War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986

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Transcript

WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES CO5001-C05003 MARCUS RASKIN

Response to First Strike Proposal

Interviewer:

INTERVIEW WITH MARCUS RASKIN. MR. RASKIN WAS ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY

COUNCIL STAFF IN 1961 AND 1962. YOU READY? DURING THE BERLIN CRISIS IN

'61, WHAT CONTINGENCY PLANS WERE YOU AWARE OF? IN PARTICULAR, HOW DID

THE FIRST-STRIKE OPTION GET DEVELOPED?

Raskin:

Well, at the time of the Berlin Crisis, the President, President

Kennedy had asked for the preparation of a first-strike document, uh,

which could then be the basis upon which the United States could have a

first strike, uh, of the Soviet Union. In the event that, uh, the

Soviets either moved on Berlin directly, militarily, or the Soviets

undertook activities that the United States felt, uh, uh, would be

against its interests. The first-strike arrangement... the idea of the

first strike, uh, of course had, uh, its, uh, uh, uh, origins in the

idea of counter-force: that is, the capacity of the United States to be

able to destroy the military targets of the Soviet Union, uh, first,

and that the Soviets would not be able to retaliate against the

urban-industrial land-space of the United States, uh, in such a way as

to make a first strike impossible to attain. A paper was, indeed,

prepared, uh, uh, by the Department of Defense, and with one of the

assistants, uh, at the White House, Carl Kaysen. That paper, uh,

suggested a way of undertaking such an attack.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE PARTICULAR PLAN?

Raskin:

Well, the plan basically, as I recall, was the use of SAC to go under,

uh, 1,500 feet, uh, in a bombing run, uh, over Soviet territory and

over Soviet military targets, and that the, uh, the way that it would

be done by SAC would allow for the American, uh, planes to, uh, escape,

uh, Soviet detection; and the result of that would be that the Soviets

would be able to take out, or destroy, as the... the case, the phrase

may be, ah, ah, only a few American cities. Uh, the problem with this

particular, uh, proposal, uh, was that, uh, first of all it probably,

uh, wouldn't work, and second of all and far more important was that it

was im-, immoral, that it had as its basis the destruction of tens of

millions of people, for, uh, ideas... of interests that really had

nothing to do with the national interest -- that is, the idea of

national interest for the American people.

Interviewer:

SO THIS WAS A NUCLEAR STRIKE WITH BOMBERS?

Raskin:

This was a nuclear strike with bombers, that's correct.

Interviewer:

AND DID WE ASSUME THAT THE SOVIETS MIGHT BE ABLE TO STRIKE BACK?

Raskin:

The assumption was that the Soviet would be able to strike back, but

probably, uh, not destroy more than five million American lives. There

was no reason to suggest that the strike would be so limited. Uh, in

any case, uh, President Kennedy and other advisers of, uh, uh, other

Kennedy advisers, were horrified at this notion of, uh... that we would

undertake a first strike of this kind. And, uh, my understanding is

that the President rejected it directly. But the problem with all of

this is, of course, that, that the Department of Defense was generating

this kind of study, undertook to have the kinds of defenses, that is,

the kinds of uh, armaments and missiles and so forth, which would allow

the President the option of having that kind of an attack on an

adversary. And the result of that sort of attack on an adversary would

be, to a very great extent, genocide of, uh, the United States, because

it would mean that another k... another, uh, uh, an adversary would be

able, uh, to destroy the urban-industrial land-space of the United

States. Our studies suggested at that time that it wouldn't be five

million people who would be killed, but it would be well over 25

million people who would be killed.

Interviewer:

YOU SAY "OUR STUDIES."

Raskin:

Studies that were done at the White House by different people at that

time. But beyond that, and most important, was the notion that this was

an illegal, immoral act, fundamentally illegal and immoral and that it

was no different than the kinds of planning that were held to be war

crimes under the Nuremburg, uh, judgments.

Interviewer:

HOW DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT THIS PLAN?

Raskin:

Well, I learned from a, ah, ah, member of the White House staff who had

been part of the preparation of the, of the plan, and after, ah, I

became apprised of it, we had a very...

Interviewer:

LET'S GIVE HIM A NAME. CARL KAYSEN?

Raskin:

No, I don't mind calling him Carl Kaysen. But, uh, uh... Carl Kaysen's

position was that this was a, a technical plan which had to be looked

at. My view was that this, uh, did not separate us from those people

who, uh, uh, worked on those, engineers and technocrats who worked on,

uh, figuring out how large boxcars should be for sending people to

concentration camps, to Dachau and Auschwitz, and indeed measuring or

figuring out how large the gas ovens would be, because indeed, ah,

nuclear weapons had become, in my mind, then, and certainly I, there's

no cause to change my view on this, that each nuclear weapon of a large

size was no different than a, er, a congealed, uh, concentration camp,

a congealed Auschwitz.

Interviewer:

TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU LEARNED ABOUT THIS FROM KAYSEN. WHAT WAS

YOUR REACTION?

Raskin:

My reaction was one of horror... Uh, we had had a close relationship

over the course of the time that, uh, he and I served in the White

House, and, and it had uh, it came to, I think, a, a, an abrupt

estrangement at that point, because of a, uh, a long fight, argument

that we had at that time, uh, which lasted for several hours. And I had

made the argument that, uh, that I could not see the difference between

us and those engineers and technocrats who tried to figure out what the

size of boxcars would be to send people to Auschwitz and Dachau, and

that furthermore I couldn't see the distinction between ourselves and

those engineers who worked on the, uh, uh, the gas ovens of Auschwitz

and Dachau, and so, needless to say, this... heightened emotional sense

caused a very strong reaction on both of our sides about, uh, what we

were arguing about. Uh, as I recall, Carl's position was that this was

a technical question, a technocratic question, and we had to take a

look at this as an option. And I felt that these were not technical

questions, that these were moral and political ones, and that it meant

that certain questions were beyond the pale. And I viewed that that

boundary could not be crossed without, indeed, men becoming beasts.

There's been nothing to change my mind about that.

Interviewer:

WE'VE ALWAYS HAD A NUCLEAR SHIELD OF WESTERN EUROPE EVER SINCE NATO WAS

CREATED. DO YOU DISAGREE WITH THAT?

Raskin:

I view the nuclear shield as, ah, at best something, uh, that, uh, is a

way station. The fact of the matter is, however, that if nuclear

weapons are used, and they destroy tens of millions of people, hundreds

of millions of people, this is a form of genocide, it is the

destruction of humanity and the destruction of nature. I do not view

this as a weapon of war, which is supposed to be a weapon at a --

weapons of war are to be proportional. There is nothing proportional or

proportionate about nuclear weapons, in terms of... serving particular

interests, or helping -- uh, even, indeed, ending a war -- a, uh, in

terms, ah, that would make any sense for either party. So I do not view

them as weapons of utility. I furthermore think that the preparation,

that is, the use of weapons, uh, nuclear missiles, for the purpose of a

first strike, also is a war crime. So I see ourselves caught in a

terrible, terrible dilemma: on the one hand, we have put so much energy

into nuclear weapons, ah, as if they are protective of our interests;

but the reality is, on the other, that they, uh, do open us to the

charge of destruction of civilization and war crimes. So in that sense,

I have spent the last generation attempting -- I mean, in this area --

attempting to find a means, an alternative, to the war system, and to

the idea of a nuclear shield: an idea -- that is, the/ the nuclear

shield notion -- is one which, uh, in fact, immediately breaks down, if

nuclear weapons end up having to be used.

Interviewer:

LET'S GO BACK TO '61. WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THE SOVIETS HAD CUT

OFF ACCESS?

Raskin:

At that time -- let me suggest, uh, uh... and, and later I, I wrote a

book to this effect, called After 20 Years, uh, with Richard Barnet --

we did outline, in rather excruciating detail, what an alternative to

the direction we were moving in Europe would have been, in terms of

both the protection of west Europe and the increase of freedom in east

Europe. It did relate to the ideas that were put forward by George

Kennan in the late '50s, and Adam Rapacki, who at that time was the,

uh, foreign minister of Poland. And they had to do with, uh, a nuclear

disengagement and then a disengagement of troops in west and east

Europe. Had that course been followed, at that time, in my view, we

would have been in a far stronger position in east Europe, and the

people of east Europe would be breathing much freer air today than they

presently are.

Interviewer:

OKAY, BUT YOU'RE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND YOU TURN TO

YOUR NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER AND ASK, "WHAT DO I DO IF KHRUSHCHEV

CUTS OFF ACCESS?"

Raskin:

Well, there are a number of things that you can do. One thing that you

could do is break off relations with the Soviet Union. You could send

the ambassador home. You could develop an embargo, uh, of different

kinds; you can go to the, uh, United Nations, as one example; ah, you

could do a whole series of different sorts of things that could have

been done, uh, and in fact later on were done. We... as, as, as, as it

turned out we ended up recognizing East Germany, in fact, which was

exactly what Khrushchev wanted. He wanted us to recognize East Germany,

and then to deal with the access problem th, uh, through East Germany.

Basically that was the decision, that was the position that was cut a

few years later by, uh, Secretary of State Kissinger. So it was not

necessary to heat up the atmosphere, to think that you had to use

nuclear weapons, uh, to deal, uh, in a diplomatic way with the

particular problem at hand. And we've had the habit of using

sledgehammers, uh, to kill flies. And it doesn't make sense, just as we

have not understood that a war system itself will be the end of

civilization; it is the excrescence of civilization. War is the

excrescence of civilization, not its protection.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS MAC BUNDY'S REACTION TO CARL KAYSEN'S PLAN?

Raskin:

I don't know directly what Mac's position was with regard to the plan

put forward by the, uh, the... some people in the Defense Department,

with Carl. Uh, the important point to note is that in fact it was

rejected. It was rejected by, ah, Ted Sorensen; uh, and I assume that

it was rejected by, uh, Mac. And I assume, as well, that in his heart

Carl thought it was absurd. I know that, uh, Wiesner thought the whole

thing was absurd. And I thought it... as, as I did, I mean, it was both

absurd and immoral, you know, it was foolish. Now the problem, as I

said before, the problem with all of this is that you have military

bureaucracies, and think tanks, paid for by the Defense Department,

whose task is to generate the use of these weapons, and so they become

the rationalizers for the development of these weapons, that is, the

think tanks, and the military, ah, ah, the Department of Defense.

Ultimately, if we're not to destroy ourselves, if we're not to degrade

our own lives, we're going to have to understand that there are other

ways to go.

Interviewer:

WERE YOU SORT OF THE GADFLY IN THE NSC OFFICE AT THAT POINT?

Raskin:

Well, I would say that that would be kind!

Interviewer:

I MEAN, WERE YOU ALWAYS CRITICAL OF...

Raskin:

No, I'm saying that that, that that's a kind way of describing how I

was known, that that... you know, I mean, the, the answer is yes, that,

that I was known as, uh, having my own views on the use of American

military power and the position that the United States should take

vis-a-vis what later came to be known as the Third World, and so forth.

That, uh, that my view was that so much of what could be done, uh, with

the rest of the world could have been done diplomatically, that it was

not necessary to have a, uh, a military buildup, from $39 1/2 billion

to $51 1/2 billion in the course of a year and a quarter; that that

would get us nothing, that it was a mistake to enter into a continuous

war situation in Indochina, that we didn't know what we were doing,

that the people, uh, thought that because they saw points on maps they

really understood what those cultures were -- we never did, we never

understood that. And so I was a one-man band for a particular period,

ah, against hubris, against the arrogance of power. But the fact of the

matter is that other people also agreed with different positions that I

took. And I agreed with them.

Interviewer:

AFTER YOU HAD THIS FIGHT, HOW LONG DID YOU STICK AROUND?

Raskin:

Well, that fight really I, I stayed until, uh, the.... actually for

another year, until, this was, the fight occurred in the summer of

1961, and I stayed as an adviser on national security af-, affairs

until the following summer. Ah... the reason that, uh, I, uh, uh, left

was, uh, related to two books which had come out at that time. That is,

in March of 1962. Books that I had edited and co-authored. One was

called The Limits of Defense and the other was called, uh, The Liberal

Papers. They were done, uh, basically under other people's names, ah,

but those, uh -- The Limits of Defense made clear that there were very

grave limits to deterrence, and to counterforce, and that ultimately we

would have to find a way outside of that policy in order to protect the

security of the United States. The Liberal Papers dealt with an

alternative foreign policy, such as the recognition of China and other,

you know, other matters, which were viewed at that time as very hot.

And so the Demo-, the, uh, Republicans, were very, uh, strong in

calling for my resignation, and, uh, indeed what happened then, in the

late spring of, uh, 1962, is that I was, uh... reassigned, to work on

education matters in the Bureau of the Budget.

[END OF TAPE C05001]

Nuclear Arms Race vs. Nuclear Disarmament

Interviewer:

THE MCNAMARA YEARS, THE EARLY 60S, WERE THE TIME WHEN THE NUMBER OF U.

S. MISSILES WAS UPPED, AND IT HAS REMAINED THAT WAY EVER SINCE. WERE

YOU INVOLVED IN THESE DISCUSSIONS?

Raskin:

Well, you'll recall, during that period, we, uh, had a large number of

nuclear weapons, uh, on airplanes, and one of the theories, uh, of the

time, was that somehow, uh, airplanes were vulnerable, and missiles

were more or less invulnerable, whether they were Minutemen or, uh,

missiles on submarines. So the, uh, conventional learning at the time

was that it would be better to move to missiles, which would be more

stable...The conventional learning of that time was that missiles and,

uh, submarines were more stable than the, uh, bombs, nuclear weapons

dropped from airplanes, and, uh, the reasoning behind that was that,

uh, they were more invulnerable, uh, less open, uh, to attack from the,

uh, from the adversary, and it would allow the United States not to

have to shoot off immediately. So, at that time, the notion was, uh,

that we should move from, uh, nuclear weapons on airplanes to the

missile system, to the missile and, uh, submarine system. The idea

also, uh, was that somehow, uh, we would be able to limit the number of

weapons that we would have, and that it would be possible, also, to

develop a stable mutual deterrent between both sides. My view at that

time was that I did not believe that it would be possible to develop a

so-called "stable deterrent," that there would always be an upping of

the ante, in terms of the numbers of weapons that each side needed.

Again, I think that, uh, the... past history has shown that particular

point of view correct; those who took that view, I think, were right.

Ah...

Interviewer:

DID YOU WANT ANY NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Raskin:

I wanted... No. The fact is, I have always seen nuclear weapons not as

an opportunity but as a problem. That is one of the most fundamental

questions that we in this nuclear age have to deal with. Are nuclear

weapons an opportunity for defense, or for anything, or are they a

problem. My view is that they're a problem, a terrible and terrifying

problem that we live with and have to learn to live through, to get to

the other side. But that those who believe that somehow... these

weapons are useful for defense and that somehow which are able to do

with them, is, uh, uh, have them in a war-fighting situation, use them

in a war-fighting situation, are indeed doing an extraordinary

disservice to humankind and certainly to this country.

Interviewer:

CAN YOU RECALL ANY DISCUSSIONS YOU HAD WITH BUNDY OR KAYSEN OR MCNAMARA

OR THE PRESIDENT, OR ANYBODY IN THE WHITE HOUSE, WHEN YOU SAID THESE

THINGS?

Raskin:

Well, I said those things constantly to Bundy and to Kaysen... and to

Wiesner and to other members of the White House staff. Uh, not directly

to the President or to McNamara, and the reasoning being, uh, was that

I, uh, did not have direct access to President Kennedy. Ah... ah... Mac

had a wonderful saying that he, uh, felt that he couldn't take me to

Cabinet meetings because he feared that I would pee on the floor.

Meaning that what would happen is that I would make these arguments

and, as you know, there is a bureaucratic language, and to move outside

of that bureaucratic language, uh, whether it's more emotional or more

moral, or more philosophic, is viewed as a very big mistake, and, uh,

so therefore, the lines of definition, and the, the sorts of language

that are used are very narrow indeed, which do not brook the sort of

conversation that one might have privately, uh, with, with people; that

is, you would not, uh, undertake those discussions publicly. But I view

that as an extraordinary mistake. Uh... I myself have felt, over the

years, that, um, the Kennedy period was, uh, for all of President

Kennedy's greatness, in terms of national security, was a very, very

bad time for this country. It laid the basis upon which the development

of, uh, the kind of, uh, direction we now have in our defense posture

was taken, So I view the McNamara period as a very great error.

Interviewer:

MISSILES WERE JUST GETTING UNDER WAY AT THIS TIME. WE LAUNCHED THE

FIRST POLARIS SUBMARINE, I THINK, IN 1960. WHAT IF WE HAD GONE YOUR

ROUTE? KHRUSHCHEV WAS SAYING HE WAS GOING TO "GRIND MISSILES OUT LIKE

SAUSAGES."

Raskin:

Well... Khrushchev didn't say that.

Interviewer:

YEAH, HE DID, AT THE UN

Raskin:

Well, but he threatened- Again, there's ... the capability. They did,

they did. And what he, as you'll recall, had suggested was that there

should be a general complete disarmament program, and had outlined the

idea of a four-year program for general and complete disarmament. The

United States itself, through John McCloy, negotiated a framework for

general and complete disarmament with Zorin, who was a chief ambassador

of Khrushchev at the time. And the notion of that framework was to see

whether or not it would be possible to lay out a... a negotiating

position on both sides to see whether we could, in fact, get agreement

on a joint treaty for general disarmament. That was a correct direction

to move. At that time one of the, uh, leading ambassadors of the United

States was Arthur Dean, and Dean had said to President Kennedy that it

was important for Kennedy to go along with general and complete

disarmament, and to make that position clear, because that was, would

be a position which was imp, as important as Lincoln's Emancipation

Proclamation was in 1860. So that there was a sense, a sentiment, that

we were at the, at a turning point in American history, and we could

either go one way or the other. My feeling is that we chose the wrong

direction at that time. And the real question is whether we now are

able to get back on the right road.

Interviewer:

WHAT DID MAC BUNDY -- LET'S CALL HIM BUNDY...

Raskin:

Well, there was another Bundy at the time, too, who was very active,

Bill Bundy, who was the, as I recall, the... in the Department of

Defense, who was assistant secretary for international security

affairs, but Mac Bundy was the person who had the action, obviously.

Interviewer:

WHAT DID MAC BUNDY THINK OF YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT DISARMAMENT?

Raskin:

Well, I think that Mac was uh, uh, attracted to the idea of general

disarmament. He certainly was attracted to the idea of trying to find a

way of controlling the arms race. And, ah, but the problem with a

number of the people who came down from Harvard was that they wanted it

both ways: that is to say, they wanted to use, they wanted to, uh, use

nuclear weapons as a, uh, an instrument for, uh, threat, and by the

same token, they wanted to manage the arms race, and to see the, uh,

nuclear weapons as a problem. So, in a sense they were walking a very,

very fine line of both arming and controlling armaments at the same

time. The assumption was, of that group of people, that a, uh, that

very smart people would be able to manage the arms race. Smart people

on both sides, in both the Soviet Union and the United States, and that

it would be possible to arm on both sides, ah, as if they were playing,

both sides were playing poker with their cards showing, so that in

effect there would be a joint management activity. But the fact of the

matter is that while the groups, the elites, talked with one another,

the arms race kept getting worse and worse, uh, during this whole

period of time.

Interviewer:

AT THE END OF THIS PERIOD MCNAMARA FORESAW THE SITUATION WHERE THE

SOVIETS WOULD HAVE A SECURE RETALIATORY CAPABILITY, WHAT HAS COME TO BE

KNOWN AS "MAD." DO YOU THINK WE ARE SECURE IN THIS POSITION?

Raskin:

Well, first of all, the Soviets since, in my view, since the late

1950s, had the capacity to destroy the urban-industrial land-space of

the United States. And that their addition of weapons is a problem that

they've got, that they've got to come to gr, grips with as well, so

that for a generation they have been reflecting our own buildups, but

they could still, before the buildup, be... had they just stopped in

1961, they would have been able to destroy our urban-industrial

land-space. So that one of the things that has occurred in, uh, uh, in

the arms race, is that we've forgotten about reality, and taken up a

nuclear reality, which is the reality of perception: They've got

25,000; we should have 25,001. If we have 9,000 and they have 8,000, we

have to build 1,000 more, and so forth and so on. But that has nothing

to do with the actual power of both sides to destroy each other, which

was reached over a generation ago. It's just become worse, in the sense

that people now think that you're able to use these weapons for, uh,

political purposes and for making a point with one side against the

other. MAD itself, mutual assured destruction, is not a strategy, it's

a condition, as, as some have put it. That condition is one which says

that if you do X, we will do Y, which will result in the destruction of

the human race, or some, uh, some variant of that, tens of millions of

people who will get killed. I do not view that as a, uh, as... either a

moral or political system of, uh, of defense for a nation, neither for

the world, in terms of international security, or in terms of national

security, so that in that sense, ah, what we have to do is get to the

other side. Now one of the questions here is that, uh, the Reagan

administration has also seen the, uh, narrowing, uh, validity to MAD as

a doctrine.

Interviewer:

WE CAN'T JUMP INTO THE PRESENT TIME, BECAUSE THIS PROGRAM'S ON THE 60S.

SO, LET'S TALK IN GENERAL TERMS. YOU CAN EITHER ESCAPE THROUGH DEFENSES

OR YOU CAN ESCAPE THROUGH DISARMAMENT.

Raskin:

Right. Okay. So, in that sense, ah, the, uh, that... the American

position at that time was not... was indeed how nuclear weapons, that

is, nuclear weapons as missiles, could be used in either what was

called, uh, uh, uh, a, uh... counterforce strategy, or a strategic

counter-force strategy; that is to say, the strategy, uh, which would

include war-fighting: that is, the trading of weapons, uh, at, uh, at a

strategic level. Now, in all of that, it meant that nuclear weapons

were to be used; they were not to be seen as a problem but they, in

fact, were to be used for political purposes. And as others said at

that time, and as certainly I said, there was no political utility

toward those weapons, that a whole different sense of diplomacy could

indeed exist in the world, and could be developed at that time. Our

problem of that time was that the Democratic Party had come to power

with the idea that the United States somehow was second in terms of

nuclear, uh, strategic, uh, capability. And the reality was quite the

reverse, and the, uh, certainly by March of 1961, uh, Secretary of

Defense McNamara knew that, and other leaders of the administration

knew that; nevertheless, they went ahead and built up, continued to

build up, a counterforce capacity. So it was the wrong direction to

move. Indeed, the correct direction to move, in my view, was the

general disarmament direction.

Interviewer:

CAN'T YOU ESCAPE FROM MAD BY BUILDING UP DEFENSES?

Raskin:

No. I mean, there are, th, th... there are no known, so far as I know,

there were no known defenses at that time. One position that was taken

was that civil defense was a possibility, and, ah, there were various

notions of civil defense: one was a fallout shelter program, which

really could have only been, uh, modestly effective in the event that

the United States undertook a first strike? It was never effective if

the other side undertook a first strike. So it was in fact not a real

program; uh, secondly, I mean, a, a real defensive program. The second

position that was taken was that there had to be active defenses, with

NIKE and so forth and so on. But that was seen during that period as

not to be able to work well, that it was too complex and very, very

expensive. Ah, the other position that was taken was that we should

start with fallout shelters and then move from fallout shelters to

blast shelters and then fire shelters, where indeed we would end up

having a good part of, uh, the American populace underground for part

of the time. Well, this, in fact, was seen as a horrendous condition

for the American people, and one which, indeed, was objected when, uh,

objected to and rejected by President, uh, Kennedy when he spoke with,

uh, Teller, who put forward such an idea.

Interviewer:

I ASKED TELLER IF HE DID THAT.

Raskin:

Teller came to the White House one day and spoke to PSAC, the

President's Science Advisory Committee, where... so, as I recollect,

and this is hearsay, as I recollect, he laid out the importance of a

fallout-shelter program, and that it was important to move to the next

step, which was also a blast shelter, et cetera, program. Ah... Wiesner

then took him to see Kennedy, where he laid out the same idea. Now,

Wiesner will know directly whether or not he said that.

Interviewer:

OKAY, WHAT CAN WE TALK ABOUT IN 3 MINUTES? YOU HAD LEFT BEFORE THE

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS.

Raskin:

I'd left, uh, the, um, the staff... I was reassigned to, uh, the, uh...

Interviewer:

YOU WERE NOT INVOLVED IN THE DECISION-MAKING.

Raskin:

I was not involved in the decision-making.

Interviewer:

WE WANT TO STICK TO THINGS THAT PEOPLE HEARD AND WHAT THEY DID...

Raskin:

Right.

Interviewer:

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE CONVENTIONAL BUILDUP DURING THIS PERIOD? THE

ADMINISTRATION, TO ITS CREDIT, WANTED TO RAISE THE NUCLEAR THRESHOLD.

DID YOU AGREE WITH THAT?

Raskin:

I did not think that was a wise policy.

Interviewer:

WHAT? THE MASSIVE RETALIATION?

Raskin:

No. The giving to the President options for the use of nuclear weapons.

It is always a mistake, in statecraft, to give leaders options that

they really don't have, and to say that you have the option of using

only several nuclear weapons, and so forth and so on, when, in fact,

the war gaming of the time suggested that you would end up involved in

a large nuclear conflict in any case. There was a series of studies

done by the British, uh, which suggested that all of Europe would be

destroyed in a situation of, uh, limited nuclear war, of first only

introducing a few nuclear weapons, and it would very quickly spread to

a large number. There were other people -- as I recall, Tom Schelling,

who put forward the idea of the diffident use of nuclear weapons to

make your point, in some sort of symbolic way; that itself was a

mistaken view, in my view, because what we may view as symbolic, others

would view as something other than symbol... as symbolic, and would

then see the importance from their point of view of responding quickly

with some sort of massive retaliation. That's always a problem when you

give two leaders the notion that they have a lot of different options.

So I was not in favor of the notion of options. Of course, I did not

favor massive retaliation, but the notion that somehow you could move

from massive retaliation to a series of graduated uses of nuclear

weapons was in itself a mistake, because what it meant was that you

were rationalizing the use of nuclear weapons and giving the President

of the United States the notion that somehow he would be able to use

those weapons.

[END OF TAPE C05002]

Build Up of US Conventional Forces and the Vietnam War

Interviewer:

YOU WERE AGAINST ALL NUCLEAR OPTIONS, SO CLEARLY YOU MUST HAVE FAVORED

RAISING THE NUCLEAR THRESHOLD BY A CONVENTIONAL BUILDUP.

Raskin:

No, I did not favor a conventional buildup. Uh, one of the problems of

that time was that the Kennedy administration came to power thinking

that they were able to have all sorts of options and choices at every

level of violence, so there was a buildup in terms of the CIA, there

was a buildup in terms of conventional forces, uh, for the purposes of

sublimated "brush fire" and limited wars. And what happened was, which

is invariably what happens in situations like this is that leaders

think that they do have options in the real world, because they have

all of this military hardware, and all of, uh, and, and, and large

forces. This is a mistake, and indeed what happened as a result of the

mistake, in terms of buildup of conventional forces, was that we

believed that we could enter into Vietnam and win the conflict in

Vietnam. Now that did tie to the Cuban missile crisis. The appearance

is that the United States won the Cuban missile crisis. One could ask

the question whether or not it really, uh, we really did win, because

one of the results of the Cuban missile crisis was that we, uh, learned

from it that the Soviets would stay in east Europe in their own sphere

of influence, and we would be able to go in other areas of the world

without being bothered by the Soviet Union. So therefore, we felt free,

or thought we were free, to enter into Southeast Asia, directly with

military force, believing that the Soviets would not respond. The fact

is the Soviets really did not respond particularly, but the people

there didn't want us to be there, that is, the North Vietnamese didn't

want us to be there, so we entered into this terrible quagmire as a

result of the buildup of conventional forces, without, prior to that

time, making the choices of what sorts of defense we really need to

defend the land, the people, and the institutions of the United States.

We have never started since 1945 with that kind of defense system,

which is the place that we must start with first. Once we start there,

then we can talk about alliances and so forth and so on, but we must

first start with the idea of what is a defense system for the land,

people, uh, and institutions of this country. In that context, we can

then also move to the notion of saying, what is a general disarmament

program that we should enter into with the Soviets and other nations?

something which, in my view, is long overdue. If we don't do that, if

we don't undertake that, what we will see more and more is the decay of

American democracy, as we find ourselves spread all over the world in

small conflicts, always threatening the possibility that those small

military conflicts should, should escalate to large military conflicts,

including nuclear ones, if it appears that we are losing at a lower

level. That is a very, very grievous error. And ultimately what this

will mean is that, uh, the notion that people in the United States

receive protection from the sovereign, from the government, in exchange

for obeisance to the government, uh, we will find that that social

contract will, uh, indeed not exist.

Disengagement from Western and Eastern Europe

Interviewer:

WERE YOU CONCERNED AT ALL ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION OR THE WARSAW PACT AND

THEIR DESIGNS ON WESTERN EUROPE IN THE EARLY '60S?

Raskin:

I was concerned about what was going on in east Europe, and I felt

strongly that what we should do is undertake a security program and a

diplomatic program that would result in the Russians getting out of

east Europe, that would include a pullback for the United States from

west Europe as well. My view was, and remains, that west European

culture is much more attractive and stronger than we, than east

European culture, and the result of that would be, in fact, ah, a, a

coming, ah, a, a, a coming together between both west and east Europe,

in a very good and profound way.

Interviewer:

IS THAT WISHFUL THINKING? HOW WOULD YOU HAVE GOTTEN THE SOVIETS TO...

Raskin:

Well, the fact is that the, the Soviets at that time, in the 1950s, had

agreed to the Rapacki plan, which specifically, ah, moved toward...

ah... indeed... its position was nuclear disarmament, moving toward a

conventional withdrawal. Now, whether or not they would do it today, I

don't know. Ah, under Brezhnev, I think the answer is no, they, ah,

they wouldn't. Under, uh, uh, Gorbachev the answer may be yes. But

whatever their position is, that should be our position.

Interviewer:

SO IF THEY DON'T AGREE TO MOVE BACK, WE SHOULDN'T.

Raskin:

No, if they don't agree to move back, we should indeed, ah, see how

many troops we want to continue in west Europe, ah, in terms of our own

defenses and defenses of the, uh, west Europeans, and, uh, pull back

accordingly, if that makes sense to us. I'm for a negotiated

disengagement, ah, between western and east Europe. I also happen to

think that the number of troops, and number of weapons we have in west

Europe, is far beyond anything that we need.

Interviewer:

I THINK THAT DOES IT. ARE YOU HAPPY?

Raskin:

Fine.

[END OF TAPE C05003 AND TRANSCRIPT]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-fx73t9dd9f

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Description

Credits: Interviewee2: Raskin, Marcus G.
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 8f7ef42d88162b4b3122340db9e8d15433cd4a07 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986,” 1986-03-26, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed January 15, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-fx73t9dd9f.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986.” 1986-03-26. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. January 15, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-fx73t9dd9f>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986. 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-fx73t9dd9f