78-14-B2
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Rostow IV[edit]
Transcript[edit]For the last three broadcasts, I've been excerpting and quoting from an address by Eugene Rostow on our defense posture and the significance of the continuing SALT talks. It must be understood that strategic nuclear weapons play a role in modern politics and have a bearing on the entire process of world politics. It is often said that the goal of our nuclear forces is to deter or make less credible the possibility of war. It is, however, a mistake to believe that deterrence is also the goal of Soviet nuclear policy. As Rostow says,-- "Effective American nuclear deterrence cannot alone keep the Soviet Union from using conventional forces, at least against targets they think we regard as secondary, like Vietnam or Ethiopia. Except for massive attacks on our most vital interests, like Western Europe or Japan, defense has to be provided by conventional forces, at least in the first instance. But the absence of effective nuclear deterrence would have a disastrous effect, denying all credibility to our conventional force deterrent." To understand what he means, we must review our experience back to 1945, when we had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. In Greece, Turkey, the Berlin Airlift, Korea and the Cuban missile crisis, the nuclear weapon was always a decisive factor in the background. The Soviets knew that in a nuclear exchange, our casualties would have numbered ten million, their's 100 million. By the middle '60's, their buildup had brought us to a stalemate. We could no longer hint at the use of nuclear weapons in places like Vietnam. Now, "There can be no question", says Rostow, "that our position has slipped from stalemate to the borders of inferiority. The strategic force relationship which dominates the Cuban missile crisis will soon be reversed, unless we undertake a crash program immediately -- that in the event of a nuclear exchange we should risk 100 million casualties and the Soviet Union 10 million." Rostow correctly points out that if we let such a situation develop: "our foreign policy and conventional forces would be impotent and we should acquiesce." And, of course, by acquiesce he means surrender and end this great experiment in freedom which has, from its beginning, held out hope to a downtrodden mankind all over the world. "it is the first objective of Soviet policy to achieve such a situation", says Rostow, "Soviet leaders believe it would enable them to determine the future course of the world politics." "This", he says, "is what our nuclear weapons program and the SALT negotiations are all about." To those who dismiss the vision of nuclear war as unthinkable, he says, "The vision of Soviet political coercion backed by astronomical nuclear and conventional forces is far from unthinkable. No President of the United States should ever be put into a corner where he would have to choose between the surrender of vital national interests and nuclear holocaust." This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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