War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Fred Wertheimer, 1987

When we first got involved in in 1982 and it was following a long debate by our governing board in the decision that or are going to zation should be involved in the nuclear arms control issue. Right. The the arms control discussion. The reason we decided to work on the AMEX. There are a couple of reasons we decided to work on the IMAX. We were looking for a place where we could get involved as an organization and for us that means to get citizens involved in lobbying the Amex was an ongoing battle. And it was a weapons system fight that made no sense at all this was a turkey. It just did not make any sense to build this weapon system and yet it there it was going along

so we saw this as a target of opportunity to stop a weapon system that did not make any sense and at the same time to in effect involve teach citizens that they could be part. Of fighting over the most profound issue facing the world that is the issue of arms control. Well I think. We're there. Already. The next the reason that we chose to get involved in this fight. Was because of the fact that you had a missile that made no sense. A process that was moving forward. And a process in which citizens and the Congress really played a minimal role. So we were challenging both the weapon system

and the notion that the nuclear priesthood really should make all the decisions here that it was that it was an exclusive territory in which citizens citizens groups members of Congress really did not have a role. Well one of the major reasons we chose the max was that it it just wasn't viable. It was there was just no case for. It did not hold up. It was vulnerable. It didn't meet any any really basic tests. It was it was defeated. It just didn't make sense to go forward and the only reason it was moving forward was because of the established notion that anything the administration wants it gets anything the Pentagon wants it gets. And one of the things we were out to challenge was the idea that if an

administration wants a weapon system it gets it whether it makes any sense at all. Well I think there had been I think there had been fights over nuclear weapons systems in the past. But the reality was that there had never been a case where an administration had wanted a nuclear weapon system. And had had it denied and therefore we saw that if we could stop this system. We would change the whole dynamic of the Sishen making in this area. That is to say for the first time the Pentagon and an administration would have to understand that there was a larger dimension to these fights that citizens had to be heard that there were other players that had to be taken into account that simply was not done and had been not done and in our view prior to this battle.

Well the Amex was a symbol of a far larger struggle. It was a fight over a missile system but it was much more than that. It was a way of basically showing that the way in which we were deciding on arms control policy in this country needed to be changed. It was a way of changing that policy. And it was also a way of helping to establish an organized lobbying constituency for arms control issues. The constituency that had not existed before. While the base email then was dense pack. And that was a basing mode that. That had was totally discredited with the result that

the Congress rejected it. And and from that we went to the Scowcroft commission report which was very dealt with a number of issues. But in my view it was the Scowcroft commission was created by the administration to rationalize and justify building DMX. And it was it was yet another turn in the road in the effort to build a first strike Amex weapon system. Anyway. Well because at their request this is this is I think this was commonly recognized as a first strike system the administration originally was requesting 200.

Maxes and even at 100 IMAX I think the Air Force may claim now that it's not a first strike weapon system but I think most people accept the fact that at a hundred or 200 M-x weapons we are dealing with a first strike weapon system. Beats me I don't know why they wanted a first strike weapon system. I don't even know why they wanted the M-x. I mean we spent all these years arguing about the window of vulnerability that was the whole reason for the for the M-x in the first place because of the window of vulnerability then they cologne comes the Scowcroft commission report and they tell us there is no window of vulnerability. So why were we doing this in the first place. This goes back to what I was talking about. This is the process of decision making in the nuclear arms arena. And people were used to basically deciding this is what we want and then we just go do it. And would doesn't matter whether we can

justify or not it doesn't matter whether we can really make the case if we think it should be done we'll do it. And that's part of what has been changed forever. By the battle over the Amex because slowly at first but eventually everyone learned that that is not the way of the world anymore that citizens can fight it. That members of Congress can fight it and that you basically are going to have to really justify your rationale and your case. You're not going to get it any more simply because you say well I won it and therefore I'll have it. That was one of the basic issues at stake in the M-x fight and I think it's an issue that we won. Yeah.

Well you know the question of the window of vulnerability and the and the extent of weapons and weapons power depends on where you start from. If you view this as a constant race in which you we have to do better than they and they have to do better than us and you keep going and going and then you lose sight of the basic question of how much is enough. It is more than ironic that today we're sitting here with President Reagan. Pushing for a 50 percent reduction. Now the administration or people in administration who are still want to go from 50 to 100 Amex is at the very time that this administration is pursuing a 50 percent cut. That's the notion of saying we better build these things quickly so that we can destroy them if we don't get a bill now we won't even have time to destroy it. So you can make these arguments if you do it on a relativity theory. It's kind of like you know playing jacks or playing with an erector set to see who can build the highest

building or toy. But but if you try to deal with this with a little more reality then there are relativity factors here about how much is enough and what's the cost and what are we really doing with ourselves and I think that had been lost sight of. I think that is back on the table now. The M-x fight is A is A is A is a big part of it. The budgetary situation in this country is a big part of it. I think we are headed in a totally different direction today than we were at the time of the M-x fight. Now that leads you to a question of why some people would argue well it was precisely because of this build up and what the administration did that were now strong enough to do this. There's another argument that says the administration was on a course in the mid 80s. A nuclear arms policy course in which the M-x was the centerpiece. We blocked that course by blocking the

M-x and we forced a change in thinking. Now you can you can have both of those factors involved but the bottom line is by blocking the Amex we force the administration to change its strategic thinking. And I think that that is not only a major contribution to arms control but it's precedent setting. And furthermore we did it and I say we buy all of the groups all of the citizens all of the leaders in Congress we did it by Congress becoming a part of the decision making process that is brand new also. So some very dramatic revolutionary changers really did occur in this Amex fight in the whole process of decision making over nuclear arms policy. Well in President Reagan in the early I mean President Reagan created. Certainly

created the atmosphere for the whole nuclear freeze explosion. What needed to be changes or change was the message. President Reagan's message in the early years was in effect was let's build and build and build more and more and more weapons and hit the history of President Reagan was a history against arms control. So his message was a nuclear arms race into the future ad infinitum and that simply. Never made sense. It didn't make sense economically. It didn't make sense strategically. It didn't make sense domestically it didn't make sense from a national security policy standpoint. Well all the M-x missile was doing in this process was upping the

stakes upping the tensions increasing the need for the Soviet Union to respond. It was kind of a classic part of the traditional game will pop them will top them. And therefore what it does what it would have done particularly as a vulnerable first strike weapon system was simply increase the nuclear threat increase tensions increase the need for the Soviet re-union to respond increased the need for us to respond to the Soviet Union it was part of the the arms control spiral. Arms. You were right. Well all of our approach on nuclear arms policies I think depends on whether or not you are seeking and looking for arms control treaty agreements. Or whether you're

simply taking an approach of wanting to build as much as you can in the early and middle years of this administration. The approach was to build whatever we can build and to go for broke in that kind of atmosphere. I think it becomes very important for pressures to be brought to bear to say wait a minute this is the wrong direction. And that's what the M-x fight was about. Now if you're strongly pursuing arms control policies then you have potentially a different set of judgments to make about what steps you take. If you're starting from the standpoint of trying to get out from this spiral from this maze but by and large a large part of this is a nuclear game it's a game. How much do we need now the

relatively relativity is important. We don't want to be in a vulnerable situation. But there is so much out there and this cost so much money. And the economics of it are insane. That's the priority the thrust has to be to figure out a way to get off of this hook to get off of this narcotic of more and more arms. If that is your main goal then when can look at these questions of what do we do very differently than if it's not and up until very recently that was not the articulated goal of this administration. Well thank you. Well I've had this discussion at least with Norm Dicks basically in my view. The movie Rush I'm on is very important to all of us that's a movie

where lots of people looked at it and saw different things happening depending on who eyes you look through. The bottom line here in my view is not that the Scowcroft commission reformed Ronald Reagan and turned them into an arms control. Fanatic. I don't believe that was the case. I do believe that today we are seeing serious efforts at arms control. I also believe that the battle over the M-x. And then the battle over SDI in terms of pressures to force us away from a go for broke attitude helped contribute to the arms control approach that exists today. So if Les Aspin and nor Les Aspin and Norm Dicks want to take credit for their role in this thing I think the fact that we

beat them. That we overcame the Scowcroft commission report that they did not get what they agreed to in the Scowcroft commission report is a much stronger reason for why we are today. Their proposal the result that they would have come forward with did not prevail in this process. Well the Scowcroft commission did not want 50 m axes. This goes to the question the Scowcroft commission recommended 100 Amex as they were continuing the notion of a first strike weapon that was blocked that was blocked in Congress ultimately with the support with people like people like Chairman Aspen. But that product of the Scowcroft commission was not implemented. And that's the final That's the bottom line. The result

is that report was not implemented and it is from that point that we wind up going to where we are today. So if you want to bring the Scowcroft commission into this. I think you have to look at the fact that it did not achieve its goal. Well a number of members of Congress were very upset by the role that some of their colleagues had played in the Scowcroft commission report because there was a basic feeling that these members had been used and in fact were thereby undermining the position of many members of Congress who opposed the Amex the Scowcroft commission report in effect had a deal in it. The administration would get 100 m axes. And the members of Congress who were part of that deal. Would get the midget

man that's what their long term goal was. Well the feeling was that in fact that this is just a charade that the administration really was setting this up because all they wanted was 100 m axes and the midget man would never be built. And there was very strong opposition to the M-x in Congress and that opposition was being undermined for a deal that people felt was a lousy deal and would never come to fruition. And that is why there was a tremendous animosity in the House of Representatives in particular. And in fact the battle went on and the administration and the Scowcroft commission did not get what they wanted. They did not get 100 am access. And when they finally wound up with 50 m axes they did not have a first strike weapon and they were not satisfied and they're not satisfied today. Meanwhile the administration went through the motions of saying they were for midget man but they've

never been for the Pentagon continues to resist it. It was an awful deal. It was a one sided deal. Fortunately it never got played out because the Congress ultimately blocked the M-x and blocked the Scowcroft commission deal. Right. Well it just never seemed like much of a deal to a number of people including our organization. But the irony was that most people felt even even if conceptually the deal made sense it was a phony that the administration was in effect holding out something to people that they never were prepared to give and therefore that it was it was

a false deal. It was a phony deal. But it gets the question also of dealing you know you get your weapon system. I get my weapon system doesn't exactly seem like a way of solving the arms race. It seems like you're getting more and more weapons systems and. And you know so this was a compromise and the compromise was instead of having zero new weapon systems we get to. Well there are there are a number of strong arguments that can and have been may have been made in favor of midget man and they all stem from and start with the whole notion that it will increase stability. You go to the first question which is do you have to build a new. Land

based missile for starters do we really need it. But the larger question now is those ques those discussions that were taking place on a different plane. It was in a different world. Today we're looking at questions of potential 50 percent reductions. In those days the discussion you know the fight or the resistance was to a nuclear freeze. My God a nuclear freeze it will destroy the world. Now we have both sides talking about 50 percent reductions. So you have to look at midget man in a somewhat different context today. The stability factor in midget man does give you an argument for why it's better than say the Amex on the other hand. We're going to be building midget man into the future with the costs involved if in fact there's a good chance or a chance that we could cut by 50 percent reduction so we're dear we're playing on a totally different field today.

Than we were in the early and mid 80s. Why. Well the Scowcroft commission recommended 100 m access the groups working on the outside wanted zero m axis. We did not believe there was a case. We still don't believe there's a case for moving forward with the M-x missile system. And that led to an incredibly intense of fight. And part of what came out of that fight was an organized grassroots constituency that did not exist before we met weekly. Dozens of organizations met weekly. We involved these organizations tens of thousands of citizens

around the country. And we did it over and over and over again we musta had seven or eight votes in one two year period we kept coming back time and time again I've never quite seen a fight like that where you lose but you make up a little ground and you keep coming back and back and back and the tensions were enormous There were incredible tensions inside the Congress particularly within the Democratic Party. And as we kept going forward the support within the Democratic Party kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And the fight over 0 was lost by a very close vote. The next fight was lost by a very close vote. But that was it. We were able to establish legislatively a permanent statutory cap at 50 M-x missiles

and. There's no way to describe this other than as a brutal fight. This was a very very tough battle. Tempers flared. There are hard feelings still left from that battle. But the bottom line result was. Not the weapons system the administration wanted not the weapons system that the Scowcroft commission fought for right. Well. The few yelling and shouting and screaming. Discussions outside the chamber of the Congress. I don't. Know.

I don't know if I think of anything offhand. Let me know. I remember vaguely remember it but but there was. I think one second I'll see if I come up with anything. Well the one the one. On. One battle we had on the air max was one of the most incredible fights I've ever seen there were three votes and one day in the House of Representatives and they were decided by three votes and then two votes and then one vote. And people were scrambling around trying to find people who were absent to bring him back. There was a dramatic moment when it was

a tied vote. And time was out and one member came running into the chamber and no one knew which way the member was going to vote. And he finally voted against the emic with M-x weapon system. The scoreboard kind of looked like a basketball game with the with the votes changing back and forth. This was a this was it. The tension was enormous. And the sense of accomplishment when it was finally over was was rare in the in the legislative arena. As I say for many of us we were not simply fighting over a weapon system. What we were fighting over was changing the way our society decides nuclear arms policy. And when you translate that into Congress and you get down to votes that are being decided by one or two votes and when you've lost five and six and seven times in a row

and then you come up and you win by one vote it's the kind of event the kind of moment. That that legitimizes everything that you and many thousands of people are working on and have been working on for years. It's it was kind of like finally getting to Broadway opening night. The reviews came in and it was a smash hit. We had done it. No one believed we could do it. No one thought that outside groups members of Congress could stop. The president of the United States the Pentagon. The military establishment the defense contractors and we had done it. And I think by doing it we have changed this process. For the future. Well two things First of all the fights not over. We knew it wasn't over than.

We have been we have been paying attention to this and fighting it ever since 85. What we say is we stopped the weapons system the administration wanted which was a first strike weapon system and we did do that. And in doing that it was the first time and administration ever was denied the weapon system they wanted. If you want to understand what we did take a look at the fight that the fact that the administration is coming back year after year trying to figure out how to get to the next stage so they don't have what they wanted. But yes the fight goes on right now. The fight continues and we are in this fight and we expect next year. That the administration will come back and try to move the M-x to that hundred M-x stage and we will be back again trying to protect what we've won we did win that fight. Now we have to

protect it. And I remember very well Chairman Aspen saying that the fight is over. There will never be more than 50 m axes and we hope and we look forward to him leading the way next year to make sure that does not happen. We haven't gotten into that now. Our organization has not been involved one way or the other in the midget man fight. Our focus was the M-x fight. We're still involved in that and then we moved on to the whole fight over SDI and Star Wars which has taken a lot of our time but we never lost the M-x one of the basic rules in Washington anyway is any time you ever win a fight. The next day the other side starts working to try to take that victory away from you. We have tried never to

lose sight of that in the Amex fight but we have not been involved in the management. We are fighting today. Any efforts to take the M-x from 50. To 100. We will fight any efforts to take it from 50 to 51. The Scowcroft compromise. That was engineered. Was not successful. It did not happen. Their compromise it was 100 m axes and then midget man. We did not get 100 m axis. We blocked it at 50 we did not get the first strike weapon. We do not have the midget man today and it's a long way

from being a reality if it ever becomes a reality. So I would say that compromise was blocked. And I would argue by blocking the administration by stopping them from proceeding along the strategic path they were going. We and those who worked to stop it have helped create the situation that exists today. Well. I don't think that the compromise the Scowcroft commission compromise is responsible for where we are some people may argue like Representative dicks that it was this compromise that pushed the administration into this position. I would argue just the opposite. I would argue that it was the blocking of this compromise

that helped set the stage for us moving towards arms control. After all the Scowcroft commission compromise came at a time when no one was talking about 50 percent reductions. And the Scowcroft compromise was two weapons systems 100 m axes and the midget man. Now that compromise doesn't didn't occur and I don't think it takes you to arms control. We blocked it. We're at arms control. And I think I would argue just the opposite of what Representative dicks does. Yeah. I think there's a far stronger argument that it was taking away the Amex blocking the hundred m axis that forced us to arms control. Then the argument that entering into agreement to build 100 m axis and midget man is what got this administration into arms control.

We blocked that agreement and were at arms control today and I think it was the blocking of the agreement not the agreement that helped get us closer to arms control. So. I don't know. I don't know that I can tell that story because I don't I don't remember whether I don't know that he had full control over the scheduling on that. Well we knew when the freeze came up first in this process that it was going to have impact on the AMEX. We know it one of the reasons we organizationally were interested in the Amex fight is because it was a fight over money and and and that you ultimately have to

win fights over money in this process. Actual dollars in order to have impact. We know that was a problem. Well there were some real guns there. Well there were some real heroes in Congress in the Amex fight and the effort to block it. Two of them more representative less so. Coyne from Oregon and Representative Nick Mavra Liz from Massachusetts one serving on the Armed Services Committee and one on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. And they just did an incredible job. Representative Aucoin really played a central role in articulating the case against the M-x in challenging the Scowcroft commission report. He did a wonderful job of publicly arguing that this

was simply a rotten deal a bad deal to be making. And similarly representative maverick led the fight in the Armed Services Committee. He was affected. Forceful. He's known as a moderate and very thoughtful on these issues. And he was a tiger they were both tigers and you can't win this kind of fight you can't win any fight in the United States Congress and less you have people willing to go out on the line and two of those people in this case were less Aucoin and Nick Mavra lists they just did a fantastic job. Well again Barney Frank is is just now. Barney Frank was a terrific leader in this fight. Barney Frank is one of the most articulate skillful floor debaters and he's

tough and he got into the middle of this battle even though he wasn't on one of the committees did not have jurisdiction over the issue and he was just a forceful advocate and insistent on making this case and he was a fabulous leader on the AMEX fight. He was out there all the time he was pressuring pushing the leadership pushing the supporters. Whenever you have a fight in the United States House of Representatives you love to have Barney Frank on your side one of the one of the really skillful things he does is to show through Yuma how ridiculous some of the positions are that show up in the Congress. He uses you. Much more skillfully than the United States would have used the M-x weapon system. And in this case his YOU murder and his skill and his

articulateness wasn't really a big factor in helping to block this. The attitude towards Well you know at the time of the dense pack fight the ridiculousness of dense pack is demonstrated by the fact that it was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Representatives. And defeated in the Senate at a time when there were strong majority support in both of those bodies for the max. I mean Dan's PAC was was a joke an absolute joke it was a laughing stock. And even though the support. Continued for the Amex when they switched off dense packed dense packed played a very important role in discrediting the M-x. Because it showed the height of ridiculousness and stupidity that people were willing to go to. To try to argue for the Amex. It showed it was the ultimate

step and saying we won it therefore we get it. And you all are fools. So if we have to give you something here here's dense back here's a basing mode. Now go vote for it. And basically the Congress said and the country said no no we're not fools. This is stupid. Go away. And they just sent it away. I. Thought. The following is your own tone for the interview. You know just trying to buy something. You're.

Just right on the right. Well for many of us we were Polish to the max and we said so. We didn't think the M-x missile made sense the argument for it was the window of vulnerability. We spent years hearing about it in the Scowcroft commission told us no no no no window of vulnerability. But the majority vote in the Congress comes from a combination of forces from those people who did not believe in the M-x missile and people who might have bought the M-x missile if it had a acceptable basing mode but rejected it on the basing mode being unacceptable so you had a coalescing of forces. It wasn't it wasn't a tactic. It was a reality that if the basing mode didn't work and didn't make sense the missile should not be brought built.

I would. I think it predated it. It was kind of the beginning of the process but I think the what spurred the frieze movement were two things the president of the United States appearing to be reckless of appearing to be someone who who was not sufficiently worried about the danger of nuclear arms. And in that sense the M-x felt fed into that a sense that that we had a present United States who who just was hell bent on challenging the Soviet Union and and we could wind up in a macho game that sense plus a simple idea that swept the country. I view President Reagan as the father of the of the frieze movement.

I think the frieze movement sensitized the country to the fact that as a people as citizens we have to pay more attention to nuclear arms policy and in turn set the stage for being able to build the organized constituency that tyde citizens all over the country. Into a very effective skilled lobbying effort in Washington. That combination. Brought down the Amex that the administration wanted and it came out of this big bang explosion that occurred with the nuclear freeze.