[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 15 (Wednesday, February 25, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S948-S952]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           GENERAL LEE BUTLER

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to raise one of 
the most critical issues facing this nation today, nuclear weapons 
security, and to call the Senate's attention to one of the most 
intelligent and courageous people involved in the debate surrounding 
this issue, General Lee Butler.
  At a National Press Club appearance earlier this month, General 
Butler delivered an eloquent address entitled, ``The Risks Of Nuclear 
Deterrence: From Superpowers To Rogue Leaders.'' His major conclusion 
was that, ``. . . as a nation we have no greater responsibility than to 
bring the nuclear era

[[Page S949]]

to a close. Our present policies, plans, and postures governing nuclear 
weapons make us prisoners still to an age of intolerable danger.''
  For those unfamiliar with General Butler, let me provide some 
background on this distinguished American that should add some context 
to his remarks. After graduating from the Air Force Academy, General 
Butler spent the next 33 years advancing through the ranks of the U.S. 
Air Force.
  In 1991, he was promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Strategic 
Air Command and, shortly thereafter, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. 
Strategic Command. In this last post, General Butler was responsible 
for the overall U.S. strategy for deterring a nuclear war and, if 
deterrence fails, fighting such a war.
  It is safe to say that very few Americans know as much as General 
Butler when it comes to nuclear weapons and their role in our national 
security posture--from the concrete, such as the physics of these 
weapons, to the more abstract, such as deterrence theory. When General 
Butler speaks about nuclear deterrence, people should listen.
  In his National Press Club address, General Butler spoke of the 
lessons he has drawn from over 30 years of ``intimate involvement with 
nuclear weapons.'' I ask that his full statement be included in the 
Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. DASCHLE. General Butler summarizes his experience in the 
following terms:

       I came to a set of deeply unsettling judgments. That from 
     the earliest days of the nuclear era, the risks and 
     consequences of nuclear war have never been properly weighed 
     by those who brandished it. That the stakes of nuclear war 
     engage not just the survival of the antagonists, but the fate 
     of mankind. That the likely consequences of nuclear war have 
     no politically, militarily, or morally acceptable 
     justification. And therefore, that the threat to use nuclear 
     weapons is indefensible.

  General Butler goes on to note that for much of the Cold War period 
up to the present, America's massive nuclear arsenal was justified and 
sustained on the basis of a single concept: deterrence. However, his 
experience and analysis led him to the inherent flaw in the concept of 
deterrence.

       Deterrence failed completely as a guide in setting rational 
     limits on the size and composition of military forces. To the 
     contrary, its appetite was voracious, its capacity to justify 
     new weapons and larger stocks unrestrained. Deterrence 
     carried the seed . . . that spurred an insatiable arms race.
  Mr. President, the consequences of this paradox remain with us 
today--despite the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. 
Consider where the world is with respect to nuclear weapons as we 
approach the end of the 20th century--over 50 years since man developed 
the first nuclear device.
  First, the United States and Russia together still field nearly 
15,000 strategic nuclear weapons--each with a destructive power tens or 
hundreds of times greater than the nuclear devices that brought World 
War II to a close. The closest rival, friend or foe, has less than 500 
strategic weapons.
  Second, the United States and Russia each still deploy large numbers 
of tactical nuclear weapons. According to unclassified sources, the 
United States has about 500 to 1,000 operational tactical nuclear 
weapons, and the Russians have about 4,000.
  Third, both the United States and Russia continue to operate large 
numbers of their strategic weapons, roughly 5,000 weapons between them, 
on a high level of alert, ready to be launched at a moment's notice. As 
noted by Senator Sam Nunn and Dr. Bruce Blair, ``while [this] practice 
may have been necessary during the Cold War, today it constitutes a 
dangerous anachronism.''
  Fourth, the United States and Russia continue to adhere to nuclear 
plans that permit the first use of nuclear weapons and allow for the 
launch of weapons after receiving warning of attack but before incoming 
warheads detonate.
  Mr. President, this is truly a very troubling state of affairs, made 
all the more so by the fact that the Cold War has dissipated and our 
major adversary during this period, the Soviet Union, has long since 
ceased to exist. General Butler's conclusion is that the United States 
and the world should aspire to the abolition of all nuclear weapons.
  General Butler makes a very compelling case for this lofty yet 
pragmatic goal. And, as General Butler will be the first to note, it is 
not one that can be quickly or easily achieved. It will essentially 
require putting the nuclear genie back in the bottle and being able to 
verify that no country tries to let it out.
  This is a very difficult task to say the least, and one that 
ultimately may not be achievable. But that is no reason not to try.
  There is an old saying that, if you shoot for the stars and miss, you 
still could hit the moon. If in shooting for the ultimate objective of 
nuclear elimination we take lesser steps that enhance our security, 
then the journey will have been worthwhile.
  At his National Press Club speech, General Butler released a letter 
signed by 117 leaders from 46 countries that calls for the immediate 
removal of nuclear weapons from alert status, an end to nuclear 
testing, the beginning of discussions on deeper reductions in the U.S. 
and Russian nuclear arsenals, and the development of a plan for 
eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. Among the signatories were 
Mikhail Gorbachev, President Carter and Helmut Schmidt.
  In this regard, there are 3 initiatives the United States could take 
immediately to begin this journey to reduce the threat of nuclear 
weapons: dealerting a portion of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear 
weapons, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and pushing for 
much deeper reductions in nuclear weapons than currently contemplated 
in START II.
  Each of these steps make sense in isolation. Together, they will lead 
to a safer world, and one much closer to that envisioned in the 
poignant remarks delivered by General Butler.

                               Exhibit 1

  The Risks of Nuclear Deterrence: From Super Powers to Rogue Leaders

(An Address by Gen. Lee Butler to the National Press Club, Washington, 
                         DC., 2 February 1998)

       Thank you, and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Dorene 
     and I are honored by your presence and gratified by your 
     welcome. Although we are now proud residents of Nebraska--
     note the obligatory display of home team colors--Dorene and I 
     feel very much at home in this city. I see many familiar 
     faces in this audience, which makes the moment all the more 
     special.
       I have two roles to serve this afternoon, both very much 
     akin to the events marking my appearance here just over a 
     year ago. As your speaker, I intend to address two matters 
     that go to the Heart of the Debate over the Role of Nuclear 
     Weapons: Why these artifacts of the cold war continue to hold 
     us in thrall; and the severe penalties and risks entailed by 
     policies of deterrence as practiced in the nuclear age.
       But first, it is my privilege to announce a compelling 
     addition to the roster of distinguished international figures 
     who have joined their voices in calling publicly for the 
     abolition of nuclear weapons. Last year General Goodpaster 
     and I unveiled a list of some 60 retired generals and 
     admirals from a host of nations who declared their strong 
     conviction that the world would be better served by the total 
     elimination of these weapons. Today, at a press conference 
     following my remarks, Senator Alan Cranston and I will 
     present the names of more than one hundred present and former 
     heads of state and other senior civilian leaders who have 
     signed their names to a powerful statement of common concern 
     regarding nuclear weapons and who have endorsed a reasoned 
     path toward abolition.
       The willingness of this extraordinary assembly to speak so 
     publicly and directly to these issues is very much in keeping 
     with what I have experienced since I became engaged in the 
     abolition debate some two years ago. I have met legions of 
     remarkable men and women from every corner of the earth who 
     have labored long and patiently in this cause. Their ranks 
     have now been swelled by tens of millions of citizens of our 
     planet who reject the prospect of living in perpetuity under 
     a nuclear Sword of Damocles.
       My purpose in entering the debate was to help legitimize 
     abolition as an alternative worthy of serious and urgent 
     consideration. My premise was that my unique experience in 
     the nuclear weapons arena might help kindle greater antipathy 
     for these horrific devices and the policies which justify 
     their retention by the nuclear weapon states. My purpose this 
     afternoon is to share with you the abiding concern I harbor 
     about the course of the debate. I accepted the Press Club 
     invitation because I believe this forum is well suited to 
     speak to that concern. In so doing, I intend to render a much 
     more explicit account than I have given to date of the 
     lessons I have drawn from over thirty years of intimate 
     involvement with nuclear weapons.
       Permit me, however, to preface my remarks by postulating 
     that with respect to legitimizing the prospect of abolition, 
     there is

[[Page S950]]

     much to applaud on the positive side of the ledger. Nuclear 
     issues now compete more strongly for the attention of policy 
     makers and the media that often shapes their interest. 
     Converts are being won on many fronts to the propositions 
     that these issues matter, that nuclear arsenals can and 
     should be sharply reduced, that high alert postures are a 
     dangerous anachronism, that first use policies are an affront 
     to democratic values, and that proliferation of nuclear 
     weapons is a clear and present danger. I am persuaded that in 
     every corner of the planet, the tide of public sentiment is 
     now running strongly in favor of diminishing the role of 
     nuclear weapons. Indeed, I am convinced that most publics are 
     well out in front of their governments in shaking off the 
     grip of the cold war in reaching for opportunities that 
     emerge in its wake.
       Conversely, it is distressingly evident that for many 
     people, nuclear weapons retain an aura of utility, of primacy 
     and of legitimacy that justifies their existence well into 
     the future, in some number, however small. The persistence of 
     this view, which is perfectly reflected in the recently 
     announced modification of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, lies 
     at the core of the concern that moves me so deeply. This 
     abiding faith in nuclear weapons was inspired and is 
     sustained by a catechism instilled over many decades by a 
     priesthood who speak with great assurance and authority. I 
     was for many years among the most avid of these keepers of 
     the faith in nuclear weapons, and for that I make no apology. 
     Like my contemporaries, I was moved by fears and fired by 
     beliefs that date back to the earliest days of the atomic 
     era. We lived through a terror-ridden epoch punctuated by 
     crisis whose resolution held hostage the saga of humankind. 
     For us, nuclear weapons were the savior that brought an 
     implacable foe to his knees in 1945 and held another at bay 
     for nearly a half-century. We believed that superior 
     technology brought strategic advantage, that greater numbers 
     meant stronger security, and that the ends of containment 
     justified whatever means were necessary to achieve them.
       These are powerful, deeply rooted beliefs. They cannot and 
     should not be lightly dismissed or discounted. Strong 
     arguments can be made on their behalf. Throughout my 
     professional military career, I shared them, I professed them 
     and I put them into operational practice. And now it is my 
     burden to declare with all of the conviction I can muster 
     that in my judgment they served us extremely ill. They 
     account for the most severe risks and most extravagant costs 
     of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation. They intensified and 
     prolonged an already acute ideological animosity. They 
     spawned successive generations of new and more destructive 
     nuclear devices and delivery systems. They gave rise to 
     mammoth bureaucracies with gargantuan appetites and global 
     agendas. They incited primal emotions, spurred zealotry and 
     demagoguery, and set in motion forces of ungovernable scope 
     and power. Most importantly, these enduring beliefs, and the 
     fears that underlie them, perpetuate cold war policies and 
     practices that make no strategic sense. They continue to 
     entail enormous costs and expose all mankind to 
     unconscionable dangers. I find that intolerable. Thus, I 
     cannot stay silent. I know too much of these matters, the 
     frailties, the flaws, the failures of policy and practice.
       At the same time, I cannot overstate the difficulty this 
     poses for me. No one who ever entered the nuclear arena left 
     it with a fuller understanding of its complexity nor greater 
     respect for those with whom I served its purposes. I struggle 
     constantly with the task of articulating the evolution of my 
     convictions without denigrating or diminishing the motives 
     and sacrifices of countless colleagues with whom I lived the 
     drama of the cold war. I ask them and you to appreciate that 
     my purpose is not to accuse, but to assess, to understand and 
     to propound the forces that birthed the grotesque excesses 
     and hazards of the nuclear age. For me, that assessment meant 
     first coming to grips with my experience and then coming to 
     terms with my conclusions.
       I knew the moment I entered the nuclear arena I had been 
     thrust into a world beset with tidal forces, towering egos, 
     maddening contradictions, alien constructs and insane risks. 
     Its arcane vocabulary and apocalyptic calculus defied 
     comprehension. Its stage was global and its antagonists 
     locked in a deadly spiral of deepening rivalry. It was in 
     every respect a modern day holy war, a cosmic struggle 
     between the forces of light and darkness. The stakes were 
     national survival, and the weapons of choice were eminently 
     suited to this scale of malevolence.
       The opposing forces each created vast enterprises, each 
     giving rise to a culture of Messianic believers infused with 
     a sense of historic mission and schooled in unshakable 
     articles of faith. As my own career progressed, I was 
     immersed in the work of all of these cultures, either 
     directly in those of the Western World, or through 
     penetrating study of communist organizations, teachings and 
     practices. My responsibilities ranged from the highly 
     subjective, such as assessing the values and motivation of 
     Soviet leadership, to the critically objective, such as 
     preparing weapons for operational launch. I became steeped in 
     the art of intelligence estimates, the psychology of 
     negotiations, the interplay of bureaucracies and the impulses 
     of industry. I was engaged in the labyrinthian conjecture of 
     the strategist, the exacting routines of the target planner 
     and the demanding skills of the aircrew and the missilier. I 
     have been a party to their history, shared their triumphs and 
     tragedies, witnessed heroic sacrifice and catastrophic 
     failure of both men and machines. And in the end, I came away 
     from it all with profound misgivings.
       Ultimately, as I examined the course of this journey, as 
     the lessons of decades of intimate involvement took greater 
     hold on my intellect, I came to a set of deeply unsettling 
     judgements. That from the earliest days of the nuclear era, 
     the risks and consequences of nuclear war have never been 
     properly weighed by those who brandished it. That the stakes 
     of nuclear war engage not just the survival of the 
     antagonists, but the fate of mankind. That the likely 
     consequences of nuclear war have no politically, militarily 
     or morally acceptable justification. And therefore, that the 
     threat to use nuclear weapons is indefensible.
       These judgements gave rise to an array of inescapable 
     questions. If this be so, what explained the willingness, no, 
     the zeal, of legions of cold warriors, civilian and military, 
     to not just tolerate but to multiply and to perpetuate such 
     risks? By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders 
     in the nuclear weapons states usurp the power to dictate the 
     odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does 
     such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should 
     stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our 
     commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestation?
       These are not questions to be left to historians. The 
     answers matter to us now. They go to the heart of present day 
     policies and motivations. They convey lessons with immediate 
     implications for both contemporary and aspiring nuclear 
     states. As I distill them from the experience of three 
     decades in the nuclear arena, these lessons resolve into two 
     fundamental conclusions.
       First, I have no other way to understand the willingness to 
     condone nuclear weapons except to believe they are the 
     natural accomplice of visceral enmity. They thrive in the 
     emotional climate born of utter alienation and isolation. The 
     unbounded wantonness of their effects is a perfect companion 
     to the urge to destroy completely. They play on our deepest 
     fears and pander to our darkest instincts. They corrode our 
     sense of humanity, numb our capacity for moral outrage, and 
     make thinkable the unimaginable. What is anguishingly clear 
     is that these fears and enmities are no respecter of 
     political systems or values. They prey on democracies and 
     totalitarian societies alike, shrinking the norms of 
     civilized behavior and dimming the prospects for escaping the 
     savagery so powerfully imprinted in our genetic code. That 
     should give us great pause as we imagine the task of 
     abolition in a world that gives daily witness to acts of 
     unspeakable barbarism. So should it compound our resolve.
       The evidence to support this conclusion is palpable, but as 
     I said at the outset of these remarks for much of my life I 
     saw it differently. That was a product of my both my 
     citizenry and my profession. From the early years of my 
     childhood and through much of my military service I saw the 
     Soviet Union and its allies as a demonic threat, an evil 
     empire bent on global domination. I was commissioned as an 
     officer in the United States air force as the cold war was 
     heating to a fever pitch. This was a desperate time that 
     evoked on both sides extreme responses in policy, in 
     technology and in force postures: Bloody purges and political 
     inquisitions; covert intelligence schemes that squandered 
     lives and subverted governments; atmospheric testing with 
     little understanding or regard for the long term effects; 
     threats of massive nuclear retaliation to an ill-defined 
     scope of potential provocations; the forced march of 
     inventive genius that ushered in the missile age arm in arm 
     with the capacity for spontaneous, global, destruction; 
     reconnaissance aircraft that probed or violated sovereign 
     airspace, producing disastrous encounters; the menacing and 
     perilous practice of airborne alert bombers loaded with 
     nuclear weapons.
       By the early 1960's, a superpower nuclear arms race was 
     underway that would lead to a ceaseless amassing of 
     destructive capacity, spilling over into the arsenals of 
     other nations. Central Europe became a powder keg, trembling 
     under the shadow of Armageddon, hostage to a bizarre strategy 
     that required the prospect of nuclear devastation as the 
     price of alliance. The entire world became a stage for the 
     U.S.-Soviet rivalry. International organizations were 
     paralyzed by its grip. East-West confrontation dominated the 
     nation-state system. Every quarrel and conflict was fraught 
     with potential for global war.
       This was the world that largely defined our lives as 
     American citizens. For those of us who served in the national 
     security arena, the threat was omnipresent, if seemed total, 
     it dictated our professional preparation and career 
     progression, and cost the lives of tens of thousands of men 
     and women, in and out of uniform. Like millions of others, I 
     was caught up in the holy war, inured to its costs and 
     consequences, trusting in the wisdom of succeeding 
     generations of military and civilian leaders. The first 
     requirement of unconditional belief in the efficacy of 
     nuclear weapons was early and perfectly met for us: Our 
     homeland was the target of a consuming evil, poised to strike 
     without warning and without mercy.
       What remained for me, as my career took its particular 
     course, was to master the intellectual underpinning of 
     America's response, the strategic foundation that today

[[Page S951]]

     still stands as the central precept of the nuclear catechism. 
     Reassessing its pervasive impact on attitudes toward nuclear 
     weapons goes directly to my second conclusion regarding the 
     willingness to tolerate the risks of the nuclear age.
       That also brings me to the focal point of my remarks, to my 
     purpose in coming to this forum. For all of my years as a 
     nuclear strategist, operational commander and public 
     spokesman, I explained, justified and sustained America's 
     massive nuclear arsenal as a function, a necessity and a 
     consequence of deterrence. Bound up in this singular term, 
     this familiar touchstone of security dating back to 
     antiquity, was the intellectually comforting and deceptively 
     simple justification for taking the most extreme risks and 
     the expenditure of trillions of dollars. It was our shield 
     and by extension our sword. The nuclear priesthood extolled 
     its virtues, and bowed to its demands. Allies yielded 
     grudgingly to its dictates even while decrying its risks and 
     costs. We brandished it at our enemies and presumed they 
     embraced its suicidal corollary of mutual assured 
     destruction. We ignored, discounted or dismissed its flaws 
     and cling still to the belief that it obtains in a world 
     whose security architecture has been wholly transformed.
       But now, I see it differently. Not in some blinding 
     revelation, but at the end of a journey, in an age of 
     deliverance from the consuming tensions of the cold war. Now, 
     with the evidence more clear, the risks more sharply defined 
     and the costs more fully understood, I see deterrence in a 
     very different light. Appropriated from the lexicon of 
     conventional warfare, this simple prescription for 
     adequate military preparedness became in the Nuclear Age a 
     formula for unmitigated catastrophe. It was premised on a 
     litany of unwarranted assumptions, unprovable assertions 
     and logical contradictions. It suspended rational thinking 
     about he ultimate aim of National security: to ensure the 
     survival of the Nation.
       How is it that we subscribed to a strategy that required 
     near perfect understanding of an enemy from whom we were 
     deeply alienated and largely isolated? How could we pretend 
     to understand the motivations and intentions of the Soviet 
     leadership absent any substantive personal association? Why 
     did we imagine a Nation that had survived successive 
     invasions and mindnumbing losses would accede to a strategy 
     premised on fear of Nuclear War? Deterrence in the cold war 
     setting was fatally flawed at the most fundamental level of 
     human psychology in its projection of Western reason through 
     the crazed lens of a paranoid foe. Little wonder that 
     intentions and motives were consistently misread. Little 
     wonder that deterrence was the first victim of a deepening 
     crisis, leaving the antagonists to grope fearfully in a fog 
     of mutual misperception. While we clung to the notion that 
     Nuclear War could be reliably deterred, Soviet leaders 
     derived from their historical experience the conviction that 
     such a war might be thrust upon them and if so, mut not be 
     lost. Driven by that fear, they took Herculean measures to 
     fight and survive no matter the odds or the costs. Deterrence 
     was a dialogue of the blind with the deaf. In the final 
     analysis, it was largely a bargain we in the West made with 
     ourselves.
       Deterrence was flawed equally in that the consequences of 
     its failure were intolerable. While the price of undeterred 
     aggression in the age of uniquely conventional weaponry could 
     be severe, history teaches that Nations can survive and even 
     prosper in the aftermath of unconditional defeat. Not so in 
     the nuclear era. Nuclear weapons give no quarter. Their 
     effects transcend time and place, poisoning the Earth and 
     deforming its inhabitants for generation upon generation. 
     They leave us wholly without defense, expunge all hope for 
     meaningful survival. They hold in their sway not just the 
     fate of Nations, but the very meaning of civilization.
       Deterrence failed completely as a guide in setting rational 
     limits on the size and composition of military forces. To the 
     contrary, its appetite was voracious, its capacity to justify 
     new weapons and larger stocks unrestrained. Deterrence 
     carried the seed, born of an irresolvable internal 
     contradiction, that spurred an insatiable arms race. Nuclear 
     deterrence hinges on the credibility to mount a devastating 
     retaliation under the most extreme conditions of war 
     initiation. Perversely, the redundant and survivable force 
     required to meet this exacting text is readily perceived by a 
     darkly suspicious adversary as capable, even designed, to 
     execute a disarming first strike. Such advantage can never be 
     conceded between nuclear rivals. It must be answered, 
     reduced, nullified. Fears are fanned, the rivalry 
     intensified. New technology is inspired, new systems roll 
     from production lines. The correlation of force begins to 
     shift, and the bar of deterrence ratchets higher, igniting 
     yet another cycle of trepidation, worst case assumptions and 
     ever mounting levels of destructive capability.
       Thus it was that the treacherous axioms of deterrence made 
     seemingly reasonable nuclear weapon stockpiles numbering in 
     the tens of thousands. Despite having witnessed the 
     devastation wrought by two primitive atomic devices, over the 
     ensuing decades the superpowers gorged themselves at the 
     thermonuclear trough. A succession of leaders on both sides 
     of the East-West divide directed a reckless proliferation of 
     nuclear devices, tailored for delivery by a vast array of 
     vehicles to a stupefying array of targets. They nurtured, 
     richly rewarded, even revealed in the industrial base 
     required to support production at such levels.
       I was part of all of that. I was present at the creation of 
     many of these systems, directly responsible for prescribing 
     and justifying the requirements and technology that made them 
     possible. I saw the arms race from the inside, watched 
     as intercontinental ballistic missiles ushered in mutual 
     assured destruction and multiple warhead missiles 
     introduced genuine fear of a nuclear first strike. I 
     participated in the elaboration of basing schemes that 
     bordered on the comical and force levels that in 
     retrospect defied reason. I was responsible for war plans 
     with over 12,000 targets, many struck with repeated 
     nuclear blows, some to the point of complete absurdity. I 
     was a veteran participant in an arena where the most 
     destructive power ever unleashed became the prize in a no 
     holds barred competition among organizations whose 
     principal interest was to enhance rather than constrain 
     its application. And through every corridor, in every 
     impassioned plea, in every fevered debate range the 
     rallying cry, deterrence, deterrence, deterrence.
       As nuclear weapons and actors multiplied, deterrence took 
     on too many names, too many roles, overreaching an already 
     extreme strategic task. Surely nuclear weapons summoned great 
     caution in superpower relationships. But as their numbers 
     swelled, so mounted the stakes of miscalculation, of a crisis 
     spun out of control. The exorbitant price of nuclear war 
     quickly exceeded the rapidly depreciating value of a tenuous 
     mutual wariness. Invoking deterrence became a cheap 
     rhetorical parlor trick, a verbal sleight of hand. Proponents 
     persist in dressing it up to court changing times and 
     temperaments, hemming and re-hemming to fit shrinking or 
     distorted threats.
       Deterrence is a slippery conceptual slope. It is not 
     stable, nor is it static, its wiles cannot be contained. It 
     is both master and slave. It seduces the scientist yet bends 
     to his creation. It serves the ends of evil as well as those 
     of noble intent. It holds guilty the innocent as well as the 
     culpable. It gives easy semantic cover to nuclear weapons, 
     masking the horrors of employment with siren veils of 
     infallibility. At best it is a gamble no mortal should 
     pretend to make. At worst it invokes death on a scale 
     rivaling the power of the creator.
       Is it any wonder that at the end of my journey I am moved 
     so strongly to retrace its path, to examine more closely the 
     evidence I would or could not see? I hear not the voices long 
     ignored, the warnings muffled by the still lingering 
     animosities of the cold war. I see with painful clarity that 
     from the very beginnings of the nuclear era. The objective 
     scrutiny and searching debate essential to adequate 
     comprehension and responsible oversight of its vast 
     enterprises were foreshortened or foregone. The cold light of 
     dispassionate scrutiny was shuttered in the name of security, 
     doubts dismissed in the name of an acute and unrelenting 
     threat, objections overruled by the incantations of the 
     nuclear priesthood.
       The penalties proved to be severe. Vitally important 
     decisions were routinely taken without adequate 
     understanding, assertions too often prevailed over analysis, 
     requirements took on organizational biases, technological 
     opportunity and corporate profit drove force levels and 
     capability, and political opportunism intruded on 
     calculations of military necessity. Authority and 
     accountability were severed, policy dissociated from 
     planning, and theory invalidated by practice. The narrow 
     concerns of a multitude of powerful interests intruded on the 
     rightful role of key policymakers, constraining their 
     latitude for decision. Many were simply denied access to 
     critical information essential to the proper exercise of 
     their office.
       Over time, planning was increasingly distanced and 
     ultimately disconnected from any sense of scientific or 
     military reality. In the end, the nuclear powers, great and 
     small, created astronomically expensive infrastructures, 
     monolithic bureaucracies and complex processes that defied 
     control or comprehension. Only now are the dimensions, costs 
     and risks of these nuclear nether worlds coming to light. 
     What must now be better-understood are the root causes, the 
     mindsets and the belief systems that brought them into 
     existence. They must be challenged, they must be refuted, but 
     most importantly, they must be let go. The era that gave them 
     credence, accepted their dominion and yielded to their 
     excesses is fast receding.
       But it is not yet over. Sad to say, the Cold War lives on 
     in the minds of those who cannot let go the fears, the 
     beliefs, and the enmities born of the nuclear age. They cling 
     to deterrence, clutch its tattered promise to their breast, 
     shake it wistfully at bygone adversaries and balefully at new 
     or imagined ones. They are gripped still by its awful 
     willingness not simply to tempt the apocalypse but to prepare 
     its way.
       What better illustration of misplaced faith in nuclear 
     deterrence than the persistent belief that retaliation with 
     nuclear weapons is a legitimate and appropriate response to 
     post-cold war threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. 
     What could possibly justify our resort to the very means we 
     properly abhor and condemn? Who can imagine our joining in 
     shattering the precedent of non-use that has held for over 
     fifty years? How could America's irreplaceable role as leader 
     of the campaign against nuclear proliferation ever be re-
     justified? What target would warrant such retaliation? Would 
     we hold an entire society accountable for the decision of a 
     single demented leader? How would the physical effects of the 
     nuclear explosion be

[[Page S952]]

     contained, not to mention the political and moral 
     consequences? In a singular act we would martyr our enemy, 
     alienate our friends, give comfort to the non-declared 
     nuclear states and impetus to states who seek such weapons 
     covertly. In short, such a response on the part of the United 
     States is inconceivable. It would irretrievably diminish our 
     priceless stature as a nation noble in aspiration and 
     responsible in conduct, even in the face of extreme 
     provocation.
       And as a nation we have no greater responsibility than to 
     bring the nuclear era to a close. Our present policies, plans 
     and postures governing nuclear weapons make us prisoner still 
     to an age of intolerable danger. We cannot at once keep 
     sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the 
     capacity to destroy it. We cannot hold hostage to sovereign 
     gridlock the keys to final deliverance from the nuclear 
     nightmare. We cannot withhold the resources essential to 
     break its grip, to reduce its dangers. We cannot sit in 
     silent acquiescence to the faded homilies of the nuclear 
     priesthood. It is time to reassert the primacy of individual 
     conscience, the voice of reason and the rightful interests of 
     humanity.

                          ____________________