War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Kelly Burke, 1987

Well actually not a command but a stay a position I had been commanding to sack bombardment wings B-52 wings and in June of 75 I went to Strategic Air Command headquarters and I became the senior planner there working for General Russel already at the time. Well Lee the planner at SAC has responsibility for a number of planning activities. Probably most importantly is the modernization of the of the forces responsibility for developing the the operational requirements for new equipment and overseeing the bringing of that equipment into operational use. Well the m x missile program had just begun the action the the operational requirement had been validated I think in 1992 and in 1994 work had begun very embryonic work on what was called the concept definition. What was it

going to look like not only in the missile but the basing mode the the operational climate specified a survivable basing mode as well that. Would have consisted mostly of paper studies what is it what are the alternatives in which one look like that makes sense. And and so what that began in and 1974 I was following that work most of which was done my systems command. And that led then to the first review by the defense systems acquisition Review Council in 1076 which authorized us to proceed with the first phase of concept validation. Well that was a a set of requirements for a missile which was looking at a missile considerably larger than the one in the existing Minuteman missile with up to 10 warheads.

A missile with a considerably more accuracy than had been known before and also a basing mode something other than a silo that would provide survivability in the event Soviets developed in the ploy of accurate ICBMs that could threaten the silo. Yeah. Well the size of it is really not important that's an economic issue if you're going to build a large number of small missiles with the same effect but it would cost more money so that was the economics. It is the Soviets were deploying more and more of their resource into very hard silos from a military point of view that that's something that they obviously value a great deal and support the concept of deterrence. You would like to

hold those at risk to pose some potential threat to them. That was the military requirement for the increased capability of the missile. The other side of the coin was we didn't won't. Now our new game X missile itself to be threatened by that the Russian missiles. So we were looking for a basing mode that would make it's a battle for the forseeable future. There was a limit to what could be done we had modernize the Minutemen we had gone from a Minuteman 1 to a Minuteman to two and a Minute Man 3 we had hardened the silos to the extent that was possible we could improve the communications and commanding control of those missiles really had gone about as far as it could be in a practical sense with the Minuteman. Meanwhile the the Soviets were building and deploying very large numbers

of the new generation of missiles that meaning that if there was no corresponding action I have court the nuclear balance that was going to continue to shift adversely in our favor. Remembering that starting in one thousand forty five the United States initially had a monopoly on nuclear weapons for a long period of time had a dominant or vastly superior position. But by the mid 70s it was we had reached or about to reach a position of Bruff equivalence or a balance of forces. There were some people in the country who said we had to go back to just a period position and there were other people who said it doesn't matter let the Russians have more than we we don't care. But the I think a very solid consensus was that we ought to maintain this rough balance of forces with the Soviet Union and that was the basic goal of the emacs was to address that concern.

So you were you know the UN we therefore said. Begin to recognize at that point that while the development of the missile was a relatively straightforward engineering task the development of this secure basing mode was very complex. Political economic and engineering and that it might well take longer to do to determine the basing mode than to do the missile. So we had talked of the possibility of keeping the missile on schedule initially putting in silos because that was not an extra threat against those silos just a potential threat. And Senator McIntyre and Larry Smith took the view which history I think proved correct that that threat could materialize quicker than anyone anticipated and that

we ought to give priority to developing that survival basing owed and beginning in 1976 and from that point forward the Congress stipulated that the work to spin makes money non-survival basing modes. I wasn't terribly put out about it. It was I didn't agree with it. I was working with the understanding and advice of our experts on how we build missiles who at that time were were projecting that it would be perhaps decades before the Soviets fielded a missile of sufficient accuracy to threaten our silos that turned out to be quite wrong and within a very few years the Soviets demonstrated that they did indeed have that capability. Thank you

for your words. I think it was a bit of both but I think I do believe that there was a genuine concern about survivability. And if you take the long term perspective a very legitimate concern. I think Larry Smith good did that the great deal of research he did a lot of the theory that went behind it. He developed a keen understanding of the issues and certainly had the confidence and trust of some of the McIntyre was. I don't I think it was just a shift in emphasis rather than a turning point. But again the Air Force was not insensitive to this issue. I

remember the general May is early as the 1950s and argued against the saddle basing thinking that eventually the Soviets would make that a non-viable mode. In 1966 10 years before this Senate action they had done a study called Strat X which looked at survivable basing mode so there was some concern as far back as then. I think in the mid 70s the Air Force saw that threat is a little further off than did the Congress you know in history approved Congress correctly. Yes the intelligence data became available and then you know and the. Seventy seven seventy eight time period which made

it quite clear that the Soviets had achieved that degree of accuracy and and were in the process of deploying a vast number of highly accurate warheads. So you know what. The the the first problem I think was getting a consensus within the scientific technical community which is a fairly large body. And this this country. There were and it's complex set of issues. And in general terms you can you can look at four categories of survivable basing mood for from missiles one you can have systems a basing mode that's impervious to attack you can imagine that you can bury missiles a mile underground for instance or you can put them on the south slopes of mountains where they can't be struck from the north

but turned out to be pretty significant technical problems with all of those. You can imagine the Defending the silos with antiballistic missile systems some fairly conventional and some rather bizarre which were posed. And again those tended not to survive a good technical review particularly if you imagine that you're going to maintain the ABM Treaty. The third category were things that way where the survivability depended on keeping them in motion. You could move them on railroad you could move them on highways you could move them on rivers. You could put them to sea. Those that were would move around the country generally were rejected because of the problems with the public interface. People don't want a missile driving by the village square. Those that what to see and water tended to lose the

characteristics that caused you to value the missile in the first place. Then the final category of survivable basing is a family of systems which basically depend on concealing a relatively small number of missiles and a relatively large number of protective shelters. And that's called MP s the multiple protective shelter system and over the period of time in the seventies there was a growing consensus that it was in that latter category that the most promise lay. And that's where the efforts were were focused once you get into that and you agree that basic concept you can have a very small number of missiles and a large number of these shelters. Then you can get into interminable engineering debates as to what the shelter looks like as it is a missile and they are vertically or horizontally How do you connect only that a road is a covered trench is it a rail system and so forth. But those are really engineering

details that require time and work but. Are all some animal in time. Then of course you have the continuing concern about public the acceptance of what they actually project such as that and particularly by the people in the immediate area who whose lives would be affected by it I don't know who might have had it first but that's a genocide and there's the Strad X study. And so it was around is really 1066. We like to call it the multiple lane poet because we did not and the Asian that is is is encouraging missiles to be aimed there but is to this to discouraging missiles to be aimed there because an attacker ought to be able to calculate that he would use more of his force to destroy it than he can that he could destroy and all to

thereby be dissuaded from making the attack to begin with. That's correct and it's a sort of a thing we tend to lapse into. Jörgen and engineering terms and don't think carefully of the semantics of what it is we're saying. And it was for a period of time called of a multiple aim point and that then led people to talk of it as a as a re-entry vehicle sponge which is a powerful way to think about it and in fact in my mind just the opposite of what we're trying to do to present such an inviting target that no rational enemy would do that would attack it to begin with. That's correct. Just.

Yeah. The There's several reasons for not choosing to abandon the ICBM. One would be a matter of perception I think in that the Soviets had embarked on a program which they'd spent tens of millions of dollars to pose a threat to our existing I see but. Then. I. Knew it. Because of the it's a semantic problem with the term multiple aimpoint in the perception that conveyed it to people who might be proximate to the to the location that they were targets. I one of the first steps I took when I moved to the Pentagon and became directly responsible for the American activity was to to change it to I think a more correct

title. The multiple protected shelter system which And in my mind at least more fairly described what it was we were trying to do. I might say that I never was. I might add that I never was able to persuade the opponents of the system to just use my term. Yes. Why not. Well first I think if the United States the leader of the free world the only country maintaining a nuclear arsenal to counterbalance that of the Soviets were to voluntarily abandon its land based you know in response to the Soviets posing a threat to it. I think that certainly would have been been seen as a submissive act. Show a lack of resolution on our part. So I think there was a perception problem in Peru and that alone

might not have been enough to retain him. But ICBMs also have a set of characteristics that cause them to be muchly valued. Not the least of which is that they are much much less expensive than the alternatives of bombers a certain range perhaps a third the cost. So if you look forward to a long term strategic competition I think you're reluctant to abandon to the other side the inexpensive way while you go do the expensive things. I definitely do the assay ABM had a unique war fighting characteristics they are. They get to targets very quickly hit with great accuracy probably more importantly though is that they are not subject to the same threats as as the submarines might be or as the bombers might be. And that requires the the Soviets then to expand as they do vast sums of money trying to cope with all three legs and to the extent that you did away with one leg or perhaps two

leg right here. That's not a fair question and it could have been slightly lighter. It certainly could have gone the other way that was after the Air Force became a separate service there was a meeting in Key West Florida which was presided over by president then President I Harry Truman and so our roles and missions were were carved out and and the Air Force wound up with that when it could have gone to the army it could have been viewed as an extension I guess of the coastal defense mission which the the army had. The Army did not come out of that with the ballistic missile defense mission and I think common sense would say that those two ought to be combined in one service or the other. But I'm not sure that that the Air Force got the advantage by getting that. But that's a very honest job and one that causes the Air Force a great deal of the

difficulty and cost a lot of money. Yeah you're right you're right. Yeah it's that that's quite true and one of the thing the. Funniest statements that I heard and I read it more than once during this great debate on how I was going to base it. Was that because the Air Force kept rejecting proposals for air mobile missile systems that the Air Force was of a hopelessly prejudice against airplanes and. And to me that was ludicrous because clearly if it was a close call and the data would support it the Air Force would be much happier with these things in airplanes which we enjoy working with which are good for people to work with than having them in some electronic gopher hole in the desert which is very very difficult thing to recruit train

motivate people to do that and I think they have a tremendous admiration for for the people who manned the existing in a continental ballistic missiles and it's hard tedious work. Not very romantic. They don't get to see the fruits of their labor. Other than that they come up and see that the peace still reigns in which it was a good feeling from. But it's an altogether different thing than than actually working on airplanes flying airplanes and seeing them fly so the Air Force is an institution. I always argued it would be much better off of the m x missile had gone away and disappeared. I think the country as an institution would be much worse off. That yes the the basic argument for having multiple warhead system in it purely economics and a large quotient of that

economic argument is doing is the manpower required to maintain and operate. It's a job I think the Air Force does it does very well and it does require constant recruiting and training of people because you obviously can't bring in a person and put him in a Minuteman control silo and expect him to stay there for a 20 year career. So those people are constantly rotating through there at a faster pace than we would with the airplane people being. Do you know why. Well I think you hit on a key point because later in another Republican era after Reagan came into office there was a

widespread view that the Humax and I mean multiple protective basing system was an invention of a Democratic administration. And you're quite correct when you point out that it was introduced and funding requested by President Ford in 1976 as part of his proposed 1078 budget and it asked for development tools skill development of the of the large missile the 10 warhead in missile and of a survivable basing mode expressing. A preference for the trench system but also suggesting that we would look at at discrete shelters as well. And I don't think it talks I was told.

Well it was not necessarily a bad idea. We actually built the 14000 foot trench in Arizona and we demonstrated some innovative construction techniques slip forming further study I think showed two things One that there were some very arcane threat situations imaginal the propagation of nucular effects down the trench. Ray some questions that were difficult to answer but also I think it became clear in this this this period that it would be less expensive to go with the discrete shelter's system. It's very.

Much for you. Well those are the two separate changes here that occur different points in time and for different different reasons. First Mike May's group did I think a magnificent job in the in their review did envision a very large number of quite inexpensive vertical shelters further study of that suggested that that the shelters were not. Is it inexpensive as I thought and that had to be all set then by the cost of all the road construction to link all that together. And again I was no bias

as you approach that argument it's just a question of the economics of it and ultimately we came to the conclusion that. About 23 shelters for missile spaced about a mile apart was the right the right compromise between the the countering argument. The Number 23 was not magical it was just the it was the product of a series of calculations and various analytic studies in making this about 23 and 23 the number we settled on could have been more or less without any any particular effect. But it would not have been twice as many or ten times as many. It's that which according to the data with which we were working that was about the right number.

Who saw this. Well basically the proof laid for up proliferated shelters basically that shelter system. It is to my way of thinking was simply a means of Diem Irving. The Soviet ICBM's I think the the greatest mistake that was made and in the development of nuclear weaponry was to go rather blindly into these nerve systems which are quite destabilizing and undesirable by putting one to mix missile and and hiding it amongst 23 shelters. The Soviets would now have to plan on tackling it with not one warhead but with 23 warheads. And if they wanted to have confidence that it would probably want to attack each shelter with two

warheads. So they would be firing 46 warheads with the expectation of killing 10 of our warheads. So four point sixty one adverse exchange ratio. And if a rational enemy can make that kind of calculation and if the starting balance is anywhere near equal then that's the last thing he'd want to attack. And you have achieved deterrence and that's what it's all about. Why. Because the merged ICBM silo based are at once an enormously threatening. And you know obviously vulnerable if you can imagine Mossad sitting with ICBMs each of which has 10 warheads on it and in a time of crisis both have to be concerned that the other side doesn't go first and thereby destroy 10 of

their warheads with one of his own. This tends in a crisis situation to have the leadership get their fingers quite close to the trigger and that's just inherently undesirable and destabilizing in the condition that we all ought to wish didn't exist. Well that was that goes back to when Professor Oppenheimer who was one of the fathers of the original atomic bomb and he posed that analogy of two scorpions in a in a bottle both of whom know that the one who strikes last dies so they have a tendency to to be very much in an attack mode. OK.

Well the analogy has been made. Of two scorpions in a bottle. Each of which knows if he attacks the other first he could kill him each of which knows that if he doesn't attack first he could be killed. So there's a strong its very strong tendency on the part of both of them to begin that attack. And you have a destabilized situation in that model just as we have with the murder of missiles in the in the silos. So that's your. Well so they extent the that each missile and each missile warhead would require the use of multiple attacking warheads you have. You have accomplished your goal of effectively demurring your opponent. You know

a lot of the Initially up President Cory came the White House strongly opposed to the Amex and the whole notion of any increase and nuclear forces. To his credit he he studied those issues very very assiduously do is it ministration and his viewpoint changed. And by the spring of. 979 I think he had reached the conclusion that he needed to move forward with the ICBM modernization program. It's part and parcel of his as his assault plans. He was dissipating signing Celta agreement in Geneva and in June of 79

and I think he failed. And certainly a lot of people encouraged him to believe that he needed to couple that with a decision only in the emacs missile. So an as I call recall early June 1079 he announced a decision and this was after exhaustive study. Personally on his part he really knew the subject at this point. He announced a decision to proceed with the large M-x missile that had been earlier talk of a smaller missile in a common missile the Navy rejected that. That was to be based in this multiple protective shelter system to be more precisely defined later but specifically land based not he was rejecting all the sea based alternatives. And he made that announcement some week or a few days before he went to Geneva to send assault to. After he came back from salt too. Later in the summer of 79 there were series of meetings discussions and so

forth and from that came a White House decision. I wanted to do two things. One had to do with whether the missile was sheltered in a vertical or horizontal mode. The reason one would prefer the vertical mode is that it is much easier to harden and hence less expensive. It's a cheaper solution. The reason one would not prefer the vertical mode is that a missile that's stored vertically inherently takes a long time to extract from that shelter and move. It's a matter of many many hours if not days to do that process and no one can imagine a way you could quickly do that. PRESIDENT CARTER I think and I originally argued that while the vertical shelter system provided survivability through successful concealment there was it was not and that

no one could imagine a way to to pierce that concealment. But still he said looking decades ahead there might come a time that somehow that concealment would be compromised in which case then you had an inherently immobile systems are very slow to move systems. And no and no means of survivability. So he opted for a horizontal system which is inherently quick to move can move in a matter of very few minutes as a second means of survivability. That added some increment to the cost but it was not extraordinary it was a few percentage points more expensive to do it that way than the other. And again I think not unreasonable for president of states to say I'm willing to pay that extra expense to ensure that my successor 20 years from now doesn't have that concern. So he made that decision. The fundamental decision with which I had no are going to talk

then. They moved into the area of verifiability as part of the Arms Control process. It was imperative that there be a system where the Russians could verify what we had just as we want to verify what they hear. And I think without adequate thought and study some features were added to make this missile more verifiable which has led a lot of people to say it was a Rube Goldberg device and indeed it begin to look like a room or a device. The decision was made that the missile would be inseparable from its carrier which didn't mean that you had to have a much larger shelter now to house the whole the whole carriage rather than just the missile. There were features like openable ports on top of the shelters that would permit some sort of inventory sampling from space presumably you could on a given day open up a certain segment of it

and. I don't really think any of that was required because we all along had a perfectly valid scheme for verification which relied on separating the the verification process from the concealment process both in time and space. And people tended overlook that's what we have always done with submarine launch ballistic missiles and nobody is concerned about about that. So these features were put in which I thought were undesirable and inappropriate. But they didn't stay very long. We shortly thereafter could mean yet another Defense Science Board review this one chaired by plant can and it in short order. They went through it and were quite satisfied with the horizontal aspect of it and did away with some of these

unneeded verification features which added greatly to complexity and cost you so much. Yeah that's what you said. Well by the White House does not make recommendations to the Air Force colonel AI. They give us instructions and guidance and basically what we were getting from the White House was here's here's our package and you know it's OK when you were seen on a week we had a choice at that point we could have sort of dug our feet in the ground and said no this is this is unacceptable these features are just will do and we can't in good conscience recommend it. We could have done that. We opted instead to say ok we'll we

agree we support this package and then we'll get to work to clean up some of these untidy features that had been had and that's what we did. From a practical point of view that's seemed to been not too bad of approach you know. I. AM One one solid piece which is the first stage that weighs one hundred ten thousand pounds. That can't be cured on a Safeway truck it can't be carried on a helicopter and yet there's only one way you get it in this deployment area and that's would be all real and it would would bring it in and that's thing nobody can allege that the somewhere you can sneak that thing in has only one entry point and that would be presumably would put them in all of the pre and out schedule way that they could be verified.

We got it. So bye. I think November of 1979 and we had a basing mode at an MSO which most people were quite content. There were some who still held out that it should be vertical rather than horizontal but I think most people had accepted that notion and the undesirable and necessary features been added for verification purposes it had all been taken taken out. So from a practical point of view I think our decision to except what we thought was a somewhat flawed version and clean it up later worked quite well. But from a political and a perception point of view it turned out not to be a good thing at all because by then in the literature in the minds of people it had become when trying this through go were a vision and

particularly among the more conservative republican element begin to characterize that as a missile a democratic missile of the kind I once called a democratic missile in the in the harsher ones turned in a missile that the basing system that had been designed by oppression had a Geneva 0. It was quite a shock to us having and basically dealing with a opposition of a more liberal persuasion now to find at least rock ribbed conservatives were strongly opposed to what they viewed as a democratic basing system. Yes I'm sure. But right now. I'm calling you.

OK I'm not quite sure where you on the story. Well you know. Oh yeah criticism you know. OK I think. Oh yeah. OK. OK. So by Iran November 19 79 we had a missile basing design that was I think very satisfactory to the proponents of people who were what seriously studying the issues and they could be argued from a practical point of view that we've made the right decision in accepting what we do is a somewhat flawed White House design. And then in a few months cleaning that up to design that was was quite acceptable. But from a political and a perceptual point of view that turned out to be quite harmful to follow that path because in those intervening few months. And the media television presentations of this what was characterize a Rube Goldberg system that image became embedded in the minds of a lot of people and we were quite shocked to find

ourselves now under attack by very conservative people around the country who convinced themselves that this missile basing design had been seriously compromised either by the feckless Democrats and the kind of case or and is a sop to bridge never GENEVER and the harsher case. And as we had spent most of our time in the past defending off attack from more liberal elements around the country we now found myself with a very serious attack from a very conservative elements in the country so we paid a price for that. Yes he was he Bill I think. I was a I basically attacking OK. Billingsley it was basically attacking a system that was not

proposed. And it's somewhat hard to enter a meaningful argument all that all that bases. He still had the image of the underground railroads and a lot of the features that that were removed and in time in due course Bill was just studied and understood what the current proposal was the baseline that we were working with and I came to support it on a stamp. I didn't really heard this in Congress. Congress the cognizant committees of Congress understood the system very well and they followed it they they understood what had transpired and understood how the system had been refined and acceptable. We didn't have any any real difficulties with Congress on this issue. What the really harmful aspect of it was in that conservative element of the

Republican Party climate was not created where it was easy to be very critical of this that then got couple with the fact that Republican senators from the states in question Utah and Nevada. With close contacts to candidate Reagan President elect Reagan were able to voice their concerns from political environmental points of view and an image had been created that it's a Rube Goldberg device. Anyway so I think that made it easy for for candidate Reagan to say someone unfriendly things about the system. And I think it made it easy for him to ultimately make decision not to go in that direction. Protests from others for sure. Yes.

I think probably the most vocal and consistent opponent of the MP s basing mode and the m x missile in the Carter administration was was directed Turner. He has a background that might not lead him to be unduly biased in favor of land based ICBM's. And I think he tends towards more towards doing the mutual assured destruction theory of deterrence than than I do and most of us do but for whatever reasons it was clear that that Admiral Turner never supported the system even after President Carter had endorsed it and I don't think that argument is a valid one because.

The question is not can they build more things that pose more threats because they can. The question is What does it cost them to do that and what does it cost you to respond to it. And Korea accusations we could build the shelters at a somewhat lower cost than they could building the warheads. But if they embarked on that course at some point in time the ABM Treaty would become meaningless because the purpose of the ABM treaty was to avoid a proliferation of warheads so if the Russians are building thousands and thousands more than there's no meaning to the ABM Treaty at that point it would have been possible to couple a ballistic missile defense system that would preferentially defend only the shelters in which there was a missile. And you've got enormous leverage for that if if the Russians fired 23 warheads at your 23 shelters you would shoot down only the one that was coming at it at the shelter with a missile. Ignore the other 22.

So he would then have to come back with another 23 so you're getting 23 to 1 type of leverage. I think it would have been very easy for the Russian to calculate that that was an arms race. They would not not want to become involved again. I got to take a bow and now I think I'm OK. There are vast amounts of government land in Utah and about other are not used for a great deal. And geologically it's it's suitable. It's. You don't want these things. This is really too close to the Soviet Union you probably wouldn't prefer not to have and the northern tier of the country you don't want too far south because you don't want to travel to a force of it was done on the basis of a a

number of studies and and and a variety of factors went into it and out of that came you you talking about it not is the only area we looked at there is an Arizona New Mexico and Texas that would have been suitable alternatives. But on balance it seemed to be the most logical right geography. It's the others were further south there was less land available. In some cases in most cases tremendous amount of government own land and in both of those states. Very few. You know. But first it's

yours. Yes I think I will get a life. By the end of 1978 it was becoming clear that Utah Nevada area which would be the favored. So we made our initial visits out there and I think in December of 1998 I met with officials of the Mormon Church to just explain what what we were about and what what the A proposition was. Then the met with Governor Matheson of Utah and going to Bob list of Nevada following that meeting which we were well received in. And I think warmly welcomed found everyone generally supportive and following those meetings of local governance listed Matheson. I sent telegrams to President Carter indicating support for the deployment of the m x MP s system in their states indicating they thought it was a national lead in that

and that they could handle the environmental problems without undue consequences. That was the initial position so we were in somewhat of a fool's paradise thinking that that wasn't going to be that difficult in time those positions change very dramatically and both of them wound up opposing that in response to a very extreme political pressures from from their constituents. Well. Well there was a considerable organization that was put to opposing the M-x missile out there which it was quite an easy thing to do on an emotional basis. Its people are understandably concerned at the notion of having a nuclear missile as a neighbor. It's not a very appealing idea to anyone. So wasn't a hard thing to deploy. Why.

Well clearly the two governors reversed their position over time in response to pressure from their constituents. That was not just a grassroots uprising. There was a tremendous organization that was put together to oppose the Humax missile just as it had been a large organization supposed to be won and Trident submarines. But they found it a lot easier to work with this. This particular issue because people are understandably concerned over the notion of having a nucular missile as a neighbor. And it's quite easy to play on those fears Additionally the people out there and those are a lot of people went into Utah and Nevada because they like the open space they don't like being crowded and the idea of a vast horde of construction workers coming was not pleasing to a lot of people. So it was not difficult to

arouse concern and generate the points of a protest that was done over and over again. We even had a national television debate out there you might recall at the time. But it is and so we had a very vocal opposition to the deployment M-x in those states. But I think a lot of people lost sight or were never aware of the fact that the polls were being conducted regularly out there and up until the time President Reagan rejected the idea of deployment they're typically about 70 percent of the people in both of those states said they would support the deployment of the M-x missile and Utah Nevada those songs the president said it was the right thing to do. So the opposition while very visible and very vocal was not a majority opposition. I think you know there was

a lot of that there was tremendous number of there were speakers out there every week that was in the News new speaker. There are people who enjoy doing that thing and no doubt think they're doing a public service. You know with most em came from outside Additionally there were. No small number of people in the local area who were oppose some because simply of their their political views just sort of a general view that we don't need any more nuclear weapons anywhere much less in then area. And then there were some people whose economic interests. Might have been threatened. Particularly I remember that it was a very violent opposition by the cattleman in that area who were felt that their their right to use the federal lands to graze cattle might somehow someway be threatened although we never saw that they were strong opponents I was on the other hand various groups out there were less strongly supportive and and encourages to continue.

Oh you're going to your third one here. Oh well there are a citizen can make any assertion he wishes and that's really Mr. Garland made his share. And there were a lot of extreme statements I remember reading over and over that that we would exhaust the nation's supply of cement and it wouldn't be possible to have any other construction. And and I took the trouble to calculate precisely how much cement would be required for this project it was a lot what it turned out to be was 50 percent of the anticipated production of one new cement plant that Martin Marietta was in the process of opening and coincidently in the state of

Utah we would have taken half of the production of that one plant over and over again we heard the water issue because that will evoke emotion as quickly as anything in that that area region and it was expressed that so many thousand acre feet of water would be required for the next system and people would through up a hand in horror and say we know that will drive us out of the region again when we checked we found out that the annual requirement for water for the entire In that system deployed that area was equal to the requirement for the water for the seven golf courses in the city of Las Vegas Nevada. So we ran in that hyperbole exaggeration and it's a lot easier to make. Charges like that than it is to refute them. Yes I went to the numerous public meetings.

Right. I went to a number of public meetings out there I tried for a period of two three years to get out to that area. Once a month or so to meet with the best group out there explain what we doing and let people know what our plans were as opposed to what other folks at our plans were and try and point out the good aspects along with the bad and trying to get people to work together to prepare for this. And so I was out there very often to know a lot of people in those two states and made some very good friends there. No I didn't go to the meeting and dealt I think. Guy Heck I went to that meeting. Well that was a I'm trying to remember the name of that the woman who was one of the really active groups she was a journalist and a politician.

And it was I think that's right you know. Yeah. You know what she was sort of the local leading opponent of the system. And there was a thought that she was going to run for Congress Senator or Governor or something on that there's a platform and it was one of the one of the concerns of the incumbent politicians that here was an issue that somebody could run them out of office on. So that made it it made it difficult for them to stand tall and tell you what you want. They you have to visit that area to appreciate it. But we were we sent a

geologist out doing surveys of the proposed deployment area and they would stay out in the field a week at a time and more often than not they would come back and say they never saw a human being during the course of that week. This is a very unpopulated unvisited areas. Yes we would all like a pristine world and we would like to preserve nature in its original environment. But that's not possible for economic reasons and it's not possible sensory. Yeah. But I said yes and I am the legitimate ones I know. I myself was was very concerned over there. I was more concerned over the construction aspect and then I was the development of the missile aspect. I felt that

was pretty straight forward engineering and we had done it a lot. We knew how to do it but this was going to be a quite a complex and a very large scale project it was going to involve bringing in large numbers of workers in a fairly short time having been there for a few years and then phasing it down and that that creates very very major economic environmental social cultural problems. You get educated children and you know what there are a lot of problems. And we expected and had already begun actually furnishing federal money to help deal with that problem. And I'm quite certain that Congress would have been more than willing to to fund the local areas to cope with that nobody wanted to impose that additional burden on local local governments. I don't know. Well I'm not privy to the end of the workings of of that group of the. Yes. And and I don't want to say they

endorse the idea but certainly we did not come away from that meeting other than encouraged what the inner workings were after that. I don't know how the announcement of their opposition came with no warning to me. Because they were people just you know that was a very closely held decision until till it was mine. I my guess is that there were people inside the church hierarchy that was strongly against it but the opposing view was one that ultimately prevail. And I know I think it was guys. There was some sort of support for it there.

Yes it did get it to. It led to the charge that we were misrepresenting the case. I don't think it was ever rip the ANYONE the Air Force ever said we have an unequivocal endorsement of the system from the leadership of the Mormon Church but it would be more than fair to say that with that we met with them before we met with anyone else and we came away encouraged. Yes they are and it was it was a rude surprise to us. Yeah kind of disappointed with you. Well we viewed it as a bit the disappointment it's clearly within their prophet of to to take a position such as that we thought their

reasoning was not sharp. And. We've been happy if they hadn't done it with the hair. You know what. It did it did not because I guess and there were people were polling out there regulating and the polls continue to show that a substantial majority of people would support the system its presence is the right thing to do. And interestingly a slightly higher percentage of the Mormons held that that favorable view than the general population. So while they Harkey had made the decision it was not by any means totally accepted by the general Mormon population. I think it was inconclusive that allowed a number of people to

restate positions they had stated over and over again and were well understood. You know what I've heard people say you are or you are all right all right. But it was not I. I talked to many groups out there and I may delude myself but I honestly believe that most of the people I talked to accepted and understood the arguments that were made and on that issue I try to make a very very simple point and that is that the the the notion of nuclear war is so horrible that it's beyond our imagination to contemplate the damage and destruction of an all out nuclear war. And as it's been said probably correctly that in such a war the living would envy the dead is a terrible thing. And as

Americans what we need to do is all work together to minimize the possibility of that ever happening and not being individually jockeying for the high ground are some favored position to be on the day of Armageddon because it is not going to be any you know favorite position. And I think people didn't have any trouble with that notion. I felt like if I could have talked to everybody in the in those two states rather than 70 percent support we might have something like 90 percent support. But for people like me. Well that and the fact that certainly the senator from Nevada Paul actually although it's very close to the president sort of going from Utah was a very influential and in defense matters. I'm sure that the president had a receptive ear for their view. I'm sure that by that time

they viewed this whole thing as sort of a political time bomb that could become an emotional single issue litmus test thing for any elected official. And they were happy to see it go away. You know it's yours yours. Yes. I think they were. Perhaps moving away from it. It's going to be difficult just to say what the cause and effect will have. But they have. They they're both highly sensitive political gentleman with an antenna and they've had to make keenly aware of this. I would vocal opposition that was taking place in their states and politicians

dread these single issue groups and understandably and it looked like this could be that kind of an issue didn't matter what you how you voted on every other issue if you're wrong on this I want to be against you. And that makes you any elected official very apprehensive. So you're liars. I don't know that but I believe it. I don't know that for a fact but I believe that's the case. Oh yes you do. That was a yes it was a precise moment when I was told it that the president's going to make the announcement and here's what it contains but that was not a surprise to me it was a growing awareness working with the town's panel and just following with the way it was presented that I had concluded at least a couple of months before the announcement that the decision was going to go against us.

Well I guess I was disappointed I felt like it was. It was not on an achievement for the country. I think it was a bad thing in that we had a system that had had been endorsed by both Republican and Democratic presidents after a fairly rigorous review that had been broadly supported by Republicans and Democrats and in both houses of Congress. Over a period of years had been studied that ad nauseum by all the scientific technical people involved and general a strong consensus built to support it. And many many years and a lot of money invested in it. And and to see that done away with. It was not a good thing in my life in my opinion.

Why not. Well I didn't. I didn't presume that this this was my decision and in fact there was a mood of despair and gloom among the people who had been directly working with this. We had an X project office and I went up in and talked to them the day of the announcement and some of them were literally crying I was very upset about that. And the point I made to them was they and we had succeeded in what we were charged to do. That it was not our job to decide ultimately that the next MP s was the right thing to do. But our job had been to preserve a climate and a condition that would allow the newly elected president to make the decision and and execute that decision if he chose to do so. And until today he said he was not going to. He said he had the political option to put the AirMax in the NPA

system and you telling about it and it could have been done. And we had we had succeeded in preserving that option for him. He didn't choose to exercise it he's a president. Presumably you should explain to him what just what you said. Yes Act and I had the opportunity to talk with him. Yes again a uniform air force officer. The not have direct access to the president or his closest advisers. I did have access to the secretary of defense and had the opportunity to exchange views with him on the subject. I did have the opportunity to work some with the town's panel.

Whose views were in due course presented to the president. I spent a lot more time probably with the congressional leadership both in the Senate and the house where we had people like Senator Tower and Congressman Bill Dickenson who were striving mightily to discourage the president from making the decision he ultimately didn't like. Recognizing that there would be enormous difficulty and in putting together that congressional. Consensus for any any new alternative. So I had certainly had some indirect access but never direct. All right. I first tried to address it if he was concerned that we could never do this because we would be tied up forever in the litigation process and I was an awkward position because he's a lawyer and I'm not but I had consulted

with a number of distinguished lawyers who worked extensively in this area knew that body of the law and that their view was that we would be sued interminably. We expected that we would stay in court but that under the circumstances and considering the compliance with all of the laws regulations and so forth which we had done very seriously that it was unlikely in the extreme that any judge would grant an injunction to stop us from work that we could expect spend a lot of time and money in court but that this thing could succeed would not be barred from succeeding by any any legal action. But second my Margaret was of the opinion that it would be wrong. He had researched the issue that was just an instinctive view of his I don't know. We spent a lot of time on that subject and a little bit talking about the technical aspects of

using it. I think he might have had a little bit of that but I think probably he believed that his boss had already made up his mind. And you know I'm no more genteel member government than thank you at Weinberg and he was always polite receptive to any views that we and we cared to propose. But it was wrong to conclude from from that gentility that he was agreeing with what you were saying. I think the the issue had been as decided at that point in

time and it was for the discussion really was not. Not of any use. I think by that time the president reached a decision in his own mind and it probably sector Wennberg and what that decision was. I think that happened some time before the the announcement which I believe was October. Well thankfully you had been active in the in the campaign of candidate Reagan as a national security advisor and helped formulate and frame issues relating to national security defense issues and had reached an early conclusion that this basing system was was flawed had been flawed by President Carter and his attempts to

use over in I think leave you overly zealous attempts to meet the arms control verification questions and presumably not defend the vision you have with SALT talks. Over time of his studied this and comprehended the actual base land system that was being proposed as to as contrasted the one that he imagined with me. But he also only concluded I believe that it was that the right thing to do and then became a supporter of it. But unfortunately between those two events he went from a very powerful advisory position to being on the out of the administration. And while he has his first view I think had considerable impact on the process as a lot of you will never really put on the table. What was it. Yes I talked to the town's panel on several occasions and I made

presentations explaining the features of the system and then generally answered a question. So yes the yeah that the town's panel conclusions were several. And one of which that there was no universal enduring solution that there it's a complex problem and requires a number of complex responses. They didn't believe that the NPF system in total. Were. Right. They didn't they didn't believe that the MP s system was was the total answer but there they did recommand and the language was a significant majority of the membership a town panel recommends that we build a initial starting set of of the

MP s system. They also recommended that we can tell you to explore the other basing alternatives and with particular emphasis on a new form of an air mobile system which had its unique feature of long extremely long and Durrance and I think they also had some recommendations about improving the communications links stuff. And in fact the Air Force agreed with all of the the written recommendations of the Taliban. Really. Well I would imagine they would argue they didn't make a mistake that they made the right decision. I think if a mistake was made they failed to make the rigorous study of the very complex issues. That were involved here. It's ironic that the president Carter who came the office

with all his instincts and intuition in opposition to the point of a name axiom he has was I would say somewhat compelled by circumstances to do that type of study and literally spent months personally involving himself in these issues until he he he quite well understood them and ultimately reached the decision to proceed with it although again it must have gone against every instinct here. I don't think we ever got that type of review in the Reagan administration. I think they came in with a preconceived set of notions about its political and palatability legal problems and and just thought that they would do away with it and then find a better solution. And that's the problem with doing they sing of the land based assy being on it is that it is a problem for which there is no attractive solution. It's you kind of have to go through it and say Here are all the

alternatives. Now which one is the least ugly and that's and that's the MP s and that's the one we go with. But until you go through that process there's always the hope or belief that if you're a little smarter and look a little harder you're going to find something that that is attractive. So far nobody's been able to do that so that you know study and surely find something. Yes I think that was just a belief I don't think they had looked at it in the depth that would support that. And they really didn't have a crisp alternative when they made the announcement. But is it really there. Do you think they regret falling.

I think that given the enormous responsibilities of a president or secretary of defense coming in every day with a new desk full of problems of they would rarely look back on a decision like that. I don't think you can I think you've got to make it right or wrong and move forward. Second your reaction that I'm not very keen on the notion of you mix in silos as an end to itself. I can accept the notion of some limited number in silos but certainly not vast numbers. But I find that attractive Only if that's an interim position to get to a more desirable position. I was sensitive to the fact that we still had very strong support in both houses of Congress both parties in Congress for ultimately moving into

the MP s system in that it is indeed congressional language. After that after the Reagan announcement required further study and investigation of that. So I thought if we keep the production line going do this to bought it in the fullness of time alone we may reach another decision and that may yet happen. So you're there. I would be much happier to have them in a secure mode and I certainly would not want a large number of them and so it's a conflict between two different purposes such as the one you're trying to find your way very soon.

They were. They really are are separable issues I think. And the first half of that building of a cost effective a powerful missile was not too difficult a job and that's been done. But as a country wish we still are wrestling with the issue of what's the right way to base it. And I expect will be for some time. And I think you're right. Some of the options you know. I don't think the smaller missiles it would have made it any easier to do it on an MP s type system. I think the smaller missiles would make it more difficult because you need more space for more missiles and

you get in a real problem of the verifiability of your system as you get smaller. So I think if you are going into a survivable basing mode and if that survivable basing mode is a multiple protective shelter system you you definitely have a preference for a bigger missile. Do you think I do. Oh yeah we're here for. So much so. Well that's right. Yeah well there are 535 members of Congress and 535 individual views on this issue. I think there was a consensus in Congress that working with Jordi probably

three four was working with joy that the survivability of the missile ought to be a primary objective. I think there was about as strong majority and not necessarily the same people that it ought to be a powerful and large powerful missile specifically. It should be is is large is the Soviet SS 19 which under Saul one was the largest missile we could bill their argument meaning we signed a treaty that gives us this limit on what we can do. And if we don't even build to that level we're not providing incentives for the next round of arms control. So there was a strong support in the Congress for that big powerful capable missile as well. And there was never any real difficulty in getting the votes. There were amendments offered every year to do away with them next year and put limits on it and they were

typically defeated two to one. When I get to work there were there were two approaches one was none from an engineering purely engineering approach which you knew these are the only ending series of trade offs studies length vs. 9 What a weight vs. that and. And that came out showing that around that size was about the optimum from an engineering design point of view it's going to cost. I want to be and then overlaying that was this the salt one provision of the limit equal to the size of the SS 19 and make coincidentally the number those two approaches yield at almost the same number. A lot of that came one hundred ninety two thousand pound muscle

that I need two inches. But let's put it in ice in an existing silo. But like any airplane or missile design it's a series of thousands and thousands of compromises. Oh yeah. Yes I remember meeting Francis Farley on one occasion she was with a group who came to Sac headquarters in Omaha and although I was going to send the Pentagon I was asked to go out and make a presentation to that group and I did and I don't think she found it very convincing but I believe most of the others did.

Did you did you want to go back to that water thing. OK see I forgot how you get it. Well I mean one of the fears Yeah yeah you know we're out West you know that we were you know I was you know this is a huge construction project. You say OK OK OK. Thank you very much. Yes one of the favorite issues that the opposition used was the water issue because not surprising in that area regional war

equates to life and prosperity and they would cite that to build operate the Humax system in their area would require so many thousand acre feet of war a term that I was not used to dealing with. So I had explored it and I found out the. This frightening sounding amount of water was almost exactly equal to the amount of water that was required annually to operate the seven golf courses in Las Vegas. So it was not an overwhelming proposition but it frightened people. Interestingly the other thing we found is that there is no shortage of water in Nevada and Utah. There's a great shortage of inexpensive easy to reach water. But we would have been prepared to drill a thousand foot wells whatever was necessary and we discovered as part of that process that there was very substantial amounts of deep underground water in that region. And someday I expect

it will get used. You're right people. I don't. Know. I think. That's right. I don't know. Well I just think it to be. I think it reinforces Ditto Bill's very astute observation I made somewhere around 18 20 that this would be one of the great great problems in a democratic America and that is balancing the needs for the fence against the views of ordinary peace loving people and and certainly it became a very serious problem in this case.

And it. Yes and that's because politicians are paid to make political decisions. Very very professional very serious. Well as Churchill was fond of saying democracy is the worst possible form of government except all the others and I guess we need to be prepared to put up with those prop.