Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Marcus Raskin, 1986
Description:
Marcus Raskin served as McGeorge Bundy's assistant on national security affairs and disarmament on the National Security Council staff from 1961-1962. In the interview he discusses U.S. nuclear strategy and disarmament. He explains the White House response to the first-strike proposal created during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. He is repulsed by the idea a first strike, which he considers illegal and immoral, and compares it to the Holocaust. He also describes the buildup of U.S. nuclear capabilities under Secretary of Defense McNamara. He contends that trying to control the arms race, without nuclear disarmament, is impossible because neither side will be totally satisfied that they have a stable deterrent against the other's nuclear forces. In addition, he argues against the conventional forces buildup, which he thinks will only encourage the U.S. to get into more conflicts like the Vietnam War, which could eventually evolve into nuclear engagements. He also discusses the idea of a U.S.-Soviet negotiated disengagement from Eastern and Western Europe.
Interviewee:
Raskin, Marcus G.
Date:
March 26, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
Nuclear weapons
Bundy, McGeorge
Civil defense
United States. Dept. of Defense
Fallout shelters
United States. Air Force. Strategic Air Command
Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
Dean, Arthur H.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Warsaw Treaty (1955)
Kaysen, Carl
National Security Council (U.S.)
United States. PresidentÂ’s Science Advisory Committee
Brezhnev, Leonid Il'ich, 1906-1982
Gorbachev, Mikhail
Nuclear disarmament
Soviet Union
Sorensen, Theodore C.
United Nations
Zorin, V. A. (Valerian Aleksandrovich), 1902-1986
Kissinger, Henry, 1923-
McCloy, John J. (John Jay), 1895-1989
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Schelling, Thomas C., 1921-
McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
Wiesner, Jerome B. (Jerome Bert), 1915-1994
Teller, Edward, 1908-2003
Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894-1971
Places:
District of Columbia > Washington
Germany
China
Extent:
00:43:17:27
Link to Item:
https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_9EEEEDCFEB1B4D06A9E8DA66B86A236B
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_9EEEEDCFEB1B4D06A9E8DA66B86A236B