War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Jack Ruina, 1986

Item Information

Title:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Jack Ruina, 1986
Description:
Jack Ruina served in a number of positions at the Defense Department, rising to become Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Department of Defense from 1961-1963. From 1969-1977 he was a member of the General Advisory Committee and consulted for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Carter administration. He begins by considering the relevance of World War II to modern questions of the reliability of defenses against air attack. Attempts to build a viable anti-aircraft system in the 1950s, he recalls, were undermined by the development of ICBMs. The latter in turn, he relates, became the focus of subsequent defense-oriented development and he cites the Nike Zeus as one of the systems that was being considered. President Kennedy turned out not to be supportive of Zeus, but as Dr. Ruina explains, the prevailing view among the military was that even a system that seemed ineffective should be kept on the drawing board "in case we were wrong." The Nike X system proved to be very satisfactory according to its specifications, but advances in missile technology, especially MIRVs, left the new system "wanting." In the end, it became clear that in the missile age defending the population was impossible. This leads to the question of what constitutes a reasonable defense, and further, to discussion of the realization that there no war fighting options ensure that escalation will stop. Dr. Ruina explains another "strange" dynamic of the missile age, which involves one side feeling obliged for political reasons to follow the lead of the other - in building a ballistic missile defense system, for example - even if that system clearly does not work. He describes at length his unsuccessful efforts to persuade American and Russian officials alike that ABM systems were dangerous and should not be pursued. He offers a lengthy example of how technical issues can be used in political arguments over military systems, and recalls one or two personalities he encountered along the way. Finally, he provides a character sketch of Robert McNamara whom he saw as a great secretary of defense.
Author:
Ruina, J. P. (Jack P.)
Date:
March 4, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
American Archive of Public Broadcasting Collection
Series:
WGBH > War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
Global Affairs
Military Forces and Armaments
World War II
Nuclear weapons
Antimissile missiles
Deterrence (Strategy)
Nuclear arms control
Thor (Missile)
Jupiter missile
Great Britain
Germany
United States
Canada
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Brown, Harold, 1927-
Taylor, Maxwell D. (Maxwell Davenport), 1901-1987
McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
Trudeau, Arthur G., 1902-1991
Wohlstetter, Albert J.
Wiesner, Jerome B. (Jerome Bert), 1915-1994
Gilpatric, Roswell L. (Roswell Leavitt), 1906-1996
Gell-Mann, Murray
Doty, Paul M., 1920-2011
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
Extent:
01:03:21
Link to Item:
https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-g44hm52r6s
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation