630 



and to strive for a more commanding position in arms, although the 

 policy of the Nixon administration has been explicitly to seek "suffi- 

 ciency rather than . . . the meaningless 'will of the wisp' of nuclear 

 superiority." ^° As President Nixon told his press conference, Janu- 

 ary 27, 1969 : 



Our objective in this administration ... is to be sure that the United States 

 has sufficient military power to defend our interests and to maintain the commit- 

 ments which this administration determines are in the interest of the United 

 States around the world. 



I think "sufficiency" is a better term, actually, than either "superiority" or 

 "parity." ^ 



In announcing his decision on the antiballistic missile system, in 

 his press conference March 14, 1969, the President disclaimed any 

 thought that it was aggressive in concept. 



It would be merely a "safeguard of our deterrent system which is 

 increasingly vulnerable due to the advances that have been made by 

 the Soviet Union since the year 1967 when the Sentinel program was 

 first laid out." 32 



The President's concept of "sufficiency" required a good under- 

 standing of the adversary's diplomatic motivations and purposes and 

 a reliable set of offensive weapons to make it certain — 



(a) that the consequences of their use would be unmistakably 

 disastrous to an adversary ; 



(b) that the known diplomatic objectives of the adversary 

 would not justify any serious risk of invoking this retaliatory 

 mechanism. 



Whether because or in spite of the vigorous programs of military 

 technological development of the United States and the Soviet Union, 

 both of the Great Powers have maintained their respective nuclear 

 capabilities in some sort of balance. There is some assurance that the 

 stability of the mutual deterrent is unlikely to be upset by further 

 innovations. Jerome B. Wiesner, who had been science adviser to 

 President Kennedy, expressed the opinion in early 1969 that "In my 

 judgment there is no immediate danger of this stability being upset 

 . . ." 33 On the same occasion, George B. Kistiakowsky, who had earlier 

 been President Eisenhower's science adviser, declared : 



Mutual strategic deterrence provides whatever stability there is to nuclear 

 peace. Beyond this necessary but st^itic role, nuclear weapons have almost ceased 

 to be a useful instrument of national policy ; their possession provides few 

 additional foreign policy options.*' 



In the Department of Defense, Harold Brown, as Secretary of the 

 Air Force, declared May 14, 1968 : "There can be no successful ag- 

 gression by means of strategic war today." And in the Department of 

 State, U. Alexis Johnson, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, said 



3" Herbert Scoville. Jr. "The Polities of the ABM Debate : The View From the Arms Con- 

 trol and Disarmament Agency." Prepared for The American Political Science Association 

 [Convention's] Panel on the Politics of the ABM Debate. (Mimeo, September 1970), page 7. 



31 "The President's News Conference of .January 27, 1969." Weekly Compilation of Presi- 

 dential Documents, (February 3, 1969, Volume 5, Number 5), page 178. 



32 "Deployment of the Antiballistic Missile System." In "The President's News Confer- 

 ence of March 14, 1969." Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, (March 17, 1969, 

 Volume 5, Number 11), pages 401-2. 



33 U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. "Strategy and Science : Toward a 

 National Security Policy for the 1970's." Hearings before the Subcommittee on National 

 Security Policy "and Scientific Developments of the . . . 91st Congress, first session. 

 March 11, 13, 18, 19, 24, and 26, 1969. (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 

 1969), page 9. 



»* Ibid., page 40. 



