem with others that...

York:

The first turning point in my views with respect to the nuclear arms

race occurred when I joined the President's Science Advisory Committee

right after Sputnik went up in October 1957. I discovered after

arriving in the White House and joining that group that President

Eisenhower felt that well I should go back I didn't get it in the right

order. I don't think it gets better each time I do it. I think it gets

worse. Ah, the first turning point in my views about the nuclear arms

race occurred after I joined the President's Science Advisory Committee

which was formed after Sputnik went up in October 1957. Prior to that

time I had focused entirely on the on the military preparedness side of

the national security questions including the nuclear elements of

military preparedness. After joining that group in the White House I

learned that President Eisenhower himself no less felt very strongly

that military preparedness was only half the story that negotiations,

arms control negotiations, diplomacy generally all were equally

important and equally necessary parts of a total national security

policy. And so after studying the question for a matter of some months

with others on the President's Science Advisory Committee, I became a

strong supporter of Eisenhower's goals in this regard which included

among other things a ban on all nuclear weapons testing.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE REACTION OF YOUR COLLEAGUES AT THE LABS THAT YOU WERE

TALKING NOW ABOUT ARMS CONTROL?

York:

Well, I didn't see an awful lot of them in those days but those whom I

did see had mixed views about it. I remember that some of them thought

that I had really departed pretty far from my previous views were, and

they had strong doubts about the good sense of my change of heart on

this.

Interviewer:

WHEN YOU START THIS I WANT YOU TO START WITH SOME OF MY COLLEAGUES AT

THE LABS AND WHY THEY HAD RESERVATIONS.

York:

Well, the trouble is that you know I really didn't have much contact

with them so that its not a from my point of view thats not a good

question.

Interviewer:

O.K. WHEN DID YOU BEGIN TO FEEL THAT TECHNOLOGY WAS NOT THE ANSWER?

York:

Well, there was a second turning point just a couple of years later.

After I had been in the Pentagon for three years as a first as the

Chief Scientist of ARPA and then as the Director of Defense Research

and Engineering I had come to have a, I had come to have very broad

knowledge of military technology generally and in particular I had

spent a lot of time on the question of strategic defense, defense

against bombers carrying nuclear weapons and defense against missiles

delivering nuclear weapons and I came to realize that the particular

systems we were working on at that time simply did not have the

capability to blunt an attack in any significant way and more

importantly and more generally I came to the conclusion that in fact in

a nuclear era would never be possible to achieve a strategic defense

against nuclear weapons and still more generally, reached the

conclusion that there was no technical solution to the to the national

security dilemma that we had found ourselves in.

Interviewer:

WHY IS IT IMPOSSIBLE OR SO HARD TO THINK ABOUT DEFENSE IN A NUCLEAR

AGE?

York:

Well, one can either take a long time and work the question out in

detail or you can look at it from a fairly general point of view. But

generally speaking the reason that strategic defense is seems is

hopeless in the nuclear era is that the only a tiny fraction of the

total stockpiles which exist if delivered would cause damage and

destruction and death beyond anything that history has known so far.

That won't happen again for an hour. That's a talking clock.

Interviewer:

TO ME IT'S A VERY PROFOUND THING THAT THE REALIZATION THAT YOU CAN'T...

York:

But there isn't a short answer. You know it took me three years so how

can I explain it in three minutes.

Interviewer:

TALK ABOUT THE REALIZATION ABOUT YOU FELT WHEN YOU LOOKED AT THE

PROBLEM AND THEN REALIZED OH MY GOD THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO.

York:

During the three years that I was in the Pentagon there were many

programs under way to try and achieve strategic defense, that is to try

and develop air defenses which would stop Soviet bombers with nuclear

weapons and to develop anti missile systems that would stop Soviet

weapons being delivered by ballistic missiles which we were

anticipating to come in the near future. We spent a lot of time and

effort, I spent a lot of time on those questions and came to the

conclusion that in the nuclear era, it simply was impossible to achieve

an adequate level of defense, to achieve a defense which would really

make any difference and I concluded not only that the systems we were

then working on could not accomplish that result but that in fact there

was probably no way of accomplishing that result that we would never be

able to find a technical solution for the for the national security

dilemma that we had by then found ourselves in and the basic reasons,

there are a number of basic reasons that one can, that one can mention,

one simply is that a that given the size of the stockpiles in the world

today and as they are likely to remain for some time, only a tiny

fraction of those bombs reaching their targets will produce a level of

death and destruction beyond anything that history has known. Another

is that the time and place of the battle is really chosen by the by the

offense and the defense has to be ready at a at a moment that it can't

anticipate with any precision and it has to face a defense against

which, it has to face an offense against which it has never had a

chance to be tested or to be practiced and when you put it all together

it simply, when I put it all together in those days, and I reach the

same conclusion today, it simply isn't possible to build a defense that

would seriously blunt a nuclear attack.

Interviewer:

AND HOW DID THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?

York:

Well, what I conclude from all of that is that diplomatic methods that

arms control and so on are all the more important as a, as an essential

element of our national security policy but I conclude further that

even they're not enough I mean military those days and I reach the same

conclusion today. It simply is impossible to build defense that would

seriously blunt a nuclear power on the one hand maintaining a,

maintaining a stable strategic balance plus diplomacy, arms control

negotiations designed to somehow take the sharp edges off the

confrontation, that even combined they are not enough and that somehow

we have to we have to bring we have to make sure that the political

system, the world political system evolves in a direction such that

before too long the use of force is no longer a, is no longer a

sensible way to solve certain very difficult problems.

Interviewer:

I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WROTE AND ARTICLE AROUND 1964 IN WHICH YOU SAID

THAT INCREASE IN MILITARY POWER AND TECHNOLOGY HAD ACTUALLY DECREASED

OUR NATIONAL SECURITY AND THAT TECHNOLOGY WAS NOT A SOLUTION. WHAT HAD

MADE YOU FEEL THAT SO STRONGLY AND WANT TO SAY THAT PUBLICLY?

York:

That's really, that's the same ground we've been over. I can go over it

again, the my observation while I was in the Pentagon was that as time

went on, as the years went by our national security became how did I

say it, ( ), well as I... Well, during those years in the Pentagon I

observed that as time went on our national military power became

greater and greater in terms of the destruction that we could wreak on

a on a on a potential enemy. On the other hand our national security

was getting steadily worse in terms of the destruction that he that a

potential enemy could wreak on us and which we couldn't respond to

except by getting revenge. There there was no way for us to diminish

the threat. We could only simply threaten retaliation so that our

national security was our national military power was increasing, Our

national security was decreasing and the direct, the proposals for

solving this problem by creating a defense were evidently, it became

evident that these proposals simply wouldn't work out, that there was

no defense that would be adequate for this for handling this problem

and that in fact more generally there wasn't any technical solution to

this problem of our steadily decreasing national security. We had to

look for solutions somewhere else, in the political realm, diplomacy,

arms control, and so on.

Interviewer:

THAT WAS QUITE A COURAGEOUS THING FOR YOU TO TAKE A STAND ON AT THE

TIME GIVEN THE COMMUNITY THAT YOU HAD BEEN WORKING WITH. WHAT MADE YOU

DECIDE TO GO PUBLIC WITH IT, TO PUBLISH ARTICLES...?

York:

I, you know there's no good answer to that its just that I was I was I

was invited to write that article, I was in touch with other people who

that particular article was written by Jerry Wiesner and I and

published in Scientific American, but we were invited to write the

article.

Interviewer:

YOU SUFFERED SOME CRITICISM FROM SOME MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT FOR

WRITING THAT PUBLICLY AND I UNDERSTAND THAT PAUL NITZE CALLED IT

OUTRAGEOUS AND DIRTY POOL. WHY WOULD HE REACT SO STRONGLY?

York:

Well, in the particular case of Paul Nitze, I really I really don't

know, I mean he simply disagreed with what we were saying. He was in

the Pentagon at that time. He was I guess Deputy Secretary of Defense.

I mean I don't know why he...I mean I really don't know.

Interviewer:

WHAT VIEWS WERE YOU CONFRONTING OF PEOPLE. WHAT WAS THE OPPOSITE POINT

OF VIEW THAT YOU WERE CONFRONTING?

York:

The opposite point of view at that time was that there was a technical

solution in particular in particular if we worked hard enough we could

develop a useful defense, and there were programs that were major

programs in both the Army and Air Force under way designed to explore

those possibilities I always felt and still do, that it was legitimate

to carry out a very substantial research and development program I felt

then and I do now that if we really could build a strategic defense

would be a good thing and that the only possible way of achieving that

result of course was to carry out a research and development program

designed to explore the possibilities. Its just that I was just

extremely pessimistic then and still am that a useful result will come

out of those programs. But I do believe its proper to explore the

possibilities. Other people were more optimistic and felt that an

aggressive program, talking about 1964, that an aggressive program of

research and development on strategic defenses, missile defenses in

particular would result in defenses which would be useful and perform

some useful function on behalf of American national security. The Star

Wars proposals in 1983 are the same sort of thing all over again. In

both cases, 1964 and 1983, my conclusions after studying the ideas

available at the time were that no there's nothing there, there's

nothing there that will produce an adequate defense.

Interviewer:

YOU WROTE IN YOUR BOOK IN 1970 THAT OVER THE LAST THIRTY YEARS WE HAVE

REPEATEDLY TAKEN UNILATERAL ACTIONS THAT HAVE LEAD TO THE ACCUMULATION

OF UNNECESSARILY LARGE NUMBERS OF OVERSIZED WEAPONS. DID YOU FEEL THAT

THE UNITED STATES WAS PUSHING TOO FAR AHEAD WITH TECHNOLOGICAL

DEVELOPMENTS AND THE ARMS RACE?

York:

The the historical record is that most of the big steps in the arms

race were initiated by the United States, that is the introduction of

the atomic bomb in the first place, the introduction of the hydrogen

bomb, the introduction of intercontinental bombers, there were of

course other important steps which were taken by the Soviets the

development of intercontinental ballistic missiles with they lead the

way with that and but we finally very soon after in either in either of

those cases, those where we took the initial steps or those where they

took the initial steps and we followed soon after, we were the it was

usually us with our greater industrial base that was able to exploit

new ideas fastest and so that in case after case in the '50s and '60s

we ended up with building large arsenals of very powerful weapons well

ahead of the well ahead of the Soviets doing the same sort of thing and

in that sense we lead the nuclear arms race in saying that I'm not

saying that we essentially are the cause of the basic antagonism or

that or that or that the arms race itself, the arms race as a whole is

primarily is primarily due to us but the nature of it the rate and

scale of the of the events was essentially determined primarily by us.

Interviewer:

YOU SAID THAT BY THE END OF THE 1950S HIGH RANKING MILITARY OFFICERS

AND MANY MEMBERS OF THE ARMS SERVICES COMMITTEE ARE __. WITH THE MORAL

STATE OF AFFAIRS...CONTINUING FLOW OF NEW SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES

LEADING TO MORE EXOTIC APPLICATIONS IN TURN FOR WHOEVER GOT THERE

FIRST.

York:

Um hm.

Interviewer:

CAN YOU TALK MORE ABOUT WHAT THE ASSUMPTIONS WERE ( )...AND SAVE US AND

GIVE US THE SUPERIOR POSITION WITH THE SOVIETS?

York:

Well, that's what I talked about a minute ago but the there was a there

was a view in the '60s and there is a view today that we can find a

technological solution to...

[END OF TAPE E13012]

Interviewer:

There's always been a view among American technologists that if we just

worked hard enough, we could accomplish it, we would find a technical

solution to the national security dilemma and in particular we could

the kind of strategic defense that would make a real difference. Uh,

parallel to that view is the notion that if we just ran fast enough in

the technological arms race, we could keep ahead by an adequate by an

adequate measure and maintain our national security that way. Uh, that,

of course, is not my view. My view is that there is no technical

solution, that strategic defense has so far proven to be impossible,

and that running faster will not help anything. That while on the one

hand we have to maintain an adequate level of defense, we have to be

certain that the strategic balance remains stable. We have to make

certain that our offensive weapons are safe and survivable. We have to

make sure they can penetrate any Soviet defenses. We have to do all of

those things. We have to have a program designed to do those things. At

the same time, that program can never provide the final solution.

We've, that can only be found by pursuing diplomatic approaches,

political approaches, arms control approaches.

Interviewer:

YOU EXPRESSED SOME HORROR ABOUT THE SHEER NUMBERS OF WEAPONS THAT WE

HAD BUILT IN THE EARLY '60s AND ABOUT HOW EXCESSIVE IT WAS. WHEN YOU

FIRST REALIZED HOW MUCH POWER WE HAD, HOW DID YOU FEEL AT THE TIME?

York:

Well, I didn't, you know, there wasn't anything sudden with that...the

fact is that the, the numbers of weapons we have today were determined

by a whole series of small actions that were taken during the late

'50s,...during the late '40s and early '50s and the, for example, the,

the size of the nuclear production plant was determined by a series of

decisions that came out of the first, the...American response to the

Soviet atomic bomb and then the Korean war. That produced a plant whose

size was adequate to build a small number of nuclear weapons quickly

and, of course, as the plant ran for years and years and years, it

produced a very large number. The, the number of strategic bombers that

we that we built in the, in the early '50s was determined...by thinking

that was dominated primarily by the bomber generals of World War II.

They had a picture of a, an attack on Europe in which the airplanes

would be organized into wings and waves and there'd be a synergism

between the size of the attack that would, between the various elements

of the attack, that would enable it to overcome the defenses and so on.

That's the kind... it's thinking of that sort, it's events of that sort

and thinking of sort that produce the numbers of weapons that we have

today. Uh, the given that they, given the power of these weapons, that

in turn, means...an absolutely incredible...an extremely high level of

total destructive power.

Interviewer:

WHAT IS THE REACTION WHEN YOU GO INTO THE STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND AT

OMAHA AND YOU SEE THE SIOP DISPLAYED ON THE BOARD?

York:

When I finally had a chance in 1960 to actually be briefed on the first

SIOP, that means the Single Integrated Operational Plan for using our

nuclear forces I was to say the least, mightily impressed by what I

heard. The, it's one thing to talk these the possibility of an attack

in the abstract, it's quite another to sit there fore a couple of hours

and watch these transparencies come down over the maps on the wall, one

by one as the attack develops, and essentially the, the process that

can be compared to strip mining the entire Soviet Union, is actually

being developed and planned in front of your eyes.

Interviewer:

YOU TALKED ABOUT THE FEELING THAT YOU GOT THE SENSE THAT, IT'S REALLY

REAL?

York:

Well, being there in that place which is the command headquarters for,

for the attack, gives you a sense of reality that you don't get by just

reading about it in the newspapers or talking with friends and

colleagues.

Interviewer:

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

York:

The primary purpose of nuclear weapons...one can, one can, look at the

purpose of nuclear weapons in several ways. Uh in terms of the existing

situation, the primary purpose of American nuclear weapons is to deter

the use of nuclear weapons by anyone else including our principle

adversaries, the Soviets. Uh, more generally, in a world which is

anarchistic and...with chaotic relations among states, a world in which

the use of force is always--the potential for the use of force is

always there. Our strong suit in such situations is high technology.

Other people...other states have based their military power on shear

numbers. We base ours on high technology and that includes nuclear

technology. So nuclear weapons are our ways of balancing large forces

on the other side.

Interviewer:

WHY DO WE NEED 25,000 NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO ACCOMPLISH THIS?

York:

Well, the question of how many we need... The precise numbers have

developed out of, analyses and situations that well, you know, I don't

know how to answer a question like that.

Interviewer:

IS THERE A FURTHER REASON FOR WHICH WE NEED THAT MANY NUCLEAR WEAPONS

RATHER THAN MINIMUM DETERRENCE?

York:

The totality of the American nuclear stockpile is not based solely on

minimum deterrence. Minimum deterrence is the notion, I mean the, the

meaning of the, of minimum deterrence is that well...

Interviewer:

OKAY, WE'LL JUST GO ON. YOU HAD AN INTERESTING COMMENT YESTERDAY ABOUT

WHY AMERICANS RELY ON TECHNOLOGY AND BELIEVE IN TECHNOLOGICAL?

York:

Well, in a world in which military preparedness is an essential element

of the national posture, Americans want that to be based primarily on

high technology rather than on cannon fodder as, as some other

societies do. We've always been like that. That is, if, if you look at

casualties in past wars, you'll always find that we suffer fewer

casualties than our enemies. That was true in the Spanish War, it's

true in World War II, it's true in World War I. It's true in Korea, and

so. We depend on technology rather than raw manpower to fight our

battles. And that's what the--and that's what the American people want.

It's what the people of the West want. In America in particular, the

liberals don't want to draft, the conservatives don't want to pay the

taxes that would be necessary for a very large conventional force. The

only answer that's available to us is high technology. So the American

people want a technological edge. They want a... technology edge to

balance the manpower capabilities of the other side.

Interviewer:

DO YOU THINK THAT IT'S TRUE THAT IT'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS THAT HAVE KEPT US

OUT OF WAR FOR THE LAST...?

York:

There's no way to test the proposition that deterrence has worked. It

is certainly true that the leadership on both sides in Europe, for

example, are truly frightened of the possibility of nuclear war, and,

and do not believe that it could be won, don't want it to happen. That

certainly does limit the, the possibility of adventures that, and

eliminate the possibility of adventures that might otherwise have

happened. To say that if there had been no nuclear weapons, there would

have been war in Europe, that's, you know, that's a surmise that can't

that can't be proved either way. But nuclear weapons surely have

limited the...what states otherwise would have done and have caused the

leadership on both sides to be much more cautious than it otherwise

would have been.

Interviewer:

SO MANY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THAT WE NEED TO HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY EDGE OR

SUPERIORITY IN ORDER TO DETER THE SOVIETS. IS THERE SUCH A THING REALLY

AS TECHNOLOGICALLY SUPERIORITY OR SUPERIORITY IN THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE?

York:

Well, there's no such thing as overall tech-- superiority in the

nuclear arms race, or there isn't any more. I mean at one time there

may have been when we had huge numbers and they were just beginning but

the in a nuclear world in which each side has 25,000 nuclear weapons,

there's no prospect of superiority in any overall sense or any

exploitable sense. On the other hand, you can be superior in certain

details. It is possible for us to make sure that our weapons, our

offensive weapons will always be able to penetrate their defensive

systems. For example, and it is possible for us to build our weapons

maybe in a smaller size or to achieve a higher accuracy or something

like that. So it is possible to achieve technological superiority in

certain details. It's not possible to achieve any kind of overall

superiority in terms of something that can be usefully exploited.

Interviewer:

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE US GOING TOWARD, WORKING FOR?

York:

Well, I would like to see the current situation evolve in such a way

that we moved away from the heavy dependence on nuclear weapons for so

many purposes that we now have. In particular, I would like to see us

abandon the notion of extended deterrence which means that we use

nuclear weapons not only to deter the use of nuclear weapons by the

other side but to deter other major acts of aggression. I'd like to see

us get to minimum deterrence which is a situation in which we, the, the

only purpose for maintaining nuclear weapons is to deter the use of

nuclear weapons. That can be done with substantially smaller forces

than we have. It can be done with forces which are not deployed cheek

by jowl with their forces in Europe. It can be, it can be done in other

words, with forces that are both, have, have, less total potential for

violence, not much less, but less, and which, and which are more

survivable, less likely to be used in a, in a crisis, by mistake and so

on.

Interviewer:

WHY ARE 50 PERCENT CUTS SO GREAT?

York:

Well, a 50 percent cut that we're talking about today has the value of

really setting us firmly on the road towards smaller forces. Previous

arms control measures while they have been of value in certain

particular contexts, have not really done anything to reverse, to fully

reverse the momentum of the arms race. A 50 percent cut or any

substantial cut would, for the first time, do that and that's why

there's a, that's, that's the political potential that is...that so

many us see and start talks. Uh, the it, even that however would be

seen by most people as a step in a particular direction rather than as

a final result rather than something which is really useful as a final

result. So the...so the question is how far can one imagine going and

that's more difficult to assess the because there are three other

nuclear powers out there. The French, the British and the Chinese. And

the French are moving up towards an arsenal of a thousand nuclear

weapons and that means that the, neither the Soviets nor we are likely

to agree to come down to a number that turns the French into the third

superpower, so there is a, there's a limit on how far we can go...put

there by the other nuclear powers. But that's...way below 50 percent of

where we are today and so 50 percent we can go beyond, if we can

achieve 50 percent now we can go beyond that at least by another factor

of two in the years immediately following.

Interviewer:

HOW MANY DO YOU THINK WE COULD ACTUALLY LIVE WITH IF YOU HAD YOUR WAY?

York:

Well the number that would be necessary for minimum deterrents is

somewhere between a few hundred and, and a few thousand and I don't

know exactly where it lies in there. Various experts have studied the

question. Some do believe it lies as low a few hundred, others believe

it lies perhaps at 3,000 or something like that. Since there are now

25,000 to 30,000, we're talking about something which is one-tenth of

what we have today.

Interviewer:

YOU TALKED ABOUT WHEN YOU WERE DIRECTOR OF D.R. AND E. THAT PEOPLE

WOULD COME AND TRY TO SELL PROGRAMS TO YOU. THAT YOU WERE THE ONE THAT

THEY WERE SELLING TO. CAN YOU DESCRIBE A LITTLE BIT OF THAT AND THE

SENSE THAT YOU HAD THAT, IN FACT, THERE WERE PEOPLE SELLING A THREAT

AND THAT WAS A MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX OUT THERE THAT WAS PROFITING

OFF OF IT?

York:

When, when I was the director of Defense Research and Engineering I

experienced something which, of course, I had no opportunity to

experience before and that was the promoters of these, of these various

ideas, the various weapons systems, the various schemes for solving our

problems tech, through technical means. Uh, coming in to my office in

person or, or through documentation or other means and selling and

promoting and pushing their ideas. The kind of thing that Eisenhower

referred to or had in mind when he mentioned the military industrial

complex, in is farewell address and the scientific technological elite.

Uh, as he said, we need a military-industrial complex in order to

maintain an adequate level of military preparedness and we need a

scientific and technological elite out there inventing these devices

that are a necessary part of our total military posture. On the other

hand, precisely because we do need them, we have to be especially wary

that they don't somehow gather unto themselves influence that goes that

goes beyond anything that's necessary. Uh, the basically what, what

these groups do is they analyze the intelligence themselves, they

decide what the threat is, they invent means for coping with that

threat, and then they take, and then with a great deal of dedication

and determination, they seek to sell those ideas to authorities. And

when I was director of Defense Research and Engineering I was the

person, so to speak, at the end of the line of those sales pitches who,

the person who was ultimately receiving those particular sales pitches

the people are, the people are quite serious and sincere about it. They

believe that there is a serious threat out there that has to be met and

they, they take pride in what they're doing. Their self-esteem is based

on what they're doing. They really work hard on promoting their ideas

and it is difficult to deal with them and that's, as I said, that's why

Eisenhower in his farewell address, issued those warnings about the

military-industrial complex. We need it, but if we just let them run

rampant, they will exercise and kind of influence that goes far beyond

anything that's in our, that's in our best interest.

Interviewer:

WHAT IS THE REAL DANGER OF THEM HAVING TOO MUCH INFLUENCE?

York:

Well, the danger simply is that they will oversell that their ideas,

that we will, that we will build up our defenses far beyond anything

that's necessary, that we'll waste a lot of money, we'll waste

resources, we'll we'll adapt a point of view that is totally oriented

towards weapons and military solutions.

Interviewer:

YOU WROTE THAT THERE WAS AN UNNECESSARY OVERREACTION IN CASE AFTER CASE

THAT WE HAD DUPLICATION OF PROGRAMS, THERE WAS FALSIFICATION OF

INTELLIGENCE, AND SO FORTH AND THE AEROSPACE JOURNALS WERE (?). YOU

SAID LET US ERR ON THE SIDE OF MILITARY SAFETY AS THE MOTTO OF THE ARMS

RACE IN THE WORST CASE ANALYSIS. HOW PERNICIOUS WAS IT? TELL US A

LITTLE BIT ABOUT THAT.

York:

What did I just do?

Interviewer:

FOR INSTANCE, IN THE BOOK YOU TALKED ABOUT HOW PEOPLE ( )...WHEN THE

SOVIETS HAD THE BOMB THEY WERE TELLING US WE WERE GOING TO BE VICTIMS

OF A SURPRISE ATTACK AND IN '57 ( )...AND WE BUILT ALL THESE EXTRA

MISSILE PROGRAMS AND IN '70 THERE WAS THE WINDOW OF VULNERABILITY AND

THE DOOMSDAY ( )...THE SOVIETS WERE GOING TO BE ABLE TO FIRST STRIKE

AND YOU FELT IN EACH INSTANCE THAT PEOPLE WERE OVERSELLING THE THREAT

AND PARTLY IT WAS TO INCREASE OUR DEFENSE AND INCREASE OUR SPENDING IN

MILITARY PROGRAMS. I'D LIKE TO HEAR YOU GO THROUGH...?

York:

There are many instances in our recent history in which the people who

make the military-industrial complex have have I believe, oversold the

nature of the threat and oversold the possible responses that we might

make to it...as early as 1949 right after the first Soviet atomic bomb

we had people who were seriously predicting that in a matter of just a

very few years, the Soviets would have enough bombs and enough

intercontinental bombers to be able to make a successful surprise

attack On the united States. Uh, out of that came the notion of a

bomber gap which really never developed. Uh, right over Sputnik which,

of course, was a tremendous,...which was a great surprise, there was a

similar kind of reaction again in which many people, the Gaither panel

was one, predicted that in a very short time, the Russians would have

again enough missiles with hydrogen bombs that they could deliver...on

them to again be able to mount, a surprise attack that would be that we

would not be able to cope with. And then again we've seen that

repeatedly since. The the window of vulnerability argument which came

up in the late '70s and, and, and early '80s was another such instance.

Now those, that's just the top of the iceberg. All during that time and

in between these particular ... extremely critical events, there are

people making what are called worse case analyses designed to explore

the, the most unlikely...cases in terms of both what, in terms of what

the, the Russians might have and what they might do with it and what

their purposes might be and calling for us to prepare for these for,

for all of these worst cases. Now, it is necessary to consider what the

possibilities are.

[END OF TAPE E13013]

Interviewer:

WHY DID YOU START TO FEEL AT THE END OF THE '60s THAT AMERICA WAS

HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION?

York:

Well, in reviewing the, the programs that we had initiated particularly

in the '50s and to some extent in the '60s, it became evident by the

end of the '60s that we had overreacted, we had created more weapons,

more nuclear explosives all together, more delivery systems than we

needed to answer the particular problems that were posed at the time

and that I became more convinced...these reinforced my earlier views

that, that we had to be putting an emphasis on, on, not on technical

solutions, not on accumulating still more weapons, but on the other

side of the, the, the other part of the equation. That is to say arms

control diplomacy and so on... peaceful coexistence, d鴥nte were the

words that we used at that time. That that's where the emphasis ought

to be rather than on the accumulation of still more weapons with still

more fancy characteristics. The fact that the Vietnam War was going on

at, during those same years, in my case and in the case of many other

people, reinforced the view that we were simply headed in the wrong

direction or to put it differently, we simply weren't paying enough

attention to the other elements of national security. The elements

others than strictly military preparedness.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE LESSON OF VIETNAM DO YOU THINK FOR MILITARY USE OF FORCE?

York:

Oh, I don't have anything profound to say to Vietnam.

Interviewer:

YOU PARTICIPATED IN THESE HEARINGS AGAINST THE ABM SYSTEM AND MIRV IN

1969 AND WHAT WAS YOUR MESSAGE THAT YOU WANTED TO GET ACROSS TO

CONGRESS?

York:

Well, it was, there were really two messages... involved in my

testimony in 1969 and 1970. One of them was the... messages was the

regard to the particular problem at hand and that is that the...systems

being proposed, the, the ABM systems then being proposed really would

not do the job that people were claiming they would do. They would they

could not be done they couldn't be built for the, for the money that

people were proposing to spend on them and that in particular, so that

those particular solutions, those particular weapon systems were

not...should not, we, we should not go ahead with those in the form

that was then being proposed. The more general, the more general

message that I was promoting at that time is the same one I mentioned

in connection with the...with when I was still in the Pentagon and that

is that strategic defense simply cannot be accomplished, at least

certainly not with the ideas that were then available and that indeed

more generally, there isn't any technical solution to the national

security dilemma that we found ourselves in.

Interviewer:

WHEN YOU TESTIFIED ON THE MIRV ISSUE WAS THERE A SENSE THAT MIRV WAS

LIKE PART OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE. IT WAS THE NEXT THING BUT IT

WAS POSSIBLY VERY DANGEROUS?

York:

Well...at that time, the '69-'70 time frame, there were two new

technologies being considered by the Congress and being discussed in

Congressional hearings. One was the ABM, the other was the MIRV. The

MIRV, the Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles, had in

fact been promoted in large part to by McNamara as a countermeasure to

a possible Soviet ABM so that it the combination of the two, ABM and

MIRV, provided a perfect example of the, of the measures,

countermeasures, counter countermeasures, the endless race between the

trying to build offenses and defenses. A race which had no, a race

which had no useful end results And so it was a particularly good time

to discuss those issues, a particularly fruitful time to discuss those

issues. Uh, MIRV was seen by a number of people as being especially

pernicious because of the way it effected, because of the way it made

it possible to imagine that one silo based missile force could conduct

a successful surprise attack against another silo based missile force.

Now the fact that we had a triad of forces in those days...we'd had a

triad for many years, meant that couldn't really happen. But because

the other...even if the land based forces might be in the trouble, the

other forces would be perfectly adequate for deterrence, but

nonetheless it raised the issue and it made at least some people at in

important positions and at high levels believe that our strategic

forces were indeed in danger and led them to propose further, further

actions. So the combination of ABM and MIRV provided a particularly

salient ray of getting at the entire problem of overreaction, of action

and reaction and overreaction that was characteristic of those days.

Interviewer:

WHAT IS THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE?

York:

Well I didn't invent the term technological imperative I have on

occasion though borrowed it and used it. What I take it to mean is that

the technological establishment, that is the sum total of the

scientists, the engineers, the organizations that they're bound up in,

get wound up in what they're doing do create interesting new ideas and

feel compelled to carry them out to become, become quite convinced that

a particular set of ideas are absolutely necessary for the national

security and they do their best to promote them and sell them.

Risk of Nuclear Weapons Use

Interviewer:

I WANT TO GET INTO THE AREA ABOUT THE RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR THAT THE

REASON WE DON'T WANT TO GO ON IS THAT INCREASES THE RISK?

York:

The reason what?

Interviewer:

THAT WE DON'T WANT TO IS THAT THERE'S THE OPPOSITE FEAR, THE RISK OF

NUCLEAR WAR. YOU TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE IDEA OF THE USE OF

NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO DETER CONVENTION FORCES IN EUROPE AND HOW THE

BATTLEFIELD COMMANDERS DON'T BELIEVE ANYONE WOULD ACTUALLY GIVE THOSE

ORDERS BECAUSE OF THE RESULT AND HOW DANGEROUS THOSE TACTICAL WEAPONS

ARE.

York:

Well, I don't know how we can tell you. There's so many ways.

Interviewer:

MY QUESTION IS, DO YOU SEE THAT THE SITUATION IN EUROPE, THE WAY WE'RE

USING NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THE FRONT LINES, IS DANGEROUS?

York:

Uh, I've been concerned for some time about the deployment of so many

so-called tactical weapons or battlefield weapons in Europe. Many of

them are deployed on very short range... delivery systems. They have to

be deployed right up close to the, to the inter-German border as it's

called. There is a danger that in the event of a war or even some kind

of a local skirmish, that some of them would be overrun. There is

pressure to use them early and I think that's that's... skirting

unnecessarily close to danger. I would much prefer to see the, the

short-range weapons eliminated altogether so that particular problem,

would be...would be eliminated. The...removal of the intermediate range

weapons as in the INF treaty is a good step in the right direction also

but it isn't where I would have started if I had been able to control

events. I would have started with the very short-range systems first.

Interviewer:

DESCRIBE WHY WE SHOULD GET RID OF THOSE SHORT RANGE SYSTEMS.

York:

The problem with the short-range systems is that they necessarily have

to be deployed close to the, close to the potential front. They are in

danger of being overrun. They are weapons, which, unless they're used

early...may not have may not be very effective. So there're all kinds

of pressures on using them very early and I would like to see any ...I

would like to see those pressures removed because I, I don't want to

see some kind of an accident converted into a nuclear war by mistake.

Some kind of a, some kind of an accident which could be handled by, or

some kind of an event, which could be adequately handled by

conventional forces, to have such an event trans, transformed into a

nuclear event that would lead we don't know where. In other words, I,

to put it more generally, I would like to maintain the maximum possible

fire between conventional weapons and nuclear weapons and so as a

general rule, I think it's dangerous and a step in the wrong direction

to use, to deploy nuclear weapons which carry out some of the,...which

reproduce some of the functions of conventional weapons.

Interviewer:

CAN YOU MAKE THAT A GENERAL STATEMENT THAT YOU DIDN'T WANT THEM

DEPLOYED ON SHIPS AROUND THE WORLD?

York:

Uh, another class of weapons that I'd like to see eliminated are the

shipboard weapons ship to ship weapons which are now with our naval

forces at sea. The trouble with them again is it's all too easy to use

them, it's too easy to justify them. Somebody looks at the...question

of, of firing a weapon from one battleship to sink another battleship,

that doesn't look like the kind of cataclysm that would initiate

Armageddon. I mean it looks like it could be a justifiable use of

nuclear weapons and indeed it probably is considered in isolation. The

trouble with, the trouble with it is it can't be considered an

isolation and a use of nuclear weapons in that kind of application

could in ...some kind of step by step way that can't be predicted lead

to the use of nuclear weapons that would be more dangerous,

unjustified, lead to Armageddon and so on.

Interviewer:

WHY DO WE HAVE THESE NUCLEAR WEAPONS DEPLOYED IN ALL THESE FOREIGN

AREAS AROUND THE WORLD. ISN'T IT TO MAKE THEM MORE USABLE?

York:

Well, there is...there is a, these weapons are deployed in Europe and

deployed on ships in order to reinforce deterrents both extended

deterrents and specifically nuclear deterrents. The belief there is

the, the, that by making the use of these weapons more realistic, more

believable, you make, you make deterrents more credible and thereby

reinforce it. There is a paradox there and I don't really see my way

clearly through this paradox. That indeed you do reinforce deterrents

by making the use of the weapons more credible and you reinforce

deterrents by making the outcome of their use all the more horrible.

That is the paradox of the, of the nuclear age and I don't see a clear

way to work my way through that paradox. Uh, I do conclude though that

rather than trying to figure out some, some path through this paradox

that it, we'd be better off to get rid of it altogether and

particularly to eliminate the weapons that are easy... are easy to use,

easy to justify.

Interviewer:

IS THERE A SENSE THAT IN ORDER TO MAKE DETERRENTS, ESPECIALLY A

CONVENTIONAL WAR IN EUROPE, MORE CREDIBLE, THAT WE NEED TO CONTINUALLY

BE BUILDING SYSTEMS THAT CAN PRE-EMPT AND TAKE OUT SOVIET MILITARY

TARGETS BEFORE THEY TAKE OUT OURS?

York:

Well, the, the nuclear tactics in Europe area not sure how to approach

this.

Interviewer:

DOES OUR COMMITMENT TO A NUCLEAR GUARANTEE IN EUROPE, TO THE EXTENDED

DETERRENT, DOES THAT SORT OF PUT US MORE ON A HAIR TRIGGER BECAUSE THE

WAY WE BACK THAT US IS BY, THE MILITARY WOULD LIKE TO BACK THAT UP, IS

BY BEING ABLE TO DO A PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE?

York:

Well, they're not talking about a pre-emptive strike, the, the idea of

the nuclear weapons in Europe is that we would use them if under

circumstances where, for example,...the ability to defend ourselves

conventionally was failing and that rather than just simply we're just

not doing well on this.

Interviewer:

I THINK THAT AT THE ROOT OF YOUR UNHAPPINESS WITH OUR COMMITMENT TO USE

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN EUROPE IS THE SENSE THAT SORT OF ENGENDERS A NEW

COMPETITION IN COUNTERFORCE WEAPONS?

York:

No it's just that I, no, I just don't want to use them in Europe. I

mean, I don't know...you're leading me somewhere where I don't go.

Interviewer:

CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE HAIR TRIGGER, THE SENSE OF RISK

WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

York:

One of the problems we have with nuclear weapons is that under certain

circumstances it's necessary to place them on a hair trigger as we

sometimes say, or the equivalent, it's we, we're, we're led to design

systems or to think about situations in which the launch would be, in

some sense, automatic. Uh, for example, for years and years, it's been

suggested that we should launch our strategic forces at home, our

ballistic missiles, we should launch them when we should launch them on

warning or launch them under attack and by doing so, by being able to

do so, we reinforce deterrents by guaranteeing that indeed we will

respond. Uh, up to that point the argument does indeed make sense. The

trouble is the problem, the obvious one of, of false alarms, of

the...any automatic system going wrong. And it's not just a question of

whether we can make our own systems adequate to, you know, whether we

can solve this problem of false alarms. Everybody in the nuclear world

has to be able to solve the problem equally. It's the, the Russians,

the Chinese, everyone else. So the whole notion of automatic launch,

launch under attack, launch on warning has always seemed to me to be an

especially dangerous notion. Fortunately, as far as I know, we've never

put any substantial forces, we've never adopted that policy for any

substantial part of our forces or indeed for any, for any part of them

at all. But the pressure's always there. Uh, and it's been there from

the very beginning, back when we first designed the first large ICBMs,

the Atlas and the Titan. The--

[END OF TAPE E13014]

Interviewer:

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT DETERRENCE? IS IT WRONG, IMMORAL? SHOULD WE

BE...?

York:

Well deterrence is a fact of life. It's not a policy. It's a fact of

life. The the we're scared of Soviet weapons and they're scared of

ours. The the existence of large nuclear forces on each side deters the

other side from taking actions which it otherwise, under certain

circumstances, might take and in particular it deters the use of

nuclear weapons by the other side. So deterrence is not something that

somebody you know planned to have and then got, its act, its simply

inherent in the present situation. Ah the destruction, that's just the

mechanism through which deterrence works. The ...

Interviewer:

CAN YOU START IT WITH MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION AS A FACT OF LIFE? I

THINK THAT'S EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO GET.

York:

O.K., Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD as it's called is not really so

much a policy as it simply is a fact of life. The weapons that we have

do assure the destruction of the Soviets if they were ever used and the

weapons the Soviets have do indeed assure our destruction if they are

ever used against us. Ah the fact of mutual assured destruction deters

dangerous actions on the part of either side and that what we that's

essentially what we mean by deterrence. The the maintenance of forces

designed to produce assured destruction it takes two to make it mutual.

We only maintain assured destruction, forces adequate for their assured

destruction. The question of whether that's immoral or not is an issue

that has been and I think and should and must be constantly raised. The

conclusions of the American Catholic Bishops and of many and many other

people who have studied this question is that it is a terrible

situation as long as we are seriously trying to find some solution to

it and I've come to accept that view myself that the posture of

maintaining the two sided posture of maintaining mutual assured

destruction is tolerable in the moral sense as long as we really are

seriously trying to work trying to find some alternative to it. That's

turning out not to be easy and in my belief it will really take quit a

long time. So the way I prefer to look at the problem is that I the

question of what we should do depends on the time scale your talking

about and the best way to maintain peace in the short run is to

maintain military forces which are adequate for strategic stability

that means having them having enough of them and it means also

eliminating those kinds which make which lead away from stability.

That's the short run. In the medium run, arms control diplomacy, all of

those political actions are vital parts of maintaining the peace in

that they help to remove some of the sharp edges from the antagonism

but even together they won't work in the long run. In the long run

somehow we have to reach a state in which the use of force in which war

doesn't have the role that it has today, in which the anarchistic

relations between states which lead to war, have lead to war for

thousands of years, have somehow been eliminated but we have to through

the use of maintaining a stable strategic balance and through the use

of negotiations, arms control, and other diplomatic means, we have to

somehow buy the time and keep the world safe and prevent the nuclear

holocaust from happening while we evolve into this better situation in

which war doesn't play, war doesn't play a role.

Interviewer:

DO YOU THINK MANKIND CAN UNLEARN THE SOCIAL INSTITUTION OF WAR AND

LEARN TO COOPERATE?

York:

Well, we have been able to build societies in which the relationships

between individuals are governed by law and order and by analogy I

conclude that it ought to be possible to create a political situation

in which the relations between sovereign states are determined by are

governed by law and order.

Interviewer:

THAT'S A VERY IMPORTANT STATEMENT. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO SAY THAT VERY

STRONGLY ( )

York:

It's a question of tone. Beginning where?

Interviewer:

INDIVIDUALS SOMETIMES HAVE A...

York:

O.K. We we learn how to create societies in which individuals are free

on the one hand and yet governed by law and order on the other hand. By

analogy I conclude that we ought to be able to build a society of

nations in which the nations are still sovereign but in which the

relationships are governed by law and order and by which war is not

does not play the role it has in the past... It still tails off, that's

just the way I talk.

Interviewer:

IT WAS WONDERFUL.

York:

Hmm?

Nuclear Disarmament

Interviewer:

IT WAS WONDERFUL. WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET RID OF ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

York:

Well, if by magic all nuclear weapons could be removed then I would

remove them. I mean, on the other hand I have to insist that it's only

possible to do so by magic, and the only value in that question is to

find out where a person stands, you might say on the general issue. I

don't believe it's possible to get rid of nuclear weapons by magic or

by any other means in the foreseeable future. The problem is to the

problem to work out the means for living with them and I think that is

done by maintaining on the one hand the forces which do work for

strategic stability, and on the other hand pursuit of political means,

negotiations, arms control and so on for making the confrontation less

serious and less potentially dangerous.

Interviewer:

THIS IS A QUESTION FOR ALL THE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO THINK WE CAN HAVE

NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT. WHY IS IT THAT WE CAN'T GET RID OF ALL NUCLEAR

WEAPONS?

York:

Well, nuclear weapons--given modern technology, nuclear weapons are too

easy to produce. They are not an invention made in some abstract world,

and they're an invention that grew out of the of the technology of the

20th Century. It was difficult to do them in 1945 when everything was

new but now it isn't difficult anymore so that as some people say you

can't un-invent them. The processes that make it possible to build

nuclear weapons are just essential parts of modern technology.

Interviewer:

WHY DO YOU THINK GORBACHEV HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT DIMINISHING THE USE

OF FORCE IN THE WORLD AND A STRONG INTERNATIONAL STRUCTURE AND TRYING

TO REDUCE NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

York:

Well, I think Gorbachev is very is quite serious when he talks about

wanting to...about new thinking about the subjects, all including the

total military relationship between East and West....I think Gorbachev

is quite serious when he proposes to introduce new thinking into the

military and strategic relationship between the East and West. There

are a lot of reasons, I don't know why he's doing it but I can but I

but I suppose its partly a mixture of practicality that he sees that

reducing the military burden on the Soviet economy is a necessary part

of moving the Soviet economy and Soviet society forward and I think

also he simply is a new generation, he represents a newer generation

which is able to free itself from some of the old stereotypical

thinking that got us into the current state of affairs.

Interviewer:

I LIKED THAT POINT WHEN YOU MADE IT YESTERDAY THAT IT WAS A NEW

GENERATION. COULD YOU MAKE IT SEPARATELY SAYING GORBACHEV AND A NEW

GENERATION OF SOVIET THINKING?

York:

Make what separately?

Interviewer:

THE POINT THAT IT'S A NEW GENERATION OF THINKING SINCE THE COLD WAR.

York:

Yeah, O.K. Gorbachev has been promoting what he calls new thinking but

I think it isn't just Gorbachev. I think that there is a new generation

of people in charge over there in the Soviet Union and that the new

thinking is much more general. The idea to the elimination of some of

the old stereotypes that have gotten us into the present circumstances.

I still didn't do it right.

Interviewer:

DO YOU WANT TO TRY AGAIN?

York:

No, maybe you can, well I don't know. Maybe you can fix it up.

World Political System

Interviewer:

MAYBE I CAN, I DON'T KNOW. LET ME ASK YOU THIS ONE. WHAT IS THE

CONFLICT ABOUT BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIET UNION?

York:

Well, I don't know all of the, I don't know the full answer to the

question of what is the conflict between us about. I look at it in a

different way and that is that the evolution of the of the world

political system so far has got us to a point in which we have in which

there is at the highest level anarchy and chaos in the in the relations

between states or to put it differently there is very little law and no

law enforcement so its not just a question of what's the problem

between the United States in 1980 and the Soviet Union in 1980 its the

fact that the system is anarchistic and is not able to handle and is

not able to handle antagonisms and problems in any in any in any

straightforward way and the potential, the notion of the use of force

for for handling disputes and coping with difficulties is intrinsic to

the system so its not so much a question of what's the problem between

the United States and the Soviet Union as it is what's wrong with the

world political system.

Interviewer:

I THINK WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, IF WE CAN PUT SOME WORDS ON IT IS THAT THE

PROBLEM BETWEEN THEM IS THAT THERE ARE NOT STRUCTURES...

York:

Well, there's very little law and there's no law enforcement.

Interviewer:

O.K. CAN WE DO IT AGAIN I THINK IT WASN'T CONCISE?

York:

Yeah, but I'm not sure I'm the person to be discussing this anyway, you

know.

Interviewer:

WE ALL HAVE OPINIONS.

York:

Well, I don't look at the problem as being specific to the United

States and the Soviet Union. I look at the problem as being inherent in

the world political system in which there is very little law governing

relations between states and no law enforcement and if it wasn't a

problem between us at this time it would be a problem between two other

large countries at some near-future time. So it's not something which

is specific to the United States, the Soviet Union, its system,

something which is inherent in the political system.

Interviewer:

SO YOU THINK WE SHOULD BE MOVING TOWARD A STATE IN WHICH MILITARY FORCE

IS USED LESS TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS?

York:

Well, I think we have to move toward a system in which there is much

more law than there now is. In which there is some kind of law

enforcement and in which the use of force doesn't play such a such an

important role in the relations between states and as means for solving

problems.

Evaluation of Nuclear Arms Control

Interviewer:

YOU WROTE AT ONE POINT THAT WHILE THE ARMS RACE HAD BEEN MARCHED AHEAD

AND TECHNOLOGY HAD BEEN SUCCESSFUL AND SO FORTH THAT YOU FELT THAT ARMS

CONTROL HAD A MUCH MORE DISMAL RECORD. WHAT IS YOUR EVALUATION OF THE

ARMS CONTROL?

York:

Well, arms control has not achieved what people hoped it would. Its

gone much more slowly and the results have been much more modest. On

the other hand I do think that the world is better off as a result of

it, that even the treaty demilitarizing Antarctica is useful in that at

least that's one place we don't have to worry about. The the treaty

limiting nuclear weapons tests to those to those to underground tests

only has achieved some positive results, mostly in terms of poisoning

the biosphere but it goes beyond that. The Non-Proliferation Treaty has

contributed to the slowing spread of nuclear weapons. The SALT I treaty

which prevented the the development really of a of countrywide ABM

systems in the early '70s and still today eliminated one of the

possible turns in the arms race spiral and all of those things in the

net have been good. Its been a disappointment only in that it has not

produced, it hasn't produced according to the highest hopes of the

people who promoted it.

Interviewer:

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE PURPOSE OF ARMS CONTROL?

York:

Well, there are historically a number of purposes to arms control, one

of which has been to save money, the other has been to reduce the

possible level of violence I see the principle value in arms control at

the present time as being in the area of eliminating the most dangerous

elements of the confrontation I think it pays to focus arms control not

just on total numbers, although that has value but on eliminating those

weapons which are the most dangerous in terms of in terms of the

question of stability, the stability of the relationship.

Interviewer:

TALK ABOUT THAT. DO YOU THINK THERE IS A REAL RISK OF INADVERTENT WAR

COMING FROM PRESSURE IN TERMS OF ( )?

York:

Well, I think the risk of nuclear war is really very low. The problem

is that the dan-, that the consequences of nuclear are so very great

and its when you put those two things together that you that you

recognize that you have something here that really you have to worry

about and do something about. I think the focus should be on the the

immediate focus, the near term focus ought to be on being sure that the

that the worst flash points have been removed, that the kinds of

weapons that you have to use early in order to make them effective are

not there that weapons that invite attack on them by being so important

and being so vulnerable should be eliminated, that we should put in our

strategic in other words in our strategic forces we should put the

principal emphasis should be on survivability so there's not chance

that a preemptive attack might work on either side and those things can

be done unilaterally. They can be reinforced by arms control.

Interviewer:

DID YOU WANT TO ADD TACTICAL WEAPONS TO THAT LIST?

York:

Well, I sort of included it in the general...

Interviewer:

THIS IS GOING TO BE A TIME ORIENTED QUESTION AGAIN BECAUSE IN THE EARLY

'70s YOU FELT THAT THE COMPLETE TEST BAN WAS A VERY GOOD IDEA. SO WHAT

I WANT TO ASK YOU IS AT THAT TIME, WAS IT BECAUSE YOU WERE FEELING

FRUSTRATED WITH THE NORMAL, WHY DID YOU THINK IT WOULD BE MORE

EFFECTIVE IN SLOWING THE ARMS RACE?

York:

Well, go back, go back earlier. In the late '50s when Eisenhower was

pressing for a comprehensive test ban, Eisenhower, Khrushchev were push

pushing for a comprehensive test ban. I came to believe that it was a

good idea because at that time the development of nuclear weapons was

the determining factor in the arms race. That is what would happen

would be a new kind of nuclear weapon would be introduced, people would

develop strategies for governing it, tactics for using it, missile

systems and airplanes for delivering it and so on. But the nuclear

weapon was at the cutting edge. The development of the new nuclear

weapon was at the cutting edge and so by stopping that process it

seemed as though one might be able to stop the whole process. That was

the late '50s. Now the late '80s, thirty years later, that's no longer

the case and hasn't been true for some time. Nuclear weapons no longer

plays a leading role in the course of the arms race. What happens

instead is that somebody invents a new strategy or a new tactic or a

new delivery system and then they ask the nuclear laboratories to

develop a system to carry out that strategy or to fit that delivery

system and they no longer play a leading role at all so that stopping

the development of nuclear weapons, stopping nuclear weapons tests,

would interfere with the modernization process but wouldn't stop it.

The the the action is in other areas altogether and I believe that the

high priority arms control steps that we should be taking is the

elimination of those classes of weapons which If interfere with

stability which may be cause problems wither in having questions about

their survivability or by being weapons that have to be used very early

or not at all. That's where the focus ought to be and not on the

question of the modernization of the delivery systems which is what's

really involved now a days in nuclear weapons testing. The the problem

is exacerbated by the fact that as Jimmy Carter found pushing ahead

with a comprehensive test ban actually made it more difficult to deal

with these other arms control issues. So there is a synergism there

that actually in practical politics makes difficulties.

[END OF TAPE E13015]

York:

I found the arms control process frustrating in one very particular

sense and that is when I was whenever I've been in it as part of the

apparatus for determining American policy or more particularly when I

was part of the direct negotiations themselves, the frustrating part is

in dealing with the home bureaucracy because it turns out to be very

difficult to make to generate policy and the naysayers within the

bureaucracy are able to exploit the overall complication in a way that

just holds everything back. I've said that much too complicated.

Interviewer:

YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE SCARED?

York:

Well people who don't like it, I mean, yes. The principal, people often

ask--when somebody asks me about my experience with arms control they

ask, "Aren't these negotiations frustrating?" And my answer is "Yes,

they are, but the primary frustrations are in dealing with the home

bureaucracy rather than dealing with the Russians." All of the steps

necessary for moving an arms control negotiation forward have to be

first worked out in detail at home and there many conflicting points of

view within the bureaucracy and so the arguments are hotter, deeper,

broader among the elements within one government than they are between

the two governments.

Current State of Cold War

Interviewer:

DO YOU THINK ITS REALISTIC TO THINK NOW OR IN THE LAST DECADE OR TWO

THAT THE SOVIETS WOULD WANT TO INITIATE A WAR WITH THE WEST? WOULD WANT

TO MARCH ACROSS EUROPE OR INITIATE A NUCLEAR ATTACK?

York:

No, I don't think that either side is interested in--I don't think that

either side is likely to initiate a war deliberately, to conquer, to

take over Europe or for any other purpose of that nature. The danger is

that some other kind of an event, some small event, a smaller war

someplace else will somehow create a situation that festers and grows

and gets out of control and ultimately lead to large-scale war that

way. Most people and certainly and certainly including myself do not

believe that a war between the Soviets and the United States will start

for any reason that's deliberate and direct.

Interviewer:

PAUL NITZE AND OTHER PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR A LONG TIME THAT THEY

FELT THAT THE SOVIET MILITARY STRATEGY WAS THEY COULD FIGHT AND WIN A

NUCLEAR WAR.

York:

Well there have certainly been people on both sides who seem to believe

that a nuclear war can be fought and won, but I don't believe that they

have been--that those have been--the dominant voices on either side

ever, and whether there was a time doesn't apply today.

Interviewer:

DO YOU THINK THE COLD WAR IS ENDING?

York:

Well, the Cold War is now more than forty years old. That's an unusual

long time for a particular situation to dominate world affairs. I don't

know how its going to disappear or wither away, but I expect it will.

Interviewer:

OR HAS IT ALREADY? HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC IN

THIS, PROTEST MOVEMENTS AND SO FORTH AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS, DO YOU

THINK THAT'S A BAD THING OR A GOOD THING?

York:

Well, I think the primary way for the public in the western countries

to influence what goes on is through the regular political and

electoral power, pro process, get the right people in there both in

Congress in the White House and then throughout...and then through

those means into the bureaucracy generally. Ah, that's the primary

means. And the...other kinds of public action that we see can play a

secondary role. But only by reinforcing the behavior that the behaviors

that come out of the primary means, which is electing the people to

lead us.

Interviewer:

TALKING ABOUT...YOU THOUGHT THAT THERE WERE TWIN THREATS THAT HAD BEEN

OVERSOLD?

York:

Well, the...problem -- what makes the...what makes it so difficult to

work out, to...work out what to do for national security is that

there--we really do face two problems too. And to put them both... to

oversimplify both of them, one is the Soviet threat, and the other one

is the nuclear arms race. The easy solutions to either of those

problems tend to make the other one worse. And so what we have to do is

find a course of action that somehow or other copes with both of those

together.

Interviewer:

DID YOU FEEL THAT THERE WAS AN IMBALANCE, THAT PEOPLE HAD EMPHASIZED

ONE OVER THE OTHER?

York:

Well, there's a large number of individuals out there who...feel, who

are willing to, who...focus their attention entirely on either one of

these or the other. There's one group who sees, who thinks that our

course of action has to be dominated entirely by the Soviet threat.

There's another group of people who think that everything we do has to

be governed entirely by the... by the nuclear threat. Ah, the problem,

I think, is to find a... is to find a course of action that copes

adequately with both of those, and you won't do it by wishing the other

one away or simply believing the other one doesn't exist. And that's

true at both extremes.

Interviewer:

YOU HAD IN ONE OF THE LAST CHAPTERS OF YOUR NEW BOOK THREE THINGS THAT

YOU FELT IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE TO...THE ROUTE THAT WE SHOULD

TAKE. DEFENSE IS IMPOSSIBLE IN THE NUCLEAR ERA... ETC. I WOULD LIKE TO

HEAR SEPARATELY JUST NO EXPLANATION, JUST WHAT WERE THE THREE POINTS.

DEFENSE WAS IMPOSSIBLE,...

York:

Strategic defense is impossible. There is no technical solution to the

dilemma posed by the to our national security dilemma. And the only...

the only, I'm not doing this right. Because I have said that several

times. My...my net conclusion is that strategic defense is impossible.

That there is no technical solution to our national security dilemma,

and that we simply must pursue political solutions if we're going to

get to a safe future.

Interviewer:

NICE. AND THEN DO THE ONE WITH THE TWO GREAT REALITIES ABOUT

DETERRENTS.

York:

The...the two crucial things that one has to bear in mind about mutual

-- about deterrence through mutual assured destruction is that it

cannot last forever, and that it will take a long time to work our way

into some other mode of relation -- into some other form of

relationship.

Interviewer:

WILL WE SOMETIMES GET COMPLACENT AND ASSUME THAT BECAUSE NUCLEAR

DETERRENCE HAS WORKED AND WE'VE HAD NO ACCIDENTS IN THE LAST FORTY

YEARS THAT IT WILL ALWAYS BE THAT WAY?

York:

I suppose it's possible to become...to become complacent, precisely

because nuclear deterrence has worked or at least has seemed to have

worked for such a long time without any accidents and to conclude that

it will last forever. But I think a more careful reading of history

is... convinces oneself easily that's not the case. It can't work

forever.

Interviewer:

WAS PART OF THE REASON THAT YOU STOPPED ACTIVELY WORKING ON MAKING

WEAPONS THAT YOU FELT IT DISTASTEFUL TO BE...?

York:

No, I really just grew out of it in other ways. You know, I'm not...And

furthermore I really haven't stopped in the sense that I'm still a card

carrying member of the... of the you know, defense establishment.

Interviewer:

AND YOU MADE A POINT YESTERDAY ABOUT ONE OF THE REASONS WE WANT TO MOVE

OUT OF IT WAS THAT IT WAS HORRIBLE THAT SO MANY PEOPLE ARE MAKING SO

MANY WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

York:

Well, I don't know how to make that at this point...Ah, yeah, I do...

yes, I do say that. I did...I did say that, and I do feel that way,

that I don't know how to get it in the right con...I don't know how to

put the... If I was writing something I'd know just how to get it in

the right context. But I'm not sure how to say it.

Interviewer:

WELL, THREE MILLION PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY ARE WORKING IN THE DEFENSE

INDUSTRY. IS THERE A BETTER PLACE FOR THEM TO BE?

York:

Well, but I still don't think that's useful for a simple statement.

It's out of context.

Interviewer:

THEN, I WILL ASK YOU...WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE GRAVEST LESSON OF THE

NUCLEAR AGE?

York:

I think the things we've just said a few minutes ago will stand for

my...for that.

Interviewer:

SO WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR GRANDSONS?

York:

Well, a world in which a world in which it's clear we're moving away

from... the world I'd like to see for our children and for future

generations is one in which it's clear we're moving away from

maintaining peace through the threat of mutual assured destruction,

mutual suicide, and towards a world in which the use of force is fading

as a... as a means for solving problems between states.

Interviewer:

HOW DO YOU THINK WE'LL LOOK BACK AT THIS TIME PERIOD THIRTY YEARS FROM

NOW?

York:

I suppose that thirty years from now we'll look back on it as having

been a very difficult period. One in which some pretty... one in which

some rather dangerous mistakes were made. But I hope that people will

look back and realize that even so, we... did... we were doing our

best.

Interviewer:

AND THE REVERSE OF THAT QUESTION, IN 1945, WAS IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO

HAVE PREDICTED THE WORLD WE'VE GOTTEN TO TODAY WITH PERMANENT PEACETIME

MOBILIZATION OF FORCES AND BRISTLING WITH WEAPONS? IS THAT VERY

SURPRISING FROM THE MINDSET, OR WAS IT ALMOST...?

York:

Well, you know, it...what happened is different from what was expected,

but in both directions.' People thought there would be more nuclear

weapon states by now than there are. Many people thought there would

have been another military use of nuclear weapons. So... no, we

couldn't possibly foresee the world that we've got. But you know, the

errors in our projections were in both ways. In some ways it's not as

bad as we were projecting and in other ways it's worse. It's not as bad

in that we had expected there to be more nuclear states than there now

are. And many people had even expected there would have been a nuclear

war along the way, a small one. On the other hand, it's worse that

nobody really conceived there would be so many weapons that the... that

the time in which they could all be delivered would be so short. And

that the move away from human control towards automatic control would

have gone as far as it is. Now we're still not there, but the fact that

we're moving towards it is a bad thing. So there, it's turned out to be

both better and worse than people projected in 1945.

Interviewer:

COULD YOU TALK ABOUT THAT TIME LIMIT? I MEAN THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN

HISTORY WHERE NUCLEAR WEAPONS CAN DESTROY [US?] IN FIVE MINUTES, TEN

MINUTES ON BOTH SIDES. TALK ABOUT THE PRESSURE OF THAT, HOW HARD IT IS

TO LIVE UNDER THAT.

York:

Well, one of the special problems of the nuclear age is that the

delivery time is so... is so very short. Intercontinental weapons can

perform their task in a half an hour. Weapons mounted on submarines can

do it in 15 minutes and, or even less, if the submarines come in close

to our shores. So that the warning time is extremely short compared to

what it was... compared to what it was before the introduction of

intercontinental ballistic missiles. And the short warning time

compared with the enormous destruction of each, of each payload, has

created problems which are unique to modern times. The at the present

time we still plan to, and conduct our retaliation, through the...

through the intervention of human beings. I mean the decision to

retaliate will be made by the highest authorities. The problem of this,

the problems created by this short time and by the possibility that the

time may become even shorter at some future date, is that it will no

longer...it will seem that it's no longer possible to allow human

intervention, and that the only way we can maintain an adequate

strength of retaliation is through somehow automating it. Now that

hasn't happened, but the longterm trends lead one to worry about it.

Well, I haven't handled that very well either.

Interviewer:

THAT'S ALL RIGHT. THE FIRST PART OF IT WAS GOOD. I'M JUST GOING TO ASK

YOU TO SUMMARIZE SOME OF THE MORE SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS YOU MADE.

YOU KNOW THAT YOU THOUGHT WE SHOULD MOVE TO OF A FEW HUNDRED WEAPONS ON

EACH SIDE. TAKE THE TACTICAL WEAPONS OFF OF THE BATTLEFIELDS AND OFF

THE SHIPS AND GO TO A NON-FIRST USE POSTURE.

York:

The the goals that I would like to see us moving toward in terms of our

forces are that we would change our policy to where it's a minimum

deterrence policy only, to where the total number of weapons we

maintain of course, in a symmetrical...a bilateral basis for the

enforcement of such a policy, for the conduct of such a policy would be

reduced to somewhere between a few hundred ICBMs and a few thousand.

Where battlefield weapons, tactical weapons, and naval ship-to-ship

weapons and so on would all be... would all be removed. And where

the...we...the...we have made maximum and optimum use of arms control

treaties, of alliance policies, of negotiations to maintain the highest

level of stability and the lowest level of confrontation.

Interviewer:

I'M JUST GOING TO ASK YOU TO REDO THE BEGINNING OF THAT. WHEN YOU SAY

MINIMUM DETERRENCE, I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE PUBLIC DON'T

UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS. SO JUST TO SAY SO THAT WE'RE JUST DETERRING

NUCLEAR WAR AND NOT OTHER USES OF FORCE.

York:

Mmm-hmm. I would like to see us move towards a world in which our

nuclear strategy is a strategy of minimum deterrence. Which means, that

we maintain nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of deterring the use

of nuclear weapons by others. And we don't plan to use nuclear weapons

for any other purpose including deterring other kinds of aggression

other than nuclear aggression. To see us move towards a policy, towards

a strategic policy of minimum deterrence, which means a policy in which

we maintain nuclear weapons solely for the purpose of deterring the use

of nuclear weapons by anyone else, and not for other more general

purposes, deterring other forms of aggression.

Interviewer:

OK.

York:

It's my observation that every President has concluded that the nuclear

war cannot be won and must not be fought. In most cases they came into

office believing that, and their earliest and their first experiences

with the nuclear forces under their command strongly reinforced those

views. Ronald Reagan was a little slower in that. Ah, it may have taken

him as much as two years to arrive at those same conclusions, but he

did -- but he also did. And I expect that future Presidents will do the

same.

Interviewer:

IS IT A SOBERING THOUGHT FOR THEM WHEN THEY LOOK AT WHAT THE WAR PLANS

REALLY ARE?

York:

Well, when the President actually gets to any -- when a new President

actually gets a look at the war plans, and the same thing applies for a

new Secretary of Defense, and a new Deputy Secretary of Defense and

others it is always as... in my observation, an extremely sobering

experience.

Interviewer:

WOULD YOU SAY SOMEONE LIKE CARTER THAT ALSO HAPPENS -- AND CONCLUDED

THAT JIMMY CARTER STARTED OUT WITH THAT PRESUMPTION, THAT AT THE END OF

THEIR TERMS THAT THEY WEREN'T QUITE ABLE TO ACHIEVE WHAT THEY HAD HOPED

ONCE THEY CAME THAT REALIZATION.

York:

Well, it speaks to the realities, yeah.

Interviewer:

THEY COME OUT OF OFFICE THAT...

York:

Well, that would take a lot of discussion. I mean I, you know, I can

discuss that, but I... but that's the kind of thing I like to do in

writing, because it's...

Interviewer:

JUST REALLY SUMMARIZE WHAT IT MEANT TO YOU.

York:

During the Carter Administration when I was involved in the negotiation

of an anti-satellite... of a treaty that, whose purpose would have been

to eliminate anti-satellite systems I had a chance to discuss the

question with a man named Alexander Shchukin who was a Soviet delegate

to the SALT negotiations then going on in Geneva. And I remarked to him

that the development of anti-satellites by the Soviets, I mean they had

a program going for quite a few years would have to be taken by us as

provocative and as... calling for a similar response. And knowing that,

as the Soviets must have known it, how did... how was it that they went

ahead with this program anyway. And his answer to me was along the

lines that many people have discussed in connection with our own

situation, and that is that bright young people in the program come up

with these ideas. Push them, become convinced of their importance; push

them, push them, push them, and sometimes they break through the

bureaucratic resistance. And that is in the... that he suggested is why

they had gone ahead with the anti-satellite.

[END OF TAPE E13016]

Interviewer:

...THE MILITARY CONDITIONS ARE FIRST USED IN EUROPE AND WHETHER IT

WOULD REALLY WORK?

York:

There are many problems connected with the use of weapons for

battlefield purposes, tact purposes in Europe not the least of which

that, is the question of whether the political authorities would ever

be really willing to a them to be used. And it's my experience that

many of, many of the military, I don't know what the consensus is, but

certainly many people in the military take a fairly dim view of nuclear

weapons in Europe and see them as... in peace time and even in the,

perhaps the early phases of actual battle as interfering with, the, the

conduct of the w by conventional means. Many people are posted Europe

specific, for the sole purpose of maintaining and controlling and

carrying out operations with nuclear weapons. They're available for

anything else. There are delivery systems which are reserved for

nuclear purposes and may not be available for other purposes. You

combine that with the possibility that the highest authorities may not

ever agree to the release of nuclear weapons, it seems, and in fact,

the political process is so complex that there's every reason to doubt

that they ever would. You combine all of those factors and so there's,

there are a lot of doubts within the western military, the American

military, about the utility about maintaining a lot of nuclear weapons

in Europe.

Interviewer:

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION TO THAT, TO MAKE THE WEAPONS MORE USABLE, LESS

USABLE, TO WITHDRAW CONVENTIONAL FORCES?

York:

Well, the--many people see the defense of Europe. The well--solution as

being the maintenance of adequate conventional forces so that it

simply...never becomes necessary to rely on nuclear forces for the

defense of Europe.

Interviewer:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

York:

Well, I think it's entirely possible to maintain an adequate level, an

adequate conventional balance in Europe.

[END OF TAPE E13017 AND TRANSCRIPT]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Herbert York, 1988

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-dn3zs2kg8q

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Description

Credits: Interviewee2: York, Herbert F. (Herbert Frank)
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 21d07538cd47ae59aa14521b5a0b7fd25ff3068a (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Herbert York, 1988,” 1988-03-12, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed September 16, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-dn3zs2kg8q.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Herbert York, 1988.” 1988-03-12. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. September 16, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-dn3zs2kg8q>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Herbert York, 1988. 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-dn3zs2kg8q