NOTE: In the November 4, 1982, issue, The New York Review published Theodore Draper’s article “Dear Mr. Weinberger—An Open Reply to an Open Letter.” Mr. Draper commented on a letter sent by Secretary Weinberger on August 23, 1982, to thirty US and forty foreign publications in which Mr. Weinberger said he was “increasingly concerned with news accounts that portray this administration as planning to wage a protracted nuclear war, or seeking to acquire a ‘war-fighting’ capability.” Mr. Draper’s article was included in his book Present History, published this spring. In May 1983, Mr. Draper unexpectedly received a reply from Secretary Weinberger, which is published here along with the correspondence that followed.
—The Editors
May 20, 1983
Dear Mr. Draper:
I have read a review of your book entitled Present History, and feel that I must make the following comments.
The United States is not arming to fight, or to “prevail” in a protracted nuclear war. We are under no illusions about the danger of nuclear war. We believe neither side could win. But to deter war it is not enough to convince ourselves. We must convince the Soviets that under no scenario could they gain enough from aggression to justify the tremendous losses they would incur.
Therefore, US contingency planning, to serve deterrence, must also envision the possible employment of nuclear weapons should deterrence fail. Given the large and varied forces of the Soviet Union, and the wide range of possible ways in which they could use them, it would be militarily, politically and morally unsound to confine the President to resorting either to capitulation or massive retaliation. The consequences for the United States and our allies in either case would be unacceptable.
Accordingly, our policy requires that, if necessary, we prevail in denying victory to the Soviets and in protecting the sovereignty and continued viability of the United States and of the Western democracies as free societies. There is no contradiction between deterrence of war and planning to employ nuclear weapons to deny victory to the Soviets if deterrence fails. Neither is there a contradiction between our view that there could be no winners in a nuclear war and our planning to prevail, if war is forced upon us, in denying victory to the Soviet Union. It should be apparent that if our forces cannot be used effectively, if necessary, neither can they credibly deter.
As I have said on many occasions, it is an uncomfortable way to keep the peace. All the same, for thirty-seven years it has kept the United States and the Soviet Union from war.
Sincerely,
Casper W. Weinberger
Washington, DC
June 4, 1983
Theodore Draper replies:
Dear Mr. Weinberger:
I am sorry that you were moved to write to me on the basis of no more than a review of my book, Present History. The book includes my extended reply to your previous letter of August 23, 1982, to some seventy foreign and domestic publications. If you had read the entire article, originally published in The New York Review of Books of November 4, 1982, you might have faced up to my full critical analysis instead of contenting yourself with a repetition of tired formulas that did not convince me the first time.
I will try to restate the main issue briefly so that the problem with these formulas will at least be clear.
The key document, “Fiscal Year 1984-1988 Defense Guidance” of March 1982, which you approved, states that should a Soviet attack occur, “United States nuclear capabilities must prevail even under the condition of prolonged war.” It also says that we must “seek the earliest termination of hostilities on terms favorable to the United States.” To “prevail” thus means “terms favorable to the United States,” which is another way of saying that we must seek to end the war with a nuclear victory.
Now you say, in your second sentence, that the United States “is not arming to fight, or to ‘prevail’ in a protracted nuclear war.” But by the time you get down to the end of your letter, you also say that there is no contradiction “between our view that there could be no winners in a nuclear war and our planning to prevail, if war is forced upon us, in denying victory to the Soviet Union.”
The first time, “prevail” is put in quotes, whatever that is supposed to imply. The second time, “prevail” is used without quotes, but seems to mean nothing more than “denying victory to the Soviet Union.” In short, you seem at first to cast doubt on the whole concept of prevailing, only to reinstate it in a peculiarly negative form.
To begin with, there is a glaring discrepancy between the meaning of “prevail” in your “Defense Guidance” and in your present letter. The first is forthright—prevail means “terms favorable to the United States.” The second is evasive and ambiguous, with or without quotes. Prevail now refers to the Soviet Union rather than to the United States or to both.
Why this playing with words? The reason seems to emerge from another sentence in your letter. It reads: “We believe neither side can win.”
Clearly it would be political poison to excite American public opinion with the prospect of fighting to win a nuclear war, as if it were like any other kind of war. So you have resorted to a deceptively negative formula—that of merely denying victory to the Soviet Union.
But if we truly believe that neither side can win, why does it matter all that much to deny the Soviets a victory which we say cannot be obtained by either side? Do you think the Soviet leaders are so stupid that they cannot understand what you understand? Whatever they may say (and they have said different things at different times, as we have done), the fact remains that preparing for a war which neither side can win is the same as preparing for a war which both sides must lose.
Ironically, what you attribute to the Soviets—the goal of nuclear victory—is just what you have enshrined in your “Defense Guidance”—victory through “terms favorable to the United States.” This little rhetorical trick won’t do. It consists of accusing the Soviets of believing in a nuclear war-fighting policy in order to justify the same policy for ourselves, disguised as preventing the success of the Soviet policy—a success which we say is illusory.
The nuclear war-fighting policy is also slipped into your seemingly innocent remark that our forces must be “used effectively.” But “effectively” for what? The only “effective” use of our nuclear forces can be their ability to prevent their use. Once they are used, they can only effectively destroy both the Soviets and ourselves because, as you say, neither side can win or perhaps survive in any recognizable fashion. A nuclear-deterrence policy is one that seeks to possess enough survivable nuclear force to make nuclear war self-destructive to the aggressor; it is not to beat the Soviets at the same game by attributing to them the aim of seeking to fight an unwinnable nuclear war.
I wondered, as I read that part of your letter which protests against the idea that you want the United States to arm for the purpose of fighting or “prevailing” in a protracted nuclear war whether you are implicitly repudiating just such a doctrine present in your “Defense Guidance.” For you cannot have it both ways forever—denying the aim to “prevail” and affirming the plan to prevail. Your letter betrays the very contradictions which you deny, as if you were uncomfortably aware of them and sought to exorcise the evil by a ritual of formal denial.
I would be interested to know whether, on reconsideration, based on more than a snippet in a book review, you will not feel it necessary to make a choice, instead of doing one thing and saying another, or of saying two things at once.
Sincerely,
Theodore Draper
Princeton, New Jersey
July 13, 1983
Dear Mr. Draper:
I feel compelled to respond to your letter of June 4 in order to clarify, again, the nuclear deterrence policy of this Administration. In doing so, I will address the issues you have raised on their merits and on the basis of facts, and will avoid the ad hominem nature of your letter and of your earlier “Open Letter” of November 1982. (For the record, although I chose not to respond at the time, I read your November piece when it was first published, and thus my note to you of May 20 was based on more than “a snippet from a book review.”) Let me begin, then, by reviewing the major points of both your letters—points which I am prepared to assume you support although you are unwilling to extend the same courtesy to me with regard to statements in my letters.
In your letters you assert that:
—this Administration believes a nuclear war can be fought and a meaningful victory achieved;
—leaks from classified documents confirm the US has adopted a war fighting, war winning strategy;
—we are procuring nuclear forces for war fighting/war winning; these procurement plans clearly exceed the requirements of a deterrent posture;
—the plans we attribute to the USSR are a mirror image of our own; and finally,
—public statements which I and other senior officials have made denying the above are “hoaxes” designed to obfuscate our “true” policy.
While you are clearly entitled to your opinions, the fact is that each and every assertion you have made is absolutely incorrect and at variance with the truth. Your assertions betray a fundamental misunderstanding of US nuclear policy as it has evolved since 1945 and particularly since 1961. Before proceeding further, let me set forth what in fact are the underlying principles of the longstanding US nuclear policy. First and foremost, our basic purpose is a defensive one: to prevent aggression against ourselves and our allies. The role of our nuclear weapons within that policy is to deter nuclear attack on the United States and, in conjunction with our conventional forces and those of our allies, to deter nuclear and conventional aggression against our allies. To deter successfully we must have the capability to respond appropriately to any level of attack against us or our allies and to respond in such a manner that a potential aggressor will recognize that the costs of aggression far outweigh its possible gains. Nevertheless, despite our best efforts, should deterrence fail at whatever level, we must seek to terminate the conflict quickly at the lowest level of destruction possible, to restore deterrence, and to protect the sovereignty and continued viability of the United States and of the Western democracies as free societies with fundamental institutions and values intact.
Our goal is, therefore, to prevent war, particularly nuclear war. In this regard, our historical objective of deterrence is founded on our belief that there could be no winners in a nuclear war. We are aware of the terrible consequences which a nuclear war would have for the American people, and thus we are under no illusion that a nuclear war would be anything less than an absolute catastrophe. That means that we regard the enormous damage and devastation created by the use of nuclear weapons as having rendered the concept of victory (as it has classically and historically been defined in a political-military context) meaningless. And, for that reason, we do not view nuclear weapons as simply another tool in the arsenal of national power.
