Interview with Richard Garwin, 1987

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Richard Garwin, 1987
Description:
Richard Garwin is a physicist who played a central part in designing the first hydrogen bomb. In this interview, he speaks at length and with great frankness about U.S. strategic policy and the rationales for developing different missile systems and basing options. A repeated point is the unacknowledged intention of some American strategists to maintain a first-strike capability, defined as a second-strike counterforce. He is critical of the tendency of the Air Force and others to focus on building bigger and more complex systems when far less expensive options would better serve the national interest. He assesses various missile systems in the U.S. arsenal. He disparages the contention in the 1970s that a window of vulnerability existed, particularly when officials making the argument often knew that it was flawed. An opponent of the MX basing proposal, he describes the controversy and his role in it. He presents arguments instead for building the Midgetman and basing them in silos. In discussing lessons of the MX story, he comments with characteristic bluntness that “too many people wrap themselves in the flag of patriotism and use arguments which are not true or which conceal relevant information. But in fact our national security is impaired, not improved, by lies and misrepresentations. And [by] starting programs which are going to become more costly than predicted.”
Interviewee:
Garwin, Richard L.
Date:
December 28, 1987
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
Nuclear arms control
Closely-spaced basing (Nuclear basing mode)
Schlesinger, James R.
Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles
Intercontinental ballistic missiles
Nitze, Paul H.
First strike (Nuclear strategy)
Trident (Weapons systems)
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles
Reagan, Ronald
Nuclear weapons
Seiberling, John F.
United States. Air Force
Scowcroft, Brent
Hecker, Guy L.
United States. President’s Commission on Strategic Forces
Gorbachev, Mikhail
Midgetman Missile
MX (Weapons system)
Counterforce (Nuclear strategy)
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
Soviet Union
Minuteman (Missile)
Chayes, Antonia Handler, 1929-
Kissinger, Henry, 1923-
Drell, Sidney D. (Sidney David), 1926-
Carter, Jimmy, 1924-
Perle, Richard Norman, 1941-
Places:
United States
Extent:
01:45:10:03
Link to Item:
https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_A6ACE8C21A494433B629D460150A18ED
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_A6ACE8C21A494433B629D460150A18ED