War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with James Fulbright, 1986

Well, yes, I had a call about noon or the right shortly thereafter, out of Fort Smith, which is in western part of Arkansas, that a plane would pick me up at Fort Smith. I wasn't in Fort Smith, but a little village nearby. So I went up to Fort Smith and a plane from the government picked me up. They already had another man, a senator I bleed from Missouri, and they'd been in St. Louis, and from there we flew to Atlanta and picked up Senator Richard Russell, and I think Congressman Carl Vincent, he was chairman of the Armed Services Committee at that time of the house. And we flew to Washington, and of course in the conversation on the way up to Washington, we speculating about what this was about. They hadn't said anything about what it was about, it just simply would we come and the telephone message. And we speculated, of course, it was about Cuba, but we didn't know the specifics just what about it. We did know, and of course, Carl Vincent and Russell knew that there had been a certain movement of some troops and planes into a Florida air bases.

We thought, and they thought, preparatory to a strike or landing or something in regard to Cuba. It was very much in the news at that time, but we didn't know any specific things, and we just talked about it. And both of them were in the Armed Services Committee, and I was foreign relations. But when we got to Washington, a car picked us up to the White House, we met in the cabinet room, along with other people, from what's called the leadership of the House and the Senate, and thus some of the administration, in addition to the President. And there we were briefed about the condition situation in Cuba, told about the evidence, you know, the photographs taken by our U2s of the installations in Cuba, and they thought it was perfectly clear that the Russians had installed some missiles, I guess, what you

call intermediate range missiles, I guess. And this had to be stopped, and the question was, how to stop them? And they had two, you might say, two alternative ways that were discussed. One was the air strike to take them out, or possibly together with the landing, if necessary. And that would get rid of them one way. The other was to embargo the shipments of any further ships coming in and request them to take out those that were already there, none of them were at that time, operationally it was believed. But they thought they were coming in, so this was discussed, some length, and they... Was it discussed or were you just sort of briefed? I'm sorry, Senator, could you put the piece of paper, I just hear that in your hand, and...

We lower this at times. Is that possible, because I maybe... Yeah, thank you very much. It's a funny sound if you don't know what it is. Thank you, sir. Was it a briefing, or was it a debate or a discussion, or... Well, he told us about the, you know, the background and so on, and then he asked about our views, which did we think was more appropriate, and I remember Russell, whom I was very close to, I thought Russell knew more than anyone. He was in the Senate about arm services, and I trusted his judgment. He thought that an airstrike, a company perhaps by a landing, would be more appropriate than to stop Russian ships on the high seas. If the Russian ship didn't stop, and we had to take it in by force, or think it, would be very provocative of the Russians, and of course he and I also didn't want to precipitate

a war with the Russians, and to take the missiles out directly in Cuba, while it would be provocative, would be less so, because we were acting then again directly against the threat to our country. I supported Russell, but the president had already made up his mind, of course, because he went directly from there to a public statement on the embargo. He had reason to believe, which I don't know, that the Russians, the Russians, would abide by it. Anyway, the embargo was installed, and they did abide by it, and no strike was ever made, and they did take out the missiles. Do you think, in being kind of provocative, as you say, with the bouquet, that Kennedy was concerned about his, that there were elections coming up in November?

Well, this is an ongoing, it's an important step in the escalation of the arms race. I mean, prior to this, the president had said there was a missile gap, which was not true. I mean, he used it as a campaign issue in the campaign against the 1960, against the 1960s. And this clearly, I mean, the demonstration of our superiority, which we did demonstrate, I mean, our assurance that we could take them out, and that we had the assurance to, in a sense, to back the Russians down, and Mr. Rusk, who was the Secretary of State, used that very provocative statement about we were eyeballed eyeball, and they blanked first, which is, of course, a kind of a demeaning way that he obviously added to the humiliation

of the Russians. It makes this whole incident significant, in that it was certainly an important step in the fueling or the exacerbation of the arms race, because the reaction of the Russians clearly was, we'll buy you over the next time they're not going to be able to put back us down. And they, I think that was certainly a great, an important step toward their escalation of the arms race. And of course, we had this like tit for tat, as soon as they do it, we do it, and so on. And that was one of the steps, there were others, and it followed that, and, well, you know, what's happened, I don't have to relate it. I think it's a great tragedy. Every time you have a confrontation of this kind, between two great powers, there is a reaction. I mean, whichever one feels that it has been blft or humiliated, is going to be a thing to react, by building more.

I mean, that's been the, up to now, that's been the effect, and I think it's a great tragedy. What was, if you can just take us back to that meeting you had with Kennedy, what was his reaction to you and Senator Russell's concerns about the blockade? Well, he didn't react, he just listed, and we left, and we went over, and he made the statement you know about the blockade, now it's a public announcement. He didn't argue about it very much, he just asked for our views. We didn't, it wasn't a prolonged argument at all. I think he'd already, he was just paying the Senators and Congressmen a courtesy of appearing to consult them. He wasn't really consulted, but he was telling them, but it's good manners to ask their opinion. It always is. I mean, most of these meetings that the President has with Congressmen is an opportunity to, well, to persuade them to their part of you, I mean, that's what they're for. Many people have said that, because the people in the White House had, I guess they had

about seven days before, but between the time they saw those YouTube photographs and knew there were missiles in there, between the time they made the, they briefed you and made the final decision that a blockade would be a better decision than an air strike, because they had that time to consider it and mull it over and debate it. They came to that conclusion and that your, your sort of feeling and Senator Russell's feeling was a much more immediate, gut reaction. Well, that was the immediate reaction, and Russell's also made the point that if it had an air strike, it would serve the further purpose at that time. It was thought important to get rid of Castro to change the whole government in Cuba. That was one of the considerations, whereas the other wouldn't, not likely to, anyway. But I don't know, I don't know the sequence of events. It turned out, of course, that the, that they, they, in effect, Kennedy and crucial struck

a deal. Whether there was any communications that would give him an indication, they could do that before I would know that, I mean, I don't know what to this day, I don't know what the, what communications, if anything, I think there was a hotline, there was a means of communications. One way or another, they threw the ambassadors and others that he may have had some reason that we didn't know about, to believe that they would respect an embargo. An embargo at that time, of course, we weren't at war, it was clearly against international poverty, if not international law, we had no right, legal rights certainly to stop, when we were not at war with a country, to stop their ships on the high seas, it was, it was an, it could be considered an act of war to do so. And you were concerned that the Soviets might react in a war like, well, yes, they didn't know what they'd do.

And he may have had reason to believe he knew, I didn't need it in Russell. But did the president say anything, I mean, what did you say anything directly to the president and did the president react in any, there was the upset with your, with your, he didn't seem to be. Later on, I understand that Bobby Kennedy and his books said that we are, it was very critical of it. I don't recall he was critical at all. He asked our opinion, we gave him that was that, he didn't argue about it. He'd already had it made up his mind anyway, there was no use arguing about it. What was your feeling about Cuba and Castro at the time? I mean, would you have been in favor of, well, I, I have felt it's, it's too bad that we can't get along with this little country. I didn't believe it was a great threat to us. I think that even now I, also, I, and subsequent to that, I advocated that we change our policy that we have normal relations with them, that we not embargo them. It's a small country and it obviously, it's interests lie with doing business with us. It'd be better often, I think, we would if we had normal relations.

But we are obsessed with this idea of communism and we, it's an ideological obsession and it, to this day, of course, we still do that way, we don't, we don't have normal relations. And I think this is, contributes to the difficulties in the, in the, in the Central America. And the president was down in a great ceremony yesterday on the Grenada fair, which seems to me out, all out of proportion to it's significant. Here's a small little place of less than a hundred thousand people in here, a big country like Harris attacking it. Somehow rather to be, it reminds me of the David and Goliath contest and the sympathies of the world has always been with David, haven't they? People don't like a big country, a bully, I don't think, and it always struck me and really out of a character for us to be so inclined to push other small people around. And I felt that then still do, I think we'd be better off in everybody would if we had normal

relations with Cuba. And I don't think it's a threat, I don't think Nicaragua was a great threat to our security. The threat is a war with Russia and that's a serious one in a very serious and anything that contributes to exacerbate the animosity between these two countries, these two rivals, is bad. I'm always reminded of the rivalry between England and Germany. They brought on World War I, which was the great disaster for the Western world, out of which grew old, you might say, a major part of our world's difficulties, was a similar kind of each one sort of doing it to the other, you know, kind of a game with them. But it's much more serious since nuclear weapons have come on the scene that it even was then, although that led to the virtual destruction of Western civilization at the time and we've been picking up the remnants ever since. But I just think it's a bad thing for us to be intervening around in this fashion and we ought to be more conciliatory to this small country, to everybody.

I don't believe in – well, I wrote a book called Erigan's Power and I tried to explain I don't think it's a good psychology or a good politics to do that. You think Kennedy was a bit arrogant in the way? Well, you see, I think he was young and inexperienced at that time, but I like to believe whether I – whether it's true or not, that after that experience, and he had about six months, I guess, after that, he evidently changed his mind because his speech in June of 63, a little over six months later, was quite conciliatory – the most conciliatory speech of any president I think since – really since the 2nd World War, and was on the right track. And it's a very strange and disconcerting thought that every time anybody makes a gesture, it looks as if you're going to move toward conciliation, something happens in that case he was assassinated.

He made the speech in June, he was assassinated following November. Of course, we never know what the motive of the people who assassinated were who it was. We know the physical fact, but you know, there have been lots of studies of it. But you know, I often think of the U-2 incidents, and just as President Eisenhower was planning to go to Russia and was going to me, he did meet with Russia, but he broke it up. And that was a great tragedy, I think. And then we come along to the 72, and you have the Nixon made a valiant effort, I thought, to establish a more normal relation to Russia, and then you get the Jackson Amendment to the Trade Bill, and you unravel the whole process. There's something I don't quite understand. You were very critical of the Bay of Pigs landing. You wrote the famous memo to President, and you say we should not be a bully with little countries like Cuba, and sort of have some way of dealing with them, and collaborating with them.

Yet on the other hand, you're one of the people who thought that we should try to take out those missiles in a tough, militaristic way. The way you're presented to you, whether you're right or off, these are missiles almost ready to be aimed at you, and could drop a nuclear weapon on you, right, or they said, direct. The way it's presented, you're always subject to whatever they tell you in the evening. You had no background, or nothing else. You come in, and they brief you, and your immediate reaction, you've already referred to that. The immediate reaction was, well, if it's that bad, you have to take their word for it. Nobody was in the position to say, well, that's not their purpose. Those weapons are not intended to destroy us or so on, but obviously the way they presented they were, and they were an immediate threat. There was no such threat as that in their pigs, or any of the other cases. So you felt that the threat was so, oh, that's the way they put it. These are missiles. They're building them.

Here's pictures of them, and they'll be ready to fire off anytime now. They will blackmail you into doing whatever they want to do, and together with the kind of picture that has been created in the minds of all Americans, to some extent, that these are dangerous people who would stop it, nothing. And in the days of Stalin, that was true, I think. Stalin contributed a great deal to the idea, and there was no limit to his ruthlessness. But Khrushchev was a different... I think, well, you know, he denounced Stalinism in the so-called 56th speech, and I think he came over here in 59, and all, in an effort to try to change that whole relationship as he did in, he took a great risk when he denounced Stalinism, if you like, in that so-called secret speech at the 20th Congress. Do you have any inkling as to why he took such a great risk in putting these missiles on Cuba? Sure. Clearly it was a mistake. Well, I think that he was trying to compensate, I guess, for our missiles on his basis. I mean, I'm sure he has people in his government who's like, we have, who are egging you

on to that, we have people now who don't want any kind of an agreement, independent of God. They don't want any agreement with Russia, they don't want any acceptance, a legitimacy of the government of Russia. And I'm sure he had the same thing, and I'm sure he did it to a great extent to conciliate his own hogs, to show he wasn't a soft, he wasn't soft on capitalism, he wasn't soft on the Americans. I imagine that, Sid, but I'm not a professional psychologist and leave it to better inform people, but that's the way people often react. It's sad that in both countries you had leaders who were perhaps trying to be conciliate, trying to, you know, get together, and yet you had these forces within these countries. You had that with Eisenhower, you had it with Nixon? I think Kennedy, in the his reaction, I think, in the following, as I said at American University, was he thought it over and thought it, well, it would be better to go the other

out of a conciliation, and he signed within a few weeks that he signed the Testman Treaty, which was the most significant step toward relaxation and normal relations that occurred. And we like to think that that was a conversion on his part. It's a little short in the time, between that and the time of his assassinated, so you don't know too much about that. But I think it's been, you just said, several leaders, but there are very powerful interests in this country, of course, devoted to militarism and to force. There's nothing new in the world, this is the traditional way, the thing that's new in the world is the danger of nuclear war, and that's what these people don't take in a consideration. The warfare has been pretty bad with conventional weapons in World War I and II, but nuclear weapons, as demonstrated in Japan, it's just intonorable.

I mean, it ought to give rise to a new approach. That's what I'm going to say about it. Yeah, that's okay. Do you think, you know, there's all this has come out now about what the CIA was doing in Cuba in the early 60s, plus, of course, the Bay of Pigs, which is very well known? Do you think the United States pushed Castro into the Soviet camp? Well, I know, I know about it, knows that well. He came here, if you remember, in 59, I think before, before he was considered a communist, he came to the Committee on Formulations, and he came here, he went to New York. We treated him very casually, as I remember, I don't think he was received in any good fashion as we did in the crucial. I don't really know, and I don't know, maybe somebody does, whether or not at that time, he was committed to communism, he seemed like a revolutionary. Obviously, conditions in Cuba, like they've been in Salvador and Nicaragua, are very

unsatisfactory as people live there. They're highly explored, it's their own feudal system, which a few families own all the wealth. In Cuba, of course, a few American corporations own much of the wealth, the big gouges, sugar companies, and people just get fed up with absentee ownership. We had that in Arkansas, and you know, after the Civil War, and especially after the Depression, much of the valuable resource in Arkansas were taken by Eastern Capitalists. I mean, all the box-side was aluminum company of America, you know, and some of the biggest plantations owned by the big insurance companies. There's a sense of exploitation by foreign owners, and that happens right within our own country. I mean, we had the freight rate, discriminatory freight rate issue, was a major one in Arkansas, and it's over it now about a great extent, but I can see how they feel that they're being exploited.

You can see how who feels, I'm sorry. The Cubans, the people. I mean, they were right for revolution, just as I think Salvador was, and I think the same way with Samosa, we had in Dominican Republic, all these countries, they are going through the revolutionary period in which they're trying to modernize their society and get rid of the old domination of either a few families or foreign ownership. The decolonization of the whole world's gone on, I mean, the same thing in the British Empire, what's happened to it? There's nothing unusual about that movement in the Russian Cubans. Had their revolution. Now, he wasn't necessarily a communist, but when the major capitalist country is very negative about it, and of course, we were negative because much of the property that was taken was American property, and actually, we were negative. They always, they always happens that way. We didn't like the idea, especially our sugar companies, and others didn't like the idea of our property being expropriated there.

We set up a whole commission for the valuation of those properties in the hopes that someday we get paid for them. You know, it's an old story. Now, the only place he could look to to help was not here, it was we were, it was the communist. I think that's more than some ideological fixation, it was just a practical matter, he got aid from them. How do you remember what he was like when he came to New York? He was a rough boss. He came to the committee for our relations here. Excuse me, Senator. Could you refer to him as as Castro or Fidel Castro instead of just saying he came to the committee, and not after he threw out Batista, and at that time he was, by many people, was considered sort of a revolutionary hero. Of course, we, our businesses didn't realize at that time that maybe he was going to expropriate those businesses, of course, he did. And immediately, we, because soon he was a communist now, maybe I don't know whether he was devoted at that time or not.

He later became, because his practical matter, Castro got aid from Russia, not from us. What did he look like? What were his people like when they came? Oh, well, you know, he's a beard. He's a rough looking customer, and he had those fatigues, you know, and he was, he had with him a couple of goons with his article, and they had guns in their hands, and I think he died. I don't know why. Those days when he weren't so security conscious, I don't suppose he let them in now, but I think I think they had them then. His bodyguards, of course, he's a revolutionary. And he felt he had that one. And he was a rough customer, and you know, it was, of course, he, he looks like he's matured now, and he's gotten great beard, but he was tough looking customer. He wasn't exactly as graceful in character. Let's talk a little more, because we ran out there at the end of the last day about the military control, not just in the United States, but clearly in the Soviet Union, too, and the problems that that creates for arms control.

Well, I don't know, Boomer, you know, the Soviet Union doesn't have our system. They're not responsive to elections and so on, but in this country with the development of this huge, the huge appropriation, $300 billion program for arms, with the biggest business in the country involved in it, and the development of our electoral system with PACS gives them almost an irresistible control of our elections, and they can control it. They buy the elections by putting in so much money, and nobody can compete with them. What do you mean by they? The PACS, I mean, they've been article after article recently in the papers. The PACS are the organizations created by businesses to give money to elections. You know, our election laws allows the organization by industries of PACS, and they, by proliferating these, they can siphon enormous amounts of money into their friends, if you want to

call them, that they're supporters in the Congress that appropriate the money. And they get their commitments and they become, well, almost dominant, I would say, in our Congress. And this is the reason why this is almost hopeless to ever cut the defense program. These are people who, can you give me a sense of, I'm a Canadian, okay? I don't sort of understand. Well, you know that you have to understand the political system here, too. Recently, money has become the dominant factor with the development of television. Television is so expensive that it's believed that anybody can run for office now. And when I ran 50 years ago, it didn't take much money. It was mostly effort while I didn't speak today. You've got to do it by television. In the, well, recent Senate races, if you know it, business is all public, knowledge and the amounts run into one Senate race, I think North Carolina, one Senator spend as much as $15 million in the neighborhood, the other one, 10.

That's the, that's outrageous, you know. Where does that money come from? It comes from these businesses. Indirectly, it comes out of the public treasury because the businesses get paid for these vast armaments contracts out of the public purse. And obviously, they can afford to make unlimited contributions almost to these organizations that give money to candidates. Is this what Eisenhower called the military industrial economy? Exactly. He's forced always. And he warned us against it, but we've paid no attention to good advice. Since the Cuban Missile Crisis, it's 23 new years now, do you think this so-called military industrial complex is more powerful than it was? Oh, there's no question. Look at the size of the defense budget. I can remember, in the first year Lyndon Johnson came into, what was that, 64? That's, yes. 20 years ago, roughly, 20, 21 years. The total budget in the United States government was $100 billion. Today, the defense alone is $300 billion.

That gives you some proportion. But in terms of the power and the persuasion and the of all of this by what you're calling the military industrial complex, how has that changed over the years? Well, it's much more powerful than they used to be. They got much more money relative to use in ways that required, in the election process, television is the main thing, and it is so costly. One, there was a piece in the paper about one man from California, didn't like Charles Percy in Illinois. He gave him, I think, a million three for negative advertising. All it did was just drown the population of Illinois in negative advertising about Charles Percy. They have today, they spent a million. One man, they've got a lot of money, besides that spent too. You get those cases where you, in our election, where there's so many little elections, and we have so many of them, and they're relatively small constituencies, a lot of money like

that can determine it. When you're beginning to get largely millionaires elected to the Senate, what do you think is the legacy of the Cuban Missile Crisis, so far? I think the legacy I've already indicated, I think it added considerably to the development of the arms race. Many people think, you know, when you talk to kids who have just learned about the Cuban Missile Crisis in school or whatever, the impression as well, the United States was strong in the United States, one, they tried. Well, that's right, and that created a reaction to Russians, they took an oath to see that didn't happen again, so they started big arms build up, and they do build it, and then we hear about that, so we retaliate and we build another big arm, that's what's going on now. Each one says the other one is more powerful than it is, and it's got to have more arms. I read a story in the paper two days ago by Mr. McFarlane, which I can't believe is accurate, which has said that they're building, you know, 20 times as many bombers, and

40 times as many tanks, and so on as we are. If that's true, what in the devil did we do with this $300 billion, and we're spending? I can't believe it's true, but who's going to contest with that? Was the Missile Crisis perhaps an opportunity missed, you know, a chance to help, I mean, at that time, the Soviet Union only had something like 20 ICBMs. That very few. Well, any time long there was a good time, the time we missed, when we had a good time, was 72, and Nixon made his move, you know, with the first salt feed and ABM treaty, and the whole mixture of agreements for joint ventures headed by the trade bill, which was a very far-seeing piece of legislation in which included a number of things, you know, and that was a great opportunity.

It was a great crime that was aborted by the Jackson Amendment. Many people forget, of course, that part of the deal was that the United States promised to remove their missiles from Turkey, and that in the end, it really wasn't such an enormous great sort of victory for the United States. It was a deal. They finally got a deal, you know, I'm not clear about the timing of when the deal either originated or was complete, of course, it was completed later. But is that perhaps one of the lessons we should learn from this, that you have to trade off, you have to give the other guy some way? Well, I think that if there's going to be any piece at all, it has to be mutual, and both sides have to have, you know, a stake in it, and they both have to feel secure. One can't be absolutely secure, and the other one not, I mean, and you can't be absolutely secure, unless, well, there's no such thing, there's absolute security, but the best is where you both do make a deal.

You do have equal treaties, and I think, as I say, the only way I can see that the work is what was begun in 72, and then aborted, I'd like to see revived, that same approach. Do you think we need to be more sensitive, perhaps, to the Soviet Union, to their aspirations and to their goals? Well, we most certainly do, I mean, they're a big power, they are their rival power, they're the one that is in which this extraordinary suspicion, and distrust now to where we don't take seriously, even reasonable proposals. I thought the reasonable proposal of Gorbachev to stop nuclear testing and to proceed to negotiate a 50% reduction was a serious, reasonable proposal. We can't bring ourselves to give serious consideration to such a proposal. We've never answered it yet, and out of the months have gone by, he first made it last August on the stopping of nuclear tests, and we just can't bring ourselves to even negotiate

in seriously on such a project. So I think that we have to, the thing we have to do is to recognize that Russians have a different background from out of different history. They've been invaded time and again, they're ultra-sensitive about their borders and about being subjected to invasion, I mean, twice in my lifetime they have. And this is what isn't being solved on communism, anything else, it's immune, in fact, alive. You have to recognize, they have a different background. And you take that into consideration in negotiating, and we aren't unable to do that. The trouble is most Americans have no memory to speak of with a great turnover at higher levels, and have nothing to judge these things by experience. We're a very inexperienced country in this sort of thing, and we've never been invaded by hostile army like the Russians, and haven't most of the countries.

Therefore, the lesson of the seriousness of this sort of thing, it's never, well, didn't us. It's still almost like a game with us that you play as you know, and you get brownie marks for doing this as that, but it's not that kind of a game anymore. Do you remember during the crisis, do you ever get concerned that we were really on the edge of a nuclear war? There were some people who got very frightened during the crisis. Well, it looked very touchy, as you said a moment ago, why I joined the view of Russell out of that group, because it looked serious, and they're putting missiles right up against the sea. They've had them up against their borders for a long time, and you could say they used to be. We're not used to that. You know, we're very spoiled, we've had our Monroe doctor, and nobody we ever threatened us.

We had two countries on each side of relatively weak countries, militarily, very weak, compared to we would never threaten this new thing, and we react very vigorously to that. Well, it's a fact of life in these other countries in Europe. This is what our perspective is see about these relationships, even about another country is important in making a proper judgment. That's why I like the exchange program, people within after them. I will have a perspective if they live and learn about other countries, and we need to know about the Russians. Did you do remember, did you recall, though, of being really afraid, really concerned about your own safety, about the safety of the United States, about the possibility of... Well, I've never quite talked to Russians, or foolish enough, to make a move that was provocative. I've always believed that I still do, that we're much stronger than they are, and that they'd be very foolish to do it. That's one reason I've never believed that conditions were such that would give them any valid justify or reasonably they could prevail if they did.

And I don't think that's true now, I don't think they're even contemplating any attack of all us in Western Europe, they are very much concerned about their own security. I think this is the last sort of question, I don't know if it was Einstein or someone who said that since the nuclear age, you know, we've changed, the technology has changed, but our minds really haven't changed. Well, he put it one way, I don't know what he's put it exactly, he says, after dropping the bombs on Japan, he said, now everything's changed, except our manner of thinking. If we've been thinking about war and about such relations, if we don't change our manner of thinking, he had a new manner of thinking, we are faced with an incalculable catastrophe. He was saying, if you don't change your mind, your way you think about these things, you're going to be destroyed, and I think he's absolutely right, and other people have said some of the things, but that was a very perceptive statement by him. Do you think that's perhaps the biggest problem now in the nuclear age?

I felt that, I had two hearings on psychological aspects of international relations, 66, 69, but the very reason you're saying, it's in our minds, we cannot bring ourselves to consider the Russians or people like we are, and they have aspirations very similar to ours, they have a different background, and they've been brought up in a different way, and they're more sensitive in certain areas than we are, and they're suspicious, more suspicious, and so on, they're very difficult because of that difference in their background, and they're different experiences, but nevertheless, outside of that, their own security, they're very similar, but it's hard for us to believe that, and these are psychological problems. Do you think, how do you feel now about the prospects for peace? I mean, there were more missiles than ever before, and that's what worries me. You see, and the depletion of resources for other activities, and the concentration for military affairs is a serious matter, and if an incident should happen between Israel

and Syria, and you get drawn, and it could happen both of them feeling that they've got so many weapons, and they're also people who can't stand not to try and see if they'll work, they've direct, they've developed all these very sophisticated modern weapons, and the people who do that want to see if they'll work. I mean, there are people who would like to try them, and there are people in both countries, I suppose, certainly, who are here, that wouldn't feel bad at all about dropping a bomb on the other side. They're always such people, I mean, but I don't think the majority of the great mass of people feel that at all. So you're optimistic? Oh, that's going too far. I don't believe that there's going to be a deliberate action on either side to precipitate a war, but that doesn't mean that it can't happen. I mean, wars have happened. I remember Kamajah said once in my committee that we never deliberately get into war, we

blunder in the war, the way we get into it, by blundering into it, and so you never can dismiss the capacity of human race to make mistakes, and they get it by mistakes. You know, the World War I, Lord Grace said, you know, great nations are always making mistakes because they don't understand each other's psychology, and that's exactly what we were saying. That's psychology. They don't understand theirs, and I'm sure they don't understand ours.