‘Kissinger the Revisionist’

I read with great interest Muskie’s article on our past nuclear policies and Kissinger’s role in shaping them.

Kissinger’s recommendations in the early 1970s to install multiple warheads (MIRVs) on our nuclear vehicles is widely recognized now to have been a serious blunder. It was based on the view that having achieved a technological advantage in a key area we must not fail to pursue it. Within a few years the Soviets caught up with the new technology. By installing the MIRVs on their more powerful ICBMs they more than made up for the fleeting advantage we had gained in the never-ending weaponry race.

Kissinger’s MIRV decision epitomizes the futile attempts to achieve nuclear superiority in the arms race. Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara brands them as our collective “blundering into disaster.” McNamara, to his credit, recognizing his responsibility for these policies, calls for a radically different course. Kissinger chooses to follow the old one.

Kissinger’s advocacy of the SDI and of the “narrow interpretation” of the ABM treaty is little more than a rehash of the views of the Reagan Administration and of the scientists working within it. Pontifically presented, it leaves unanswered the contrary views of some of our best nuclear scientists who have repeatedly told us that apart from the question of feasibility, attempts to provide such defense are likely to be accompanied by the development of the less expensive and ever more deadly offensive weapons.

We must thank Muskie for a careful analysis of these issues and your paper for publishing it.

LEO BROMWICH

Van Nuys