THIS WEEK WITH DAVID BRINKLEY - April 19, 1987

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MR. BRINKLEY: Coming next, Representative Les Aspin, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and shortly, Ambassador Viktor Karpov, Director of the Soviet Foreign Ministry's department on arms control from Moscow, and Ambassador Paul H. Nitze, adviser to the President on arms control. In a moment.

(Announcements.)

MR. BRINKLEY: Mr. Aspin, thanks very much for coming in today.

REP. ASPIN: Thank you.

MR. BRINKLEY: Pleased to have you with us. Here in the studio are George Will of ABC NEWS, and Sam Donaldson, ABC NEWS White House Correspondent. Now, you're just back from Moscow. Before we get into anything else, tell us what you learned.

REP. ASPIN: Well, the line that they were clearly putting out to the Congressional delegation was, here's a chance to deal. There's a deal to be had. We're very anxious to do it. Slight -- never stated, but clearly implied was, they wanted us to go back and kind of help put pressure on the administration to move the whole thing along.

MR. BRINKLEY: You going to do that?

REP. ASPIN: Well, I think the delegation, as usual in Congress, some of it think that's a good idea and others think it's not.

MR. BRINKLEY: What do you think?

REP. ASPIN: I'm worried about it. The whole thing worries me a very, very great deal. I think that -- that this business of gradually eliminating sections of nuclear weapons is not a very smart idea, given the fact that as long as there's the conventional imbalance in Europe we're going to need nuclear weapons. Without doing something about the conventional imbalance, what you're doing is, you're saying okay, we're going to eliminate the medium range. Then we're going to eliminate the short range. And it's just a progressive process. Now, I know there's 4,600 nuclear warheads left and other things. But it's a process there that I think is a little bit dangerous. Let me make a second point, which is, I think what we're doing with this whole process is that we're eliminating the safest weapons and leaving in the most dangerous. Not all nuclear weapons are equal. Some are more dangerous than others.

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The most dangerous weapons in Europe are what are called the tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons, the ones that are right up front, and which would be involved right away in a fight if the conventional war were to break out. These are very dangerous. It's been a long time goal of a number of us to try to get those weapons out of the system, in other words, to get rid of those. But what we're doing with this agreement is going in exactly the opposite direction. We're eliminating the medium; then we're eliminating the short. Which leaves the tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons. And we're heavily dependent on those, and those are the ones that are really the most dangerous. Because if a war breaks out, they're like to be overrun. There's going to be early pressure in the war to use them or lose them. There's going to be a lot of pressure to decide to go nuclear. If you were thinking about how we were going to do this system from a rational standpoint, what you do is eliminate the battlefield and tactical weapons, and move what nuclear weapons you need -- and you need nuclear weapons -- back a far enough distance. But unfortunately, under this agreement, it's exactly those kind of weapons that we're eliminating.

MR. WILL: Does the administration, and specifically, does the President accept the fact, do you believe, that we need nuclear weapons in Europe?

REP. ASPIN: I don't know. I mean --

MR. WILL: So it is open to doubt?

REP. ASPIN: Well, anybody that thought that Mikhail Gorbachev's idea of eliminating all nuclear weapons at Reykjavik, the President allowed as how he thought that was a pretty good idea, you have to then question.

MR. WILL: Now, with their -- the Soviet advantage in conventional and chemical forces, both numerical and geographical --

REP. ASPIN: Yes.

MR. WILL: -- because they're right there --

REP. ASPIN: Yes.

MR. WILL: -- is it not in the Soviet interest to stigmatize nuclear weapons generally --

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REP. ASPIN: Absolutely.

MR. WILL: -- and denuclearize Europe, and does not the President's rhetoric in this regard, about a nuclear-free world, play into his hands.

REP. ASPIN: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, if you look at the speech that Mr. Gorbachev made at Prague, he talks about, let's get rid of the long range or the medium range missiles, let's get rid of the short range missiles. And he also says, let's have a nuclear-free corridor in Europe. Well, that's where the tactical weapons are. I mean, you put the program together that Mr. Gorbachev is proposing and you've got no nuclear weapons on the continent of Europe.

MR. WILL: Nuclear weapons are a very cheap form of deterrence.

REP. ASPIN: Correct.

MR. WILL: Can you give our viewers some idea of what would have to happen to the defense budget were we to have what the President says he wants, which is a non-nuclear world, and were we therefore to rely in the central front, or all over Europe, to deterring the Soviet Union with conventional forces?

REP. ASPIN: I can't give you exactly. It's been awhile since I've looked at it. The last time --

MR. WILL: Just some order of magnitude.

REP. ASPIN: Order of magnitude, the last time I looked at it, I thought in order to have a credible conventional balance in Europe, we would need another 10 divisions on our side.

MR. BRINKLEY: How much money is that?

MR. WILL: How many dollars?

REP. ASPIN: I can't remember now how it works out. But it's big bucks. I mean, the big dollars and the big rubles --

MR. BRINKLEY: It'd take a draft, wouldn't it.

REP. ASPIN: -- are in the area of the --

MR. WILL: Can we do it without conscription?

REP. ASPIN: Oh, you -- I think that's a question. But I think that -- that you might be able to do it without conscription. But there's no question that in order to do it, you'd have to spend a lot more money.

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MR. DONALDSON: Some may find something surreal about your attitude this morning, Mr. Chairman. House Democrats, finally led by you last fall, were going to press this administration with a series of restrictions: they must abide by SALT II; they must agree to a test ban; several restrictions. And you held your hand at the time of Reykjavik, saying, we want the President to get serious about arms control. Now he appears to be serious about arms control and you don't like it.

REP. ASPIN: But the problem is that this administration is totally schizophrenic about arms control. They go from --

MR. DONALDSON: Well, aren't you?

REP. ASPIN: No. They're over in the gravel on the right hand side of the road, and then they swing suddenly and they're over in the gravel on the left hand side of the road. What you want is a program which is consistent and steady, which is, that you are for arms control. And arms control to me means arms control, structuring the forces on both sides so that it is less likely that nuclear war will break out. And then have an opportunity for such an agreement on the strategic forces. A little bit of give on SDI, 50 percent reduction of the strategic systems, build the Midgetman, and you've solved the land-based missile vulnerability problem: a very good idea.

MR. DONALDSON: Okay.

REP. ASPIN: In Europe, we're doing exactly the opposite. We're taking out the safest missiles and leaving in the most dangerous.

MR. DONALDSON: But of course the administration disputes that. They would say that the tactical weapons, the ones that you properly described as the ones that might first be used, are therefore the most dangerous because they would immediately plunge us into an escalating nuclear exchange. Whereas the medium range missiles that hit cities are ones that we might not at first use because once you destroy someone's city, particularly, the fat is in the fire.

REP. ASPIN: No, the -- it's a question of the targeting versus the missiles. I think that once nuclear weapons start to be used, then all bets are off.

MR. DONALDSON: Even if it's a Lance?

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REP. ASPIN: Even if it's a Lance. Once -- nobody has ever credibly
laid out a scenario whereby tactical nuclear weapons do not lead to
nuclear weapons being used on a grand scale on both sides.

MR. DONALDSON: Let me come back to this --

REP. ASPIN: So that's the danger. The danger is, the weapons
that we're going to be leaving are the dangers that are going to be --
the weapons that are going to be under enormous pressure right away at
the start of a war. There's going to be the immediate request to use
nuclear weapons. We're going to say, our position is about to be
overrun. If we don't use our nuclear weapons, the Soviets are going to
take them. You don't want that situation. You want the war -- to try
and stop the war on a conventional balance, have nuclear weapons in
reserve, threaten to use them if you must, use them if you have to --

MR. DONALDSON: Let me come back --

REP. ASPIN: -- but you want them back far enough so that you can
make that decision in a rational way and not be pressured into it right
in the first few hours of the war.

MR. DONALDSON: Very quickly, our time is about up, let me just
come back. Will Democrats continue to press this package that you
state last fall, or is it a dead issue?

REP. ASPIN: No, I think they will. Because what we're talking
about here in the agreements with Mr. Gorbachev are the INF, and the
package really affects the strategic systems.

MR. BRINKLEY: Mr. Aspin, thank you.

REP. ASPIN: Thank you.

MR. BRINKLEY: Thanks very much for coming. Glad to have you back
in this country.

REP. ASPIN: Thank you. #

MR. BRINKLEY: Coming next, Ambassador Viktor Karpov, director of
the Soviet Foreign Ministry's department on arms control, and shortly,
Ambassador Paul H. Nitze, an adviser to President Reagan on arms control.
in a moment.

(Announcements.)

MR. BRINKLEY: Ambassador Karpov in Moscow, thank you very much