Interview with Albert Wohlstetter, 1986

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Albert Wohlstetter, 1986
Description:
Albert Wohlstetter was a prominent nuclear strategist starting in the 1950s. He was a long-time analyst with the RAND Corporation from 1951-1963. The interview begins with a description of strategists' worries about a nuclear Pearl Harbor in the early 1950s, and the specific concern that the Strategic Air Command could be taken by surprise. The challenge, in his view, was to be prepared to respond without committing to war. Avoiding responses to false alarms was another challenge. He says that U.S. strategists began to rethink force structures after it was discovered that American forces could plausibly be destroyed by a first strike, which meant it would have no deterrent effect. In his view, the changes the Kennedy administration made to develop hardened missiles and speed up response times were very positive. Among other measures to reconsider strategy was the Acheson Report, which posited building up Western capabilities to respond to conventional attacks by conventional means rather than solely with nuclear weapons. Up till then, he states, American bombers did not even carry conventional bomb racks because of the presumption of an escalation to nuclear conflict. Robert McNamara's 1962 Ann Arbor speech, in his opinion, was another constructive step for U.S. strategy. Dr. Wohlstetter discusses the concept of active defenses, which he promoted, then disagree with McNamara's notion of inevitable action-reaction. He also criticizes McNamara's inclination to measure U.S. military capabilities by the number of people expected to be killed. He further believes the former Secretary of Defense did not adequately consider what to do if deterrence failed. He catalogues his recommendations to the Gaither Committee and recounts SAC's and the Air Force's generally positive responses to his views on vulnerability. He closes with an extended discussion of Mutual Assured Destruction and related questions of deterrence.
Interviewee:
Wohlstetter, Albert J.
Date:
February 26, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
Warfare, Conventional
Soviet Union
Polaris (Missile)
Nuclear warfare
Minuteman (Missile)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Deterrence (Strategy)
Warsaw Treaty Organization
United States. Air Force
Rowen, Henry S.
Antimissile missiles
United States. Air Force. Strategic Air Command
Nuclear weapons
Gaither, H. Rowan (Horace Rowan), 1909-1961
Hoffman, Fred S., 1922-
Enthoven, Alain C., 1930-
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
Acheson, Dean, 1893-1971
Places:
California > Los Angeles (county) > Los Angeles
Extent:
01:27:43:13
Link to Item:
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_2C5EF61C59EE44CB89CD86E62F2AD4C4
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_2C5EF61C59EE44CB89CD86E62F2AD4C4