I remember that when it was first proposed to have the bi-service plane, which started out as the TFX, everybody was for it. Everybody applauded the idea. I don't know whether all those in the services did, but all the members of the Armed Services Committee did.

We thought we were going to get two for one. Well, it is reassuring to know that you are grappling with these problems. Someone mentioned the other day that when I first went on the Armed Services Committee you could get a good submarine at least, we thought it was a good one-for $26 to $27 million. That was in 1951 I believe. The other day we were told a submarine now costs $90 million, and the kind we really needed would cost $180 million. We may not have enough money to pay the men to run the thing.

I think this has been very interesting and very valuable testimony. Another thing, since I have been on the Armed Services Committee, the Russians have always been just about to overwhelm us; we were always just on the verge of being annihilated due to their superiority; but we have managed to stay ahead.

I know when we got the jets we thought we had it solved. We were going to be on top of everything. I don't want to leave this record on such a depressing note. I always emphasize where we might be if we didn't have this know-how, if we weren't willing to spend money to be ready for any eventuality, and the impact of the spillage over into the civilian economy. The contribution there has been tremendous. Since we stopped making bombers, we are having to subsidize the SST. That is an illustration of how we have benefitted from the military program, I think, in the last two or three decades.

Well, we certainly are grateful to you. This will be scrutinized carefully. These gentlemen are going to look over your statement thoroughly. We may have to ask you to come back. I think you are a very valuable witness, one of the key witnesses, and I hope that we can get the whole picture.

Dr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for your keen interest and concern in this area, and I would be pleased to come back any time you feel I could be of value.

Senator STENNIS. My thanks to you. You have been on the Hill about

half your time this year anyway.

Thank you very much, Doctor.

Dr. FOSTER. Thank you.

RECESS

Senator STENNIS. We will recess tonight until 10 o'clock Friday.

(Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at 10 a.m., Friday, April 26, 1968.)

STATUS OF U.S. STRATEGIC POWER

FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1968

U.S. SENATE,

PREPAREDNESS INVESTIGATING SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee (composed of Senators Stennis (chairman), Symington, Jackson, Cannon, Byrd of West Virginia, Smith, Thurmond, and Miller) met, pursuant to recess, at 10:10 o'clock a.m., in room 224, Old Senate Office Building, Senator John Stennis, presiding. Present: Senators Stennis and Symington.

Also present: James T. Kendall, Chief Counsel, Ben Gilleas, Director of Investigations, Stuart French, Samuel R. Shaw, and Everette L. Harper, of the committee staff.

CHAIRMAN'S OPENING STATEMENT

Senator STENNIS. The subcommittee will be in order.

I have a very brief statement. This is the fourth in a series of hearings in which the subcommittee is examining the Nation's strategic offensive and defensive weapons and delivery systems. Our objective is not only to determine the adequacy of our strategic power to meet the current threat, but also to insure that the policies we are following in developing the weapons and force levels of the future will provide the necessary deterrent to prevent any future nuclear attacks on our country.

Wednesday, we heard testimony from Dr. John S. Foster, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, who discussed in some detail the U.S. technological superiority in the strategic weapons field. This technological superiority provides, he said, the basis for our policy of countering increased numbers of Soviet missiles with qualitative improvements to our own strategic forces.

Today, we have with us Dr. Alain C. Enthoven, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis.

We appreciate very much the fact that you shifted your schedule in order to accommodate us here today. It has certainly meant something to us, and we know that you went to some inconvenience.

Dr. Enthoven plays a vital role in the decisionmaking process which determines the force levels and the specific weapons systems which are procured and deployed. His cost analysis provides a basic tool of decision in procurement and deployment of strategic systems.

This is Dr. Enthoven's first appearance before our subcommittee and we look forward to his testimony on this vital subject.

We welcome you, Dr. Enthoven, and appreciate your coming here to advise with us today. You have a prepared statement and I think it would be well for you to read at least a major part of it. If there is any part that it is proper to just include in the record, you may handle it that way.

If you will proceed, then we will have some questions.

STATEMENT OF DR. ALAIN C. ENTHOVEN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (SYSTEMS ANALYSIS); ACCOMPANIED BY IVAN SELIN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR STRATEGIC PROGRAMS

Dr. ENTHOVEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I feel it is a real privilege to be here and I am glad to have the opportunity. I feel there is nothing possible on my schedule that could be as important as my being here, so I am very happy to be able to arrange this date. Senator STENNIS. We feel it is highly important that we get the benefit of your testimony, sir.

Dr. ENTHOVEN. I will go ahead with my prepared remarks.
Senator STENNIS. Yes, sir.

Dr. ENTHOVEN. I appreciate this opportunity to testify before you on the current state of U.S. strategic nuclear capabilities. My own objective today is twofold. First, I want to review the main considerations that have shaped our current strategic nuclear posture our basic objectives, our strategic missions, and Soviet nuclear capabilities. Second, I want to focus your attention on some of the problems involved in comparing the relative capabilities of United States and Soviet strategic nuclear forces. My hope is that this approach will provide you with a firm foundation on which you can construct your own judgments about the adequacy of our current and programed nuclear forces.

BASIC OBJECTIVES

The foundation of our strategic policy is the deterrence of a deliberate nuclear attack against either the United States or its allies. To meet this objective, we must first maintain a powerful and well-protected strategic nuclear deterrent. Second, we must retain the confidence of our allies that the U.S. nuclear umbrella does indeed shelter them. These two requirements set the essential boundaries within which we must design our forces.

In addition, we have other strategic objectives:

(1) Achievement of the best attainable outcome of a nuclear war in the event that, somehow, deterrence fails.

(2) Avoidance of a further proliferation of nuclear weapons. (3) Adequately safeguarded nuclear arms control agreements. In considering these objectives, we must recognize that our strategic nuclear forces, while vital, cannot be the only guardian of our national security. They can only deter a limited range of contingencies. We need other military capabilities to cope with the many challenges and crises that cannot be met with nuclear weapons. I cannot stress too strongly my own view that in addition to improving our own strategic nuclear forces, one of our greatest contributions to national security since 1961 has been to move toward a satisfactory balance between our nuclear and conventional capabilities.

STRATEGIC MISSIONS

In discussing strategic nuclear forces we must consider the possible missions of our forces and the relation of these missions to the basic objectives I have just outlined. There are basically four different missions which could be assigned to our strategic forces.

1. Assured destruction: In order to deter a nuclear attack on the United States or its allies, we believe our forces must have an assured destruction capability. By this we mean the unmistakable ability to inflict an unacceptable degree of damage upon any aggressor-even after a surprise attack on the United States. In the case of the Soviet Union, we believe that the ability to kill 20 to 25 percent of its population and to destroy 50 percent of its industrial capacity under any foreseeable circumstances is an effective deterrent. We believe the Soviets also have a policy of keeping an assured destruction capability.

2. Preemptive strike or full first-strike capability: The targets for this mission are the enemy's strategic offensive forces. Its objective would be to destroy in one blow most of the enemy's retaliatory force. This mission would make sense only if we were certain that we could escape unacceptable retaliation. In fact, this is not possible with the Soviet strategic nuclear posture we now foresee.

3. Damage limiting: The purpose of this mission would be to limit damage to the United States and its allies by significant amounts, should deterrence fail and the Soviets start a war. Offensive forces devoted to this mission would try to destroy Soviet weapons withheld on the ground; our defense would try to destroy Soviet forces after they had been launched against us. Again, it would not be feasible to limit damage by significant amounts because the Soviets can and would react to maintain their assured destruction capability.

4. Limited and controlled retaliation: The targets for this mission might be cities, industrial installations, or military forces. Initially, at least, only one or a few of these targets would be destroyed; damage would be inflicted in a deliberate and controlled way. The purpose of this mission would be to force the enemy to abandon his objectives before the war reached the level of massive nuclear exchanges and widespread destruction.

In view of our basic objectives, it is clear that we must-and we do-maintain the ability to carry out the assured destruction mission. For several reasons, however, I do not believe we should invest large amounts of additional resources to procure the capability to perform the other three strategic nuclear missions.

First of all, the United States and the Soviet Union can inflict almost instant and very widespread destruction on each other in a first strike or in retaliation to a nuclear attack. Given the tremendous potential for destruction inherent in thermonuclear weapons, the success of any of the other three strategic nuclear missions depends on the Soviets' willingness to keep a nuclear war limited by not attacking our cities. Unfortunately, we can never be confident that the Soviets would exercise such restraint.

Second, any attempt we might make to achieve more than a fully adequate assured destruction capability must be considered in light of probable Soviet reactions. I believe that part of the Soviets' strategic policy is the maintenance of an assured destruction capability. The Soviets clearly have the means to maintain this capability. Thus, the Soviets can and would react to any steps we might take to achieve a full first-strike capability or to limit damage to ourselves significantly. Hence, forces bought for this mission would contribute little to our national security, and they would push the arms race one step further. Thus, we and the Soviets should accept a state of mutual deterrence.

For these reasons, we should continue to base the gross size of our strategic nuclear forces on the assured destruction mission only. However, because of our use of conservative assumptions to determine the size of our assured destruction force-such as the use of the high end of the predicted range of Soviet forces we find generally that we have and will continue to have more than enough nuclear forces to destroy Soviet cities. This is true because the size of the actual Soviet force generally turns out to be substantially below the high end of the projections we used when we set our force levels. Thus, we should and do make plans to use the forces in other missions, especially for damage limiting and controlled response. This includes providing the additional system characteristics-accuracy, endurance, and good command and control-needed to perform these missions.

We do not intend to allow our policy of basing the size of our forces on assured destruction to result in the Soviets overtaking us or even matching our strategic nuclear capability. However, there is a very real problem in defining how some degree of quantitative or qualitative superiority will affect the outcome of a strategic nuclear war. In a nuclear war, once each side has enough forces to be sure it can destroy the other in a second strike, there is little use for extra nuclear forces.

In a conventional war, we know that a numerical advantage in manpower, firepower, and mobility can force the retreat or destruction of enemy forces and open the way to the occupation of territory. This sequence of events may bring about the end of a conventional war. Strategic nuclear forces, however, do not have the capacity to seize territory, even when they are superior in numbers. They can only destroy it. As a consequence, we know of no feasible way of terminating a strategic nuclear war short of the total destruction and exhaustion of both sides. Thus, while "nuclear superiority" appears to be an attractive concept, we do not know how to take advantage of it in order to achieve our national security objectives. In other words, since the Soviet Union has an assured destruction capability against the United States, it is not clear at all how our superior nuclear forces might be converted into real political power. Nevertheless, we now have "nuclear superiority," and we expect to keep it.

SOVIET STRATEGIC NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES

Our ability to perform these nuclear missions depends in part on Soviet strategic nuclear capabilities. The following table summarizes the Soviet strategic offensive forces estimated for October 1, 1967, mid-1969, and mid-1972. The programed U.S. forces for the same dates are shown for comparison.