War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Andrew Goodpaster, 1986 [1]

What's on the president's thinking what about nuclear weapons when he was trying to decide. What to do in 1953. Well of course he brought with him from his service and in shape as a supreme allied commander for NATO in Europe. Some. Ideas pretty well formed ideas about the role of nuclear weapons. I had worked with him over there at the during his time at shape. Some of us went back to the time of the formation of the command when we were trying to reconcile as the as the term was the requirements of effective defense with the political economic capabilities of the member countries there was a big study. Three Wise Men Harriman Monet and and Gates Gill initially then ploughed in for the United Kingdom made a study which culminated in the so-called Lisbon goals. Now those Lisbon goals were

well beyond what any of the countries were prepared to provide. The idea there was that the NATO countries would provide 30 divisions on active duty and up to 90 divisions total active and reserve. And that was far beyond what was in prospect at that point. Account was taken of the possible role of nuclear weapons. And in fact in the late 1952 early 1953 we made a major study of what the role of nuclear weapons could be and indeed would be likely to be in case a conflict should occur after a small study group which I was a member made that study. We then presented the findings to the higher NATO authorities

and and indeed came back and presented the findings to President Eisenhower who was by that time the president this being I think in some time in 1954 and what was the result of that study that they really were usable and that he told us that they had to be taken into account and if used really could have quite a stunning and halting effect on any major attack launched against the NATO forces. And of course having the capability to do that. Added to the deterrent it gave confidence that this war was not likely to occur and indeed that was the role of nuclear weapons a primary role over the years and and has remained so if you can describe how things look to you and to General Eisenhower when you were

in Paris. How did this situation look to you there. Initially when General Eisenhower took over the command we had almost nothing in the way of organized forces. One anecdote that was told was to ask what do the Russians need to move to the channel and the answer is all they need is shoes because there were very few weapons that would be opposing them. Now we went to work in the planning immediately to see what forces would be required in order to mount a respectable defense and an effective deterrent out of that came a determination that we needed something like 30 divisions on active duty and as many as 90 total active and reserve. Now that was much more than the countries had any plans to

provide. And. In order to deal with that gap so to speak that disparity. We plan to rely on the nuclear weapons that were then coming into existence. Recognizing that if those weapons were never used against a master attacking force it would have they would have devastating effect and their existence meant that there was a powerful deterrent to the Russians thinking about moving by force against any of the countries of of Western Europe. So that entered into Eisenhower's thinking. We did some planning small planning group of staff officers of whom I was one set about to determine what the role of the nuclear weapons would be would be likely to

be in case a conflict were to occur and it was clear that they would have a very powerful effect against any attacking force. We then move that into our planning which of course was basically deterrent planning. Eisenhower himself carried that back to the states in his own thinking when he became president and it entered into the so-called New Look the idea that nuclear weapons had to be taken into account in any major conflict. Our little planning group in fact came back to the United States sometime in 1954 during his second year of his presidency to present the results of our of our studies. In the meantime of course he had done a lot of studying and had had many very careful analyses made of nuclear weapons not only in the regional

application possible regional use but also in the in terms of their use in the strategic forces. Talking a strategic forces. What did the phrase massive retaliation mean for the president any right. Well he like Dulles the president like Dulles always made a differentiation between massive retaliation and a capacity for massive retaliation. The idea being that the existence of that capacity would impose restraint on certainly on the Soviet Union or any one else planning to make a major attack against American interests. Now I think Secretary Dulles went a little further thinking that the existence of those weapons and the threat of their use could dissuade other powers than the Soviet

Union and and communist China. I think Eisenhower himself felt that their main significance was to impose restraint on on those two great powers. So what was the president's reaction to the criticism especially from the army that by relying too heavily on massive retaliation and especially on SAC and by line the army particularly in terms of manpower that he was not going to be able to respond in a limited fashion. It was not a threat. It was a very fixed part of Eisenhower's view to avoid commitment of our forces in every way possible in such a limited or small scale operations. The lesson of Korea had been a very bitter one to our country. He was able to accomplish the

disengagement from Korea and he had no. Desire to be drawn into interventions of that kind. And this remained a continuing difference between him and the army throughout his whole term of service. His answer really was it isn't a problem because it isn't going to happen. He didn't intend to allow it to happen and I have to say he was rather skillful at finding ways to avoid that kind of of commitment. He recognized that that this might occur. And I know that he discussed it with Secretary Dulles at a later point of his administration and he recognized that the possibility existed that through minor operations of that kind. Our position around the world could erode but he felt it was really up to the countries of the area in the first instance to provide for their security.

And his notion was to limit. Any support that we gave. The that again and Eisenhower's idea was to limit any support that we might decide to give to material support to training support. And that kind of thing without becoming involved and particularly without becoming involved with troops on the ground. One example where it might have happened the United States might have found itself involved in limited or was of course the one that said crisis of 1955 which you yourself were involved in. Can you give us an idea of especially how close you think the United States came to using nuclear weapons on that occasion and what the president's attitude was that the background of that was that the mainland Chinese had

mounted threats against two other sets of islands along the Chinese coast. And we had perswaded I think would be the right term. Chiang Kai shek to evacuate those islands. He then moved to Quemoy and Mat-Su and he he felt that those were under under threat at that point. President Eisenhower sent me out to Hawaii to Pearl Harbor to talk to Admiral stump who was our commander in chief in the Pacific to get his assessment of whether the mainland Chinese could successfully attack Quemoy and Mat-Su. Admiral Stump's assessment was that if the nationalist Chinese on Formosa and on Quemoy and Mat-Su had as much as three weeks to prepare a defense then it was unlikely that the Chinese from the

mainland would be able to overrun the island islands. Now in the meantime we would be in a difficult and vulnerable and uncertain situation as it turned out they did not press the attack and the Nationalist Chinese built up a considerable force which would have made the islands quite an expensive thing to take had the mainland Chinese attacked in that early period then we might have been confronted with a situation where the Nationalist Chinese could have been defeated or destroyed burring our intervention that would have presented us with a very difficult policy decision and it was to assess that the likelihood that Eisenhower President Eisenhower had me go out and talk to our commander out there just during that

period that the president made his famous statement at a press conference that when used for military purposes there's no reason why you shouldn't use atomic weapons just like its effect on European allies among others. Do you think he really meant that at that time Eisenhower was thinking very much was that any kind of military conflict that he would allow for a country to be drawn into. I would if necessary be pursued by the weapons at hand then at that time I I believe that was part of his thinking that if necessary we would employ that understanding. Eisenhower you have to know that he would be thinking of something else at the same time and that is the fact of his saying that would exercise a considerable deterrent on the mainland Chinese because

of course we had the background of his similar action making clear with a threat of possible nuclear use in Korea in order to bring that war to an end. Do you think it was the case that if the Chinese had attacked during that three week period and if the president had decided that those islands should be defended. And of course neither of those might necessarily have happened was the United States capable of defending those offshore islands without using nuclear weapons in fact. Well there was there was an argument at the time as to whether we had the capability of defending them by conventional means alone. We had had considerable statements to the effect that we had reduced our conventional capability because of this policy. Part of the new look

of relying on the nuclear weapons and I recall Admiral Redford who was then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff telling the president Mr. President if that is not our policy we had better know that because that would imply having a greater conventional capability than we are now planning on and providing for. I think as the years went along we began to rebuild some of our conventional capability because it came to be recognized that we would have to exercise considerable restraint in terms of the actual use of nuclear weapons for anything but an all out or a life or death situation that wasn't a factor in evolution in the president's thinking about them about nuclear weapons and particularly the Soviet H-bomb was involved in that could you describe how that happened. I would say that Eisenhower is thinking evolved very considerably over this period and a major event in that evolution was

the attainment of the thermonuclear weapon the H-bomb by the Soviet Union on our side. He had been here had studied the significance of the thermo nuclear weapon that came. After his time over at shape. But we were even during that time subsequent to his departure a shape. We studied the the significance of the of the thermo nuclear weapon. He was doing the same back here in this country and in particular he had a a study made that showed that the thermo nuclear weapon in combination with a long range rocket and the improved accuracy of the long range rocket that made a a new weapon a weapon which really created a new strategic situation the possibility of very sudden and

just completely devastating attacks against the going right into the homelands of the two largest powers. So he he became increasingly concerned about that and looked for ways of trying to turn back to reduce to eliminate to control this buildup in these terribly threatening and terribly powerful weapons and was out of that that his interest grew in the atoms for peace and in disarmament arms control negotiation to try to eliminate the likelihood of a surprise attack the so-called knockout blow affected the president's thinking. Well that takes us back. It was in

in 1952 that our own device was was exploded and then this was weaponized as the saying goes in about the next year. But it was really when the Soviet Union exploded their H-bomb that Eisenhower began to to concentrate on what this meant in terms of the prospects of war. The H-bomb combined with the long range rocket and more accurate means of targeting meant that a devastating and sudden and tremendously destructive blow could be delivered by each country against the other. He began to think about that and more and more his thoughts turned to some kind of arms control or

arms reduction. The. One. One element of his thinking was the atoms for peace trying to convert the use of the of the atomic power to peaceful means uses alone. The other was to introduce disarmament efforts arms control efforts negotiations to eliminate the likelihood of a knockout blow. As the as the term was against the forces or the industrial industries and populations of of the two countries. One of the fairly early attempts at Arms Control was the president's open skies offer the Geneva Summit in 1955. Did he really expect that that would be accepted. And can you go on to tell us about its reception by the Soviets and

the president's reaction to that. The president thought that there was at least a chance that the Soviets would enter into negotiation. And if we could not obtain the complete the results that he proposed that is the open skies and the exchange of military blueprints to ease the tension and reduce the causes of of concern on both sides that the if he couldn't attain all of it he could at least attain some of that. So he was hopeful that there would be a positive response. In addition he wanted them to see that he was reaching for peaceful measures. Now he presented that to them. It was rather a dramatic thing. And the initial reaction was expressed by Bill Gannon who temporised and

said well they would have to talk about it and think about it. We broke up shortly after that from the formal session and went into tea where there was always some informal discussion after the after the main meetings and during this tea Christophe who was the co-leader of the Soviet delegation came up to Eisenhower and he said no no no. And Eisenhower said later that at that moment he knew where the power really was in the Soviet delegation that Khrushchev was the man in charge. How did he think about Khrushchev and that is that his thinking about Khrushchev develop the remaining years that he was. He he saw Khrushchev as a very strong decisive volatile astute well-grounded greatly experienced leader quite quite

an able and effective leader. I think Christophe's unpredictability and volatility. Troubled Eisenhower as troubled as the troubled many other people. But he also felt that it was important to have exchanges of views and build an understanding on Khrushchev's part that we the United States really saw no no merit in resort to the military mode of of interaction with them. How seriously did Eisenhower regard this threat of surprise attack especially against SAQ against our means of retaliating. And if you could answer that question both before while the threat was to one of bombers and then later on missiles.

I don't think that Eisenhower was too deeply concerned with the threat of a knockout blow during the time of that of the bombers so to speak. We had an air defense at that time no attacking force could be sure. How many would get through what the results would be and so on. So the notion that there could be a kind of a of a devastating first strike that would completely destroy our ability to retaliate. That didn't seem practical. He wanted us to have a capable air defense. That was part of his program at that time. Now that changed and changed quite decisively when the long range rockets began to appear there then became the possibility that this

could be launched with a high prospect of success high enough so that he had to be concerned that the possibility might be tempting to the Soviet Union if they got themselves into some kind of thinking that this was something that they wanted to do or had to do it and so on that then became a matter of concern and of such concern that he sent the negotiators to Geneva to open up discussions with the with the Russians to very highly qualified scientists went there and conducted discussions for quite a long period of time. He also of course took measures. Well we'll come to that in a minute past that. Did he give any thought at any time to protecting the United States by preemptive strike if it was clear that the Soviets were going to attack rather than

waiting for them to attack and retaliating. Well we had had in some of the statements by some in some quarters proposing such things as preventive war he thought that was just arrant nonsense. And I think those are probably the exact words that he that he used the idea of of escalatory preemption if you were in a war situation. His idea always was that it becomes very very difficult to predict in advance how military operations will develop once the there has been resort to war. But the idea of deliberate calculated preemption from our side as to initiate conflict. I never saw any evidence that he seriously entertain that. But I make a difference there

between that and escalatory preemption if you're engaged in a a struggle then no one can predict which weapons will be used and at what time on either side somebody. Robert Sprague to be precise says that General Lemay told him in 1957 that he General Lemay if he learned from his own intelligence that the Soviet Union was massing for an attack would as he put it get the bastards before they could get off the ground. And when when Robert Sprague said to General dismay that he's not national policy according to Mr. Spraggs general and I said well it may not be national policy but it's my policy. Do you have any reaction to that story. I think there was an awful lot of nonsense being purveyed at that time. The law says that the president has the authority to determine the

firing of nuclear weapons and only the president and President Eisenhower certainly knew that he held that authority to himself. The serious point about ideas of that kind as it as it developed during our inquiry into this was that sac might not be prepared for the kind of thing that might happen. Instead they were preparing for the kind of thing that was very unlikely to happen. And so this also entered into Eisenhower's concern about the knockout possibility of a knockout blow he wanted to take steps to eliminate or reduce that possibility because he he simply was not about to be placed in a position of permitting that kind of anticipatory response.

Nice try. World out there in Omaha to a very considerable extent Eisenhower. Is true that at that era there were no actual physical constraints like the mist of action things that came in later that could actually physically have prevented I mean I suppose in if you want to conceive of it that it would have been physically possible. General the live of these these bombs without the present day stuff in any period subsequent to Cromwell. In English speaking countries I find it very hard to imagine it's really it's almost impossible to imagine but what I'm saying is that we are now as I understand it physical constraints mean that you've been out the Kurds you can't do it. Whereas at that time that hadn't been brought in. No but there was a very clear understanding at the time that any authorization to use these weapons had to come from the president. And regardless of any internal

planning or or concepts that might have been developed. Eisenhower was the man that would control that. And I think everybody understood and accepted that. Yeah. What was the president's reaction to the gate report and also can you go on and tell us about his reaction to the private meeting that happened in the oval office afterwards when Mr. Sprague gave his warning about femininity. The Gaither of the gave their study and then the Galer report began with a concern as to whether we were we had sufficient and adequate civil defense program that if there should be a attack on the United States had we done what we should do to protect our people and to enable them to to survive and recover from such an attack as the study

proceeded they got more and more into this question of the knockout blow and our abilities to get to retain our forces as a retaliatory force in case of such an attack. Now in preparing their study they had access to all intelligence information some of the most sensitive kind in terms of the sources and the methods that were used to produce it. And that was reflected it was interlarded through their report. They came in and gave their report to Eisenhower. And my own reading of his reaction was that they're simply telling me a lot of things that I knew perfectly well already and jumping from that to proposals for a crash actions that don't seem to me to follow. And so he was not too strongly persuaded then we got into the

problem that because he did not plan to take any crash actions the people many of the people who participated in the report were dissatisfied. It began to leak and their calls began to arise for the report to be released. Well it turned out that you couldn't release it without sanitizing it as the saying goes to to remove this very sensitive material if you remove the sensitive material. The thing didn't make any sense it was just riddle the report. Then there was the thought well we will have a sanitized version rewritten. Of course that would have no credibility at all. So we were really in a difficult situation and the result of that was that Eisenhower came under a good deal of pressure and he found it very difficult to respond to that pressure. What was his specific reaction to the private or semi-private meeting

after that began to seem easy on November the 7th when Mr. Sprague warned the president that in the case of attack with any tactical warning not a single bomber a sack could be guaranteed to get off the ground with a full bomb let him be able to retaliate. How did that cause Mr. sprag record the president sitting there saying nothing for two minutes past the president. I think felt then as he had felt about the Gaither report as a whole that this was well known to him and he was interested primarily on what could be done about it. One of the things done about it was to institute a program of airborne alert for a very limited number of aircraft. That's very wearing on the aircraft in terms of maintenance and spare parts and keeping up the readiness of the of the force. But in order to get around that that's what he was interested in. The the people that participated in this saw a much more dramatic

effect than than Eisenhower did. And of course I think that was part of his normal reaction. He he did not like did not respond when people tried to dramatize or alarm him. Instead he looked for the practical steps that could be taken that might alleviate this and where he parted company with them was when they somehow coupled the idea of a crash program of producing intercontinental missiles to the findings of the Gaither report. He did not see the reason for a crash program. And on that position he came under pressure and under attack from people who wanted such a program for the remainder of his whole administration. What did I what did the president say to you.

Immediately after that meeting with Mr. Sprague My recollection is that as the as just after the meeting he was talking about it and he said hell these people come in here and they tell me things I have known all along. And then either then or at a later time the couple that with I'm not going to dance at the end of the string of these people that come in and try to give me all these scare stories that I have known about all along. And his whole method was to reserve to himself for very sober reflection and consideration the actions to be taken. And he was just adamantly opposed to militarizing increasing the militarization. If I use the term of the of the confrontation of the of the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States that ran exactly

counter to one of his major efforts throughout his whole administration. One of the other pressures on him to perhaps increase that the trisection with the intelligence estimate that coming through right through this period. Can you tell us about his first reaction when the intelligence community started professing a bomb again. Well the bomber gap was a public term. I don't think the intelligence community itself used the term but they were showing the possibility of a large buildup in Soviet long range bombers. And I discussed this with them and over a period of about a year maybe two years. He asked. And I looked back to see what they predicted. The year before. And in looking into that I found that what happened was that the estimate had remained very much the same but had just slid for about a year and the reason for that as it turned out was that they were

estimating that the Soviets might employ some of their industrial capability to increase this their productive facilities for bombers. They did not in fact do that and because they didn't do it the rate of production remained really quite low and there was no bomber gap. By the time we came to the missile situation and the proposals for a crash program because of some anticipated missile gap we began to look at the same thing. Let's look to see what actual facility is. They seem to be using to produce these or to deploy these missiles. And our intelligence did not show them engaged in any massive or very rapid buildup. And it was for those reasons that he concluded that there had never been a bomb or gap that had always been a a fiction.

And as he put it the missile gap shows every sign of being the same some of his critics and for example one of the public panics was the journalist Joseph Allsopp accused in then and for that matter now of relying on estimates Intelligence Estimates of Soviet intentions rather than on the worst case estimates of their capabilities. In other words of trying to guess what the Russians would do instead of only counting on what they could do. And also argued that that was at the time given the evidence available. I think he said criminally responsible. What's your reaction to that. The if you took the industrial I'm sorry if you took the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union.

You could speculate on what they could produce if they used it for bombers if they used it for rockets if alternatively they used it to increase their ground forces or if they used it to increase their submarines and so on and depend on depending on what assumptions you used in that particular area of worst case you could get kind of a horrifying result. There's nothing like a little bit of hard evidence and that's why we praised very highly the evidence that we were able to get through photography of what they were in fact doing because that would show which of these possibilities they might be following. I would have to say that there is an implicit estimate of intent on the part of those who say well this is what we've got to plan against because that assumes that it is the intent of the Soviets to direct their limited very great. But but

nevertheless still limited industrial and technological capability into a particular area. We preferred to try to get hard evidence as to just what they were doing rather than speculate that they were going to throw all of there are so much of their industrial capability in into the production of these weapons. And you had sufficient evidence you believe that in the late 50s for example to make that judgment we had a considerable amount of evidence you'll never have as much as you would like and there's always a margin of uncertainty. But if you check back on this after a few months to see were they in fact doing what we estimated they were doing on the basis of hard intelligence. We found that are estimating process was really pretty good basing it on the information of that kind. What was the president's reaction to people like Joseph Allsopp or perhaps even

more. Thomas Lanphier the man who resigned from Convair What was his reaction to those kinds of people particularly their access to intelligence and so on. Well I recall one time he called me down a little bit I was I got a little exercised at some of the charges being made against him which I knew were quite untrue on the basis of information intelligence that I had in fact briefed him on. And he just said Don't get excited about that. He said he knew that the American people have just had an awful lot of trust in him to look out for what was best for them in terms of their safety. Now he did resent very very strongly anybody who had access to official information and then used it in order to try to heat up and to to alarm our people over the

need for further military forces that he resented very very strongly. He felt that he had a great responsibility there. He was trying to deal with it responsibly. He had a great responsibility. Well yes he resented very much anyone who had access to official information and then use that in order to generate a public alarm or concern attack on the programs that had been worked out by those bearing responsibility in the government. And that was true. Some of the people in the Congress were pushing for these credit crash programs some of the people out in the industry were pushing for the crash programs and some of the people in the military and of course that's the

origin of the famous military industrial complex. He made a dual point. We have to have these weapons we have to have a very powerful force but because we do and because these are powerful elements in our society then it's up to the people to keep a careful watch to see that they don't have undue or unwarranted influence. Do you think there were specific examples of to influence that he was thinking of when he made this speech. Oh yes. He felt that the kind of pressures that were being exerted were unwarranted. They were not warranted by the facts and they were not warranted by the position that the people held. He held the responsibility of as the president recommending these programs and he felt that for others to to try to influence these decisions was unwarranted and improper.

On a slightly different. Subject this as this continues into his rivalry that went on right through the period as well. What was his reaction to that and how did he try to cope with it any time. Well he knew that the services of course where each trying to get as big a military budget as they could. They were trying to modernize it. Excuse me as rapid a rate as they could. He felt that it was necessary for someone to maintain control over that. He felt that no one was in better position to do that than himself in detail of course it would be the secretary of defense. But out of his own experience he was completely confident that he had a very good appreciation of just how much was really required. He then understood that there would be this rivalry for budgets and there would be some undercutting of each other. Now that's any time there was criticism by one service of another in order to try to enlarge their own budget and

program that he felt was improper. Also I think he felt that because of this rivalry we were not putting the Strategic Plans and the policies as uppermost but that the rivalry itself had become a dominant factor and it was with that background that he then made his proposals in 1958 for the reorganization of the Defense Department to clarify and strengthen the authority of the secretary of defense to clarify and strengthen the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff their joint role their national role rather than their service role and to establish commands in the field which would not be linked to a particular service but would be responsive to the overall direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense and the president that he didn't really succeed in

taking that robbery very much didn't he. He had what I would call a a fair measure of success. The the authority of the secretary of defense was greatly strengthened and when Secretary McNamara came in he made clear how much it had been strengthened because he did exercise strong control. I think he would have been disappointed in what was achieved with regard to the Joint Chiefs of Staff their joint rule never became the the driving or guiding factor to the extent that he would have liked to see. I think he felt that the field commanders were well set up. But of course during his period there wasn't time for them really to evolve or develop too far. So it was a partial It was a partial attainment of what he had in mind.

Why do you think. That different way. Between about 9:57 and 961 I think I'm right in saying the strategic arsenal nearly triple. There were constant requests for more bombs more bombers in the heart of soccer in particular and then of course you had pylorus and the missiles coming along as well. What was the president's reaction. Again on one occasion I think in 1958 the AC asked him to have another plutonium reacted to be able to make enough antennae to satisfy the demand. What was his reaction to this desire for more and more I'm at a tiny town and how he increasingly felt that we were going beyond the bounds of anything that was sensible at all and that's the kind of term that he would use in talking about this. He had by that time set up the science advisory committee after Sputnik that

was restored and greatly strengthened and he was increasingly looking to them to make a rational overall analyses of what was required. In addition he had a net assessment group which was responsive to the National Security Council that investigated what the effects of a nuclear nuclear conflict would be. And out of that more and more he felt that we were going reaching the point where more just didn't make very much sense. Now one thing he did support was to go to modernized a better more controllable system such as the he was strongly in support of the naval system the Polaris because it had this invulnerability and therefore would be in his view a stabilizing element of the force. Also the

Minuteman was was a solid rocket and he regarded that as much more dependable much more reliable than the early forms the Titan and the atlas that were in the initial generation. But he felt that increasingly that additional forces in this of this kind simply didn't make much sense and yet he did authorize that tremendous increase in the nuclear arsenal and particularly the bombers and not the other things but the bomber force went on expanding right up to the time that he left. Well he supported the B-52. He thought that was a very fine system. He was not persuaded by the. I think it was the be 70 that they were proposing at that time. So he wanted to keep a

diverse force at the same time. He wanted to and he wanted but he wanted to concentrate on the improved systems. He authorized what he called a bulge in 19 say 1958 1959 because the military services came to him and said we now have these improve systems that we are bringing into existence. But we have to maintain and continue the old ones. At the same time. So he authorized what he called a bulge of $3 billion in the defense budget authorizing it to go from 35 to 38 billion. I recall talking to him on occasion and asking whether he thought he would ever see that three billion go down again. And I think it's fair to say that he really expected it to stay at that higher plateau.

So was there any wanted at that level of the White House the level where you were actually deciding how many bombs would have to be manufactured or how many bombs were to be produced. Was that the kind of decision that only indirectly you had the will on how many bombers to be produced. Yes. That would be contained in the budget and it would be contained in one of these budget issues that would go to the top of the Pentagon to the secretary of defense. And in all likelihood would come over and be argued before the president with regard to the weapons themselves the warheads themselves. That argument generally came in terms of the capacity for the production of nuclear material. Did you require and specifically opening up a new reactor or something of that kind that's when those decisions would would come about.

And Eisenhower would was resistant very resistant to the continuation of the the production of large numbers of these weapons. But of course he had the arguments being made against him coming from many many directions from the Congress and from the military services and and elsewhere. The impressions rather given that he he didn't take much interest in the actual war plans of being tied down. Mahara what the targets would be or how these weapons would be used if the towns failed. Would that be right. He took an interest in the sense of wanting to see that we had coordinated plans for very reliable and effective operations in case they should ever be required. And with that in mind he authorized an Under Secretary Gates

there was set up the single integrated operational plan he had been concerned over the fact that different people were planning on different bases doing different things. So in that respect he was interested in it. He had a saying though which he attributed to von Moltke is he attributed a great many things that the plans are nothing but Planning is everything. In other words having the information at hand having the process by which the plans are made that was very important. But the plans he he had no idea that they would ever be carried out exactly as written. So was he alarm for example when KOSKY came back in the fall of 1960 and told him that in his view in his view the THAN YOU psyop plan involved massively excessive amounts of mega tonnage and radiation and so on.

I think he found that confirmation of the of the view that he had developed. We often talked about the effect of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and if you think of multiplying that by any factor at all those effects are devastating. And the notion that talking about a thousand or more of these warheads made any kind of military sense that that notion was he just didn't accept that at all and yet he didn't do anything about it. When it comes down to it except to initiate his work in the direction of arms control arms reduction arms limitation he felt that that was the way to try to bring this thing back under some kind of control. He recognized that the pressures from the military would always be for more and more and more from the Congress. They would have their friends in the Congress from the industry. And then

there would be some people the publicists and so on who would certainly be supporting them. And he was trying to generate a a counter action that would have a lot of public appeal as indeed it did. I think that his his initiatives in the field of disarmament and arms control were very well regarded very well received by the American people. He certainly had that view. Most of them didn't get very far because of the Soviet reaction. One that might have done of course was the summit meeting of 1960. Do you think that if it hadn't been for the U-2 disaster that that was. Do you think that was a chance that was missed. Oh I think so and he did as well. He was that was one of the very disappointing effects of of the U-2 affair and the breakup of the summit conference and the withdrawal of the invitation for him to visit Russia. He had thought that he might really have an effect in

conveying his views and those of the American people to to the people of the Soviet Union. He was he was deeply disappointed because of the results of the U-2. And so if you can just say that you think that was a great missed opportunity. Yes it was a missed opportunity and I think he saw it as a missed opportunity. That was the the price that we paid for having conducted this operation. On the other hand when when this was discussed shortly after the U-2 affair he said Now I want any one of you who think that the U-2 program was a mistake to tell me that he would have been willing to give up all of the intelligence information that we gained through that program. And I can tell you there was silence all around the room. And he better than anyone else I think foresaw what the effect would be if we lost one of

these tools. But even so he felt that it was so important to know what we needed to do in the military field and to know what would be excessive if we went beyond that that he was willing to pursue that without the facts. Knowledge States would have been a great deal greater than it was with you know. I think that it would have it was even though we did not disclose the U-2 operation it was held to a very small circle. It gave him added reassurance that what we were doing met his view of of what the security of our country required. Finally this is being certainly was an attitude shortly after the Eisenhower presidency that he being complacent that he being a golf player and a fisherman didn't

really know what was going on in his administration. What's your. Well I think the more recent scholarship now has given a much better picture of Eisenhower. He was a very complex man. I myself felt that. I never saw his hole cards so to speak. And I suppose in this field I was the closest to him of anybody. No he was he followed it very very closely. He didn't like his hand to show. He oftentimes made clear that he expected others to carry the public presentation of these policies. One of the best examples of that I think one day Jim Haggerty who was his press secretary came to him and and on some problem and the president told Haggerty what to say.

And Haggerty said if I say that the press is just going to eat me up and the president clapped him on the shoulder and said Jim better you than me. So I think more and more it's understood that here was a man who had a deep understanding of the processes of government. He was using them. You can make a question could he have pushed harder and in many of these areas. But to answer that I think would require very serious and deep inquiry to understand the whole complex of pressures that existed in our country at that time and those pressures were reflected in his comment about the military industrial complex for example in his final address to the nation. As you said he was trying always to demilitarize the relationship with the Soviet Union that spectacularly hasn't happened since 1961. What do you think his reflection about the present era the present climate would

would be if he were alive today. Well I have to go to your to your first statement there. I think that relation has been demilitarized. It's much less harsh than it was at the outset of his term. It eased during his term. I think the. Facile references to war and nuclear war and so on that existed in the early 1950s those are gone now. And occasionally there may be some excessive rhetoric but there is a much deeper understanding on both sides of the just the terrible catastrophe that a nuclear conflict would represent. And there are negotiations and discussions of many many kinds which I think do serve as a restraint and do move in the direction that he had in mind were certainly not as far along as he would

wish. And the but we're better off than we might have been. And we have survived what 40 years now of the existence of the bomb without it being used other than in the case of the the final use in Japan and that is no small achievement in a world is as dangerous and as fractious as this one is