Martin Agronsky: Evening Edition; 23

mr lee nice to us now here is marc beeby the thirty years ago today the united states dropped an atomic bomb on the japanese city of hiroshima three days later another american nuclear bomb was dropped on nagasaki since that time nuclear weapons and not the news against another ten months ago an evening edition the secretary of defense james says wessinger again declared that the united states has not ruled out the use of nuclear weapons against inanimate if this country were involved in a conventional war

and face an acceptable the fleet and it being innocent that's another look at us defense policy with two arms control experts thomas whole state executive director of the arms control association and sanford gottlieb executive director of the saint joining the discussion is pro r d high no military affairs analyst at the detroit news the jail than thirty years since the bunning hiroshima nagasaki are you optimistic and they have you know the thirty years to pass without are using nuclear weapons and i do have to live from your ear on this time i'm not optimistic i'm not pessimistic but i think it's a a commentary that this nuclear apocalypse which was learning that it's not about two year intervals actually dropped the bombs taken this law well i don't think it's anything to take any great

comfort from the director of the sound agency on the television the other day seem to take great pleasure in the fact that there were only five maybe six nuclear weapons powers in the world today and i think we just look around the corner and see that it's quite likely that they could very well be a ten or twelve in the next five years or so i think the odds just don't favor as being that lucky that long only arms race is really two dimensional time has talked about the spread outward to more countries and that may be there are six now let's say you're probably seven one estimate is that israel has ten atomic bombs perhaps twelve or more and a couple of lawyers from now that's the spread out word but then there's the spread of work between the superpowers we now have about eighty five hundred h bombs each year which makes me at the hiroshima nagasaki bombs look like babies so here we are the united states the united states is at five hundred that's a thirty nine for every major soviet city the soviet union has two thousand eight

hundred there's overkill on both sides and even with the so called agreements at one of our stock and before that nuclear weapons keep spiraling upward we've always have agreements to add to the arsenals are not to subtract from dusty us stockpile only have six hundred and fifteen thousand hiroshima bomb robot week as soon as i heard of an arms competition i am a president is only use of the word i think we are rome were in a race against time and we don't have thirty years i don't if if things keep going to both upward an upward the way they're going i don't think we'll see if thirty years from now i don't i don't think that the size of the stockpile to necessarily as alarming how after all when you do when you think that day it took about there when they expanded only forty tons of high explosive and the whole battle of war athena which was a major battle compared to about seven or eight tons of

of projectiles to inflict an individual casually in world war two it means this let you cannot simply equate weapon for target as if all of these things were gonna be used were gonna be affected and did the fact that we have this huge stockpile certainly doesn't prove that that they're going to be expanded at a rate of thirty nine for a russian city or even one russian city that isn't yours for this point is that with this enormous amount of nuclear weapons on both sides the prospect of their being expended has increased three size of the stockpile in any way most of the prospect of employment that's a political question well it doesn't sound to be and it goes more so when you remember that they're not used to scorpions in the bottle anymore and oppenheimer's phrase but at least five and maybe once

more than token nuclear forces in a number of other countries where we don't have control or think we have over how are nuclear armed allies might perform i think there's a number of different very much let's come back to the way it was really the thing to do the balance of terror presumably is what we call about her through it what has been the base over which he's has been kept so far have we outlived the usefulness of the balance of terror because obviously you think so gottlieb no well if it ever had any purpose i think it has long since been outlived you can't do anything with nuclear weapons you can only threat to use them unless there are you ever use them eat the original purpose for those weapons is disappear the original purpose was deterrence and that's the basis on which they were certainly sold to the american public that that we would have enough of them to threaten the other

guy's of that the other guys would get us and now we're moving into a new phase in this is one of the things that makes it so terribly dangerous new phase is that though we are now preparing this administration is preparing a very serious way to fight nuclear wars and a whole range of situations the fight that not to be terror nuclear war but the fight them in case we're losing a conventional war to fight them in case there's a small soviet attack on the united states in which case we would avoid hitting the soviet cities are humanely really take out some of their missile bases and secretary of defense points out that like to use his his words if we were to maintain continued negotiations with the soviet leaders during the war and if we were to describe precisely a meticulously the limited nature of our actions including the desire to avoid attacking urban industrial base in spite of whatever one says historically in advance that everything was go all out political leaders on both sides will be under powerful pressure to continue to be sensible one thing that's when most extraordinary statements ever made to continue to be sensible have

great plans are dropping is this we we were assured that that they're serious about this now their new civil defense preparations to hide americans to shelter americans in a dry level mine shafts in case of international tension would be fine for upgrades were very active well really the act of preparations are that we are right first was secretary of defense announced last year there were targeting soviet missile bases are we are making accurate missiles whose main purpose is to strike soviet missile bases the air force is reported to be taking training in a limited nuclear war whatever limited nuclear war years we're making a civil defense preparations are because if you're serious about fighting the limited nuclear wars you have to think about protecting your society against the fallout and right now it's at the stage of surveys to find mine shafts in which we can

place a large populations urban populations and at the stage drawing up evacuation plans for the city few years now live down the road will will have the plans and will be told to proceed in zip code order with two or three days' advance notice guaranteed to us by this administration in case of an emergency so that we will all take off from washington or new york or chicago and proceed to our nearest line schaffner says the world i don't usually ocean but there wouldn't you rather we were preparing to fight and limited nuclear war than an all out one well i don't think that's a very you distinguish between the i suppose so if those were the only two choices when will everybody would opt for a limited nuclear war the only be five to six million casualties instead of a hundred million on the other hand i don't think that's necessarily the range of choices that we are but i i certainly i said i don't think that there's anything wrong in trying to find ways in which if we have to use these weapons that they can be useless and we have to use is well i'm just

posture leading that for the moment that are trying to find ways in the event that we have to use them and there are ample circumstances in which i could be envisage we use them in our irrational and to repeat a a limited way rather than are pulling the switch on the doomsday machine it you are rational and loose nuclear weapons well to begin with i hold with a fire break series which i imagine that mr gottlieb or dr gottlieb has to i think once you fire one nuclear weapon whether it's tactical nuclear weapons are or whether it's against it a strategic target in the anime homeland is very very difficult to control the use of the things and i think just because of that difficulty that we have to address ourselves and try to find ways i guess one or two of these things are a number of them are fired

in a theater situation say in in the event of fire russian forces over a running mate earl i think we are and we all learn how are the day the fence indicates he contemplates it or when he says that we would reserve ourselves the right to use tactical nuclear weapons if we face an unacceptable to flee an intervention award this is nothing new and if we go as far back not the only disciple is to go as far back as john foster dulles who said that we would reserve the right to use these things the times and places of our choosing there is something very and very new and quite importantly new and what's being said now that is that the messages quite clear and has been put forth several times or schlesinger now in recent weeks that in the event imminent unacceptable defeat at the hands of a soviet conventional attack in europe a logical albeit remote chance of another logical response would

be a nuclear attack not in europe but on the soviet homeland and i sit down and on it with one weapon only we wanted to weapons perhaps but that's specifically have been posthumous and that i think it's very hard to imagine being held back to a limited exchange thereafter i can't picture the soviets response the bebop all that was such a terrible damaging blow we're sorry we did what we started out to do and i don't see us doing it either we received an attack on our homeland and interesting enough schlesinger another context there the words to this effect that we have a quarter it said soviet military doctrine does not subscribe to a strategy of graduated nuclear response we stayed one little demonstration what were you come out as a limited nuclear war also let's let's expand unlikely and i don't think

they'll take a chance on it being something that we might want to go with that we have a nuclear weapons or are we supposed to do with it i suspect to say something to the woman say for many years we don't just say it's too many other and using them is unthinkable let's have a doctrine that says we will never use these under any circumstance i think it is in that connection it is very interesting that the people who hammered hardest on trying to get a no first use declaration of the united states or for about fifteen years from nineteen fifty up into the mid nineteen sixties where the russians the russians have always tried to get a unilateral no first use declaration out of us which they are unwilling to make their doctrine as soon as you pointed out correctly simply does not acknowledge a graduated almost a bomb on a menu added approach to nuclear war they say in all are mammals they say that one nuclear weapons are

called for by the weather tactical or strategic situation they will be used as just like that they are they don't say however that when one nuclear weapons called for word on a pole may switch thank you i don't know their barber man wanna take a chance on that if you're sitting in the pentagon us say to the president well at this stage the appropriate thing for us to do is to buzz the northeast corner of kiev to see what happens next for alternative but he deals first use of nuclear weapons in response to conventional soviet attack in other words we're making the decision to breach the fire brigade so it's a very serious decision ari what's the alternate he'll approve of the colonel it's pretty it's three hypothetical actually i was somehow unethical to reassert her visit is no what i'm

saying is true all i might approve of it in a given situation if i were if i were general haig or good pastor is he then was and if you had sixteen if you have sixteen thousand a russian armored vehicles flying right for the line right through the north german when the russians are going to attack whatever it doesn't know and yelling at all about selling a very intense one of the least likely things that's going to happen in this world one of the more likely thing is that one of the crazies on either side of the border and korea's been attacking the other crazy on the other side of the border and there are american troops with their tactical nuclear weapons right near the dmz now if they're involved in the very first days of combat the yarn the treaty between the two countries the united states and south korea is out the window of a treaty simply says the both both countries are supposed to use their constitutional processes to decide how to respond to an attack in our case that means it's something the congress which declares war you know i was i was a pearl harbor and i why was that

was that i was a metaphor a japanese attack that i'm a woman you are not everybody's are you ever it waste it i was talking about earlier yeah i thought about it realized that the point about career finally finish it now is the tactical nuclear weapons are likely to be used first first use of nuclear weapons in korea in a land war armed sergeant by the very obscure without the united states congress ever getting out my point which took departure from pearl harbor is that we cannot build these doomsday hypothetical cases are articulating intentions this is the garden path of people go down and i can be and what plans to break down and indian building up worst case analysis that you are making that's our worst case analysis as one of the more realistic possibilities of how we can get into a nuclear war in korea not in europe and korea i think there's something to what sandy says and it's it's not heartening to

read this the other day and i'd rather read it before but it has been reminded of it that one of the first acts general hollingsworth i think the commander korean businesses when he got in there was a move the forces right up to the border so that the breaking of the plate glass or the tricking of the trip wire whatever you want to call it would take place immediately of me or the first fourteen or tactical nuclear weapons the us forces tactical nuclear weapons us forces on the from the demilitarized zone that oh the tactical nuclear weapons have been brought up in large numbers with arnott is almost irrelevant because it means that the north korean invasion would immediately of our united states forces but so this is an area code so i know i know that grounded in korea i i thought there in nineteen fifty two and three and if you want to defend so it all you have got to have their forces just as far forward as you can you cannot give an inch but we

didn't do that and there are between nineteen fifty three and nineteen seventy dollars a product i'm sure the political situation there is that as a condition of mounting tension there and in korea are right now and i think any any prudent commander who really wants to take seriously his mission of defending so on calling that quarter that goes down there which the north koreans romp through you know and about forty eight hours and they end in nineteen fifty would have done about what hollingsworth didn't please please people up there that's fiji good mood different perspective mean beyond korean certainly did immediate political and strategic problems can you conceive of any prospects in the near future and further down the road of the united states and the soviet union busting themselves of all nuclear weapons on syria's allies longish process but i haven't seen them reversing themselves are any nuclear waste

of any weapons at all the russians are still got yak fighters and research you know what are we going to what it was always aware of the wild abandon we do at nasa now let's assume that the the good thing the right thing is that we destroy our nuclear stockpile well they destroyed their nuclear stockpiles and i wouldn't recommend we do at first they certainly won't do at first what you're dealing with here is apparently an insoluble kind of a problem i mean it seems to me that wiser or an was dangerous or whatever you may you may term i don't see any way to break through what is really a vicious and deadly circle how can you do well they'd be game plan it's gets done very very sketchy when the bike kissinger and ford over the last year in explaining the vladivostok agreement was first we agreed the levels

and then won't let me get a tree iron that base is based on the vladivostok recorded last november then we'll start treaty to reduce the numbers obviously even if they could do this to be a very long and laborious than the real problem you're pointing to is that we got to these numbers without even knowing why a lot of these weather is built because there were people in charge of building this weapon unknowns what's in the bill climate scientists call it scoop and all the dangers cola which you like what you do about you gotta reach agreements to cut nuclear weapons and if you don't go down to zero it would be a great advance of a downer that's eight hundred on each side now that that is to take a lot of work but what he believes it can show restraint you can make a decision in washington that connect and build more bombers or more missiles to carry more bombers to more to care more bombs that's a decision which we owe to make ourselves and not allow moscow to determine for us we can do that unilaterally you don't add two security by adding more about

it so we can for example show restraint and not build the b one bomber we cannot build the year mr nussle we cannot build the year a cruise missile and then publicly challenge the soviet union and it was sign there's no guarantee that you would argue that we don't jeopardize their securities in illinois refraining from those we have nine thousand h bombs a dozen had one bit to our room to our security we have ten thousand or sixteen thousand which we're likely to have by nineteen eighty five under the terms of the vladivostok agreement nobody can prove to me the best to make us more secure we're on record right now that the russians according to secretary slow ginger are spending roughly sixty percent more per year for offensive strategic nuclear weapons and we are right now and yet mr gottlieb proposes we come to a stop i like to say i don't see why we don't let them going to do that i'm not saying was that just lend themselves into bankruptcy but it doesn't make it will be that you're

supposed to match their city no not a bit embarrassed because i know what it does however is put them in position of having something very different from first use which we've been running on about what puts him in the position of it being able to deliver a disarming for a strike and when they get a sufficient this friday both in terms of technological leap in terms of accuracy in terms of its own weight in terms of being able to knockout our art our nuclear force except for our our submarines then we are indeed and bad truck hold it hold it because that is what what the capabilities we have now and our submarine force was essentially a second strike capability a deliverable against cities which that won't mean anything if they had been able to hit us with a disarming for a short time longer periods there exists what is in effect a trip wire technology on ours so

that makes it utterly impossible to conceive of their don't know really time for a strike that you're talking about without armor tenure at retail even before were hit so i mean the whole promise of which you like this thing i think business i think you're i think you're lying on a pretty effective trip or more let's grant them of the magic let's wave a magic wand right now we made away the magic wand and soviet union can today wipe out every wednesday smithsonian's that's right away and one an american submarine can destroy a hundred and sixty soviet targets some cars of times it can live in this like most of the most of them could the city safer we were so well and russia still has the reserve weapons to deliver an effect a third strike is is that deterrence is is that deterrence the threat to wipe out a hundred and sixty soviet cities were other major installation is at the terms

ever deter us more than what the russians then then outside and then i say they place a lesser known human life and we do run once made they made the remark that they are that the western powers were just as scared to wage war as as the russians were what russia was less afraid and i think that this is a very good statement of their of their philosophies dollars did you think they still insist the stalin is dead but the stalin of the last three certainly in the russian armed forces is anything that will persist and i think you know we talk about these things and great abstractions and today thirty years after your shame thousands of japanese who were the them's in those two cities are still dying of cancer and leukemia another difficult debilitating diseases those were baby barns and we're talking now about weapons that are ordinarily fifty times larger each of them then those

baby bombs dropped on hiroshima night a second and you're trying to tell us but the soviets might accept damage by a hundred and sixty of those bombs each of which could destroy a city you land and if that's so then they're crazy if their crazy there's no system of deterrents that's about to work beyond the only way this is gonna work as if you have sensible insane people on both sides it rains that you i might incidentally i'm so physical chairman mao in the nineteen fifties made the statement that in the event of a of a nuclear holocaust that china might lose half its population he said that would not be true that we would go on so this kind of thinking is by no means an aberrant all over that there's plenty of going around well if they're all my crazy you know we can save ourselves a lot of money and not build any more nuclear weapons because this is very carefully structured psychological process on both sides those were not using it really good at i think that you know if you think they're mad men on the other side

i don't think they're mad you're the one and anybody mad money who's prepared to commit national suicide is crazy he's got into crazy national suicide national suicide no aha moment in last in this country with with a radiation disease among the survivors is national suicide lifeline einstein said once when he was asked what weapons woodman fight in a war after monitor where a member with states feels a lot like a you know this is of course is a half again as a worst case view of that well i'm not an agreement on the cycle by any means neither do i subscribe to the retired collects dreams that we postulate on it nor do i believe the lighting off on a new career some tactical nuclear weapons under control circumstances where there is a degree of communication between the government's

necessarily texas to the holocaust and to the apocalypse which mr gottlieb his crimes and i think it is to avoid the apocalypse but the year that the secretary of defense and splatters and others are working that's seventeen eighteen is anything funding provided by public television stations and the ford foundation and the corporation for public

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