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CNN SUNDAY MORNING
Interview With Allen Lichtman
Aired December 22, 2002 - 07:14 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush has ordered the Pentagon to be ready to deploy at least a rudimentary missile defense system by 2004. The U.S. currently has no defenses in place against ballistic missiles. But, this comes nearly 20 years after the idea was first put in play by Ronald Reagan, 1983, famous speech, where he laid out the strategic defense initiative -- of course everybody called it "Star Wars." A lot of people would tell it had a lot to do with how the Cold War ended toward the favor of the United States.
Let's get some historical perspective now with our presidential historian Allen Lichtman of American University. Professor Lichtman, always good to have you with us.
ALLEN LICHTMAN, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: Thanks, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right, my theory on all of this is that Ronald Reagan never really cared very much whether "Star Wars" would work, that it was a good bargaining chip. Has that changed in 20 years?
LICHTMAN: Things have changed a lot in 20 years. It was a great bargaining chip for Ronald Reagan back in the early and mid-1980's to put pressure on an already tottering Soviet Union -- a system that was based on an economy that just couldn't work. But, this was also one of those great Reaganist optimistic dreams, that somehow we could have, you know, a guard-all shield against any kind of missile attack, and we could all live peacefully underneath it.
We have, in this age of diminished expectations, greatly scaled that down. Now, we're talking about a much smaller bargaining chip, a very limited system, aimed at a missile or two launched by, not by the Soviet Union, but by a rogue state like North Korea, or perhaps by accident.
O'BRIEN: Well, now, the theory used to be when it was the Soviet Union versus the United States, or China versus the United States, mutually assured destruction -- "Dr. Strangelove" kind of stuff -- and that if strategic defense initiative, or "Star Wars," allowed even one missile to get through, it failed. Has that dynamic changed?
LICHTMAN: That dynamic has changed quite a bit. This is no longer something that really is designed to disrupt mutually assured destruction. Nobody, but nobody, thinks that technology is anywhere near ready to stop an attack from the Soviet Union or a major missile power. Now, we're talking about the much more limited kind of deal, where it's not mutually assured destruction, but perhaps a rogue state, with a rogue leader, might try to hold us in some in kind of nuclear blackmail with a threat of lobbing a few missiles at us, and now we're saying, it's not mutually assured destruction, but some real defense against a limited attack.
But the problem is, nobody knows that it would really work in a real world situation against even the most limited kind of missile attack.
O'BRIEN: Now, there is an historian -- it might be apocryphal, correct me if I'm wrong, though -- Ronald Reagan went to tour Cheyenne Mountain NORAD, up in Colorado, and when he got a tour and they did ran through the demo, and they said, and Mr. President, this is what happens when the missiles start coming our way, here's what we do, and he says, "Well, when do you push the buttons to shoot them out of the sky?" And they said, "Well, we can't do that." He was surprised that they couldn't do that, and thus "Star Wars" was born.
In a sense, a lot of people have said this before that he sort of ran his presidency based on some movies he did.
LICHTMAN: There was a lot of truth to the notion that, you know, Ronald Reagan did get his enthusiasm for "Star Wars" from indeed his participation in certain movies, but some of the lines, in fact, used, where lines out of movies -- but the truth is, of course, missile defense is much older. The debates over missile defense go all the way back to the 1960s, and in fact it was the Soviet Union that really first developed the idea of deploying some kind of limited missile defense which could disrupt mutually assured destruction, which led to the famous Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty -- the ABM treaty, and one of the arguments against "Star Wars" has always been that it would disrupt the system that was built in the 1960s around the ABM treaty.
Another big argument is that if you try to put up a missile defense, all you will do is encourage greater offenses, that is nations will build more and better offensive missile systems, and better means of thwarting any kind of defense mechanisms, and you escalate the arms race. This is an old debate; it's been going on long before even Ronald Reagan proposed "Star Wars."
O'BRIEN: You could make a case that the whole idea, though, is an anachronism, and that we're living in a era where the threat is commandeered airliners, or dirty bombs brought in on barges into New York Harbor, and all of this money isn't really going to provide any real measure of added security for the American public. So, having said all that, and surely the administration is aware of this -- what's the point?
LICHTMAN: They are, and indeed, talk about the money, do you know how much money has been spent on this system that may not even work and may be obsolete ? $100 billion on that order over the last...
O'BRIEN: Boy, that's some real money, that's some real money.
LICHTMAN: Yes, a billion here, a billion here, and it adds up to 100 -- it's real money, and you're absolutely right. There are so many multiple ways in which a terrorist group, or a rogue threat really intent on doing us serious harm could do so, and obviously this only defends, if it even works against a most limited kind of threat.
But it was something, you know, that George Bush made a point of in the campaign of 2000, Republicans have made a point of this ever since they took over the Congress in 1994. They even pushed Bill Clinton into a commitment to some kind of limited missile defense. It's been a promise that a lot of politicians have made the American people, and even if technologically it doesn't work, and doesn't really protect us, it's a promise that George Bush right now at least politically seems determined to fulfill.
O'BRIEN: All right, one quick point, before we get away -- it seems as if there is no better playbook for the GOP than the Ronald Reagan playbook. It still gets used 20 years later.
LICHTMAN: That's right. Just as, you know, the Franklin Roosevelt playbook really got used for 50 years, 40 years after FDR. Ronald Reagan remains the lone star for Republicans. He still wrote the book, and it's a mighty good book to follow given his political success.
O'BRIEN: Professor Allen Lichtman, American University, thank you for your historical and technical perspective on the later day version of "Star Wars." We appreciate it.
LICHTMAN: My pleasure, Miles.
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