Strengthening Atomic Accountability

U.S. nuclear weapons clearly played a major role in the prosecution of the cold war. Yet the tit-for-tat escalation in weaponry and the remaining uncertainties regarding Soviet policies make it impossible to know exactly which threats or crises were avoided, what risks were incurred in producing and deploying large numbers of weapons, and what risks will arise in the future as a result of past nuclear policies. The evidence assembled here indicates that with more effective and consistent oversight by Congress and the executive branch, deterrence could have been achieved and maintained at much less expense and with significantly less danger of exacerbating global tensions or triggering the very conflict we sought to avoid. One need only examine the impact of public pressure in the 1950s and 1960s to end atmospheric nuclear testing, and of efforts in the 1980s to curtail hazardous nuclear weapons production activities, to realize that more widespread knowledge of the costs and risks associated with the U.S. nuclear weapons program would likely have led the public (and many in Congress) to demand similar changes. That such a debate on costs never occurred is directly attributable to the government's own failure to understand the costs and the use of secrecy to impede discussion where costs were known.¹

The nuclear weapons complex was given a virtual blank check?or blank check book?and allowed to spend public money with remarkably little fiscal oversight, congressional or otherwise. That is to say, the government made almost no effort to ensure that deterrence was achieved at the least possible cost and burden to American taxpayers. The great threat of war?nuclear or otherwise?through much of this period helps to explain, but does not adequately justify, this abandonment of fiscal responsibility.² Indeed, the threat of deliberate or accidental nuclear war may well have been aggravated by the intensity of the nuclear arms race. Certainly, the costs and dangers facing the post-Cold War world arising from large stockpiles of nuclear weapons and fissile materials are far greater than they would have been had the number of warheads and quantities of materials produced been significantly lower.

Exactly how much of this country's $5.5 trillion investment to date in nuclear weapons was "wasted" as a consequence of this inattention will remain a matter of debate, both because there has never been a fixed or even approximate numerical goal or endpoint for deterrence and because "waste" is in the eye of the beholder. Many observers would classify the nuclear-powered aircraft program as a waste of $7 billion because it never produced anything approaching a workable concept and diverted critical resources away from more urgent programs such as the development of ICBMs. But what about the more than $1.6 billion dollars expended on Safeguard C, the thirty-year effort to ensure that the United States was able to resume atmospheric nuclear testing on short notice? Or the more than $400 billion expended on air defense, in part after it was understood that the Soviet bomber program posed no large-scale threat to the United States? Or the estimated 16,500 tactical nuclear-weapons produced and deployed under the New Look on the faulty and unquestioned assumption that they were a less expensive form of deterrence than conventional weapons? What we can say is that, at a minimum, hundreds of billions of dollars were expended on programs that contributed little or nothing to deterrence, diverted limited resources and effort away from those that did, or created long-term costs that exceeded their benefits (as in the case of the overproduction of fissile materials).

Moreover, the desire to quantify precisely what was "required" for deterrence diverts attention from the fundamental point that the way in which nuclear weapons programs were managed violated the core principles and practices of fiscally sound democratic governance. The notion of the 1950s that nuclear weapons provided "a bigger bang for a buck" was accepted despite contemporary evidence that this assumption would not hold up to careful scrutiny. The appropriate question to ask today is not how much or how little should have been spent (to which there will never be a single, unambiguous answer), but rather why have numerous government officials over more than fifty years failed consistently to ensure that what was expended on nuclear weapons was spent wisely and in the most efficient manner?

Although it can be argued that excessive or wasteful spending is a perennial problem in the United States, and while it may be tempting to compare the nuclear weapons program to welfare or agricultural subsidies or other entitlement programs in this regard, nuclear weapons are different in one critical respect: the costs of nuclear weapons programs are largely unknown, as evidenced by the extensive analysis in the preceding chapters. In contrast, the costs of entitlement are frequently debated in Congress and are readily available in Government documents to anyone who cares to look. Whatever problems have been encountered in managing and disbursing entitlements, they were at least well understood; indeed, the well-known failures and abuses of the system have led to frequent and sustained calls and periodic legislation to either pare back or eliminate particular programs, most recently in 1996. But the costs of nuclear weapons have never been fully understood or compiled by the government, and in more than half a century Congress has taken action to terminate nuclear weapons programs only a handful of times. Indeed, it has never held a hearing, debate or vote on the cost, scale, pace, or implications of the overall program, even though the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse is at least equal to that for entitlement programs.³

This study represents the most comprehensive review to date of the costs and consequences of the U.S. nuclear weapons program and infrastructure. Still, time, resources, and the continued classification of crucial data have prevented a truly definitive accounting. That vital task we leave to future historians and scholars, and to the government official we hope will assist them in their efforts. Before doing so, we offer some comments about the unfinished research agenda and several recommendations derived from our findings.

Paths for Future Research

The most obvious and important gap in our knowledge concerns the discrete costs of the sixty-five types of nuclear warheads and bombs manufactured between 1945 and 1990. Although there remain valid reasons for withholding information on the precise amount of nuclear materials in each weapon, we believe strongly that the continued classification of all costs related to specific nuclear warheads?including the aggregate cost of nuclear materials in most weapons?is both misguided and counterproductive.⁴ It is misguided because the "secret" of the bomb was revealed decades ago. Even the amount of material required to achieve a chain reaction is well known.⁵ While official budget data would be a valuable resource for historians and scholars, in terms of assessing the trends in warhead costs over time and the relation of these costs to particular missions, they would be of little use to anyone attempting to ascertain exactly how U.S. nuclear weapons were assembled or what they contain(ed).⁶ The continuing classification is counterproductive because it wastes scarce government resources, and because the data could help constrain future nuclear proliferation by revealing the relatively high cost of even crude nuclear weapons.

It is also unfortunate that the budgetary data compiled by the DOE and its predecessors do not clearly indicate how much was spent per element to produce the estimated 825 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium, 103.5 metric tons of (weapon and fuel-grade) plutonium and estimated 495 pounds (225 kilograms) of tritium for the weapons and naval nuclear propulsion programs since the mid-1940s. Such figures would be especially useful in understanding how funds for the various expansion programs of the 1950s were utilized. Given that huge surpluses of plutonium and HEU were generated as a result of these efforts, it is important to know exactly how these funds were expended. While it may be the case that the data do not actually exist (time and resources precluded this study from undertaking a comprehensive review of historical documents at each DOE production facility), and while DOE would likely argue that releasing costs would allow someone to calculate the per unit cost of each material, the release of the total cost for the entire program per element (as opposed to a year-by-year accounting) would eliminate this potential problem. In any event, if these costs are as crudely calculated as weapons costs, the DOE's concerns are moot (see chapter 1).

In addition, a better understanding of U.S. nuclear history requires detailed information about the cost of every nuclear weapons test. We have included data that we have been able to locate with a reasonable amount of effort, but we know that more remains to be uncovered. For every test, a detailed report, usually including a separate section on costs, was prepared. These data would shed light on the scale of the testing effort, especially the enormous costs involved in testing at Enewetak and Bikini. Some of the reports reside in the DOE's Coordination and Information Center in Las Vegas; many more apparently remain at the weapons laboratories. The DOE ought to provide scholars a means of access to the cost portions of the test reports (along with other unclassified portions). Access to the full set of data would allow a detailed assessment of the costs associated with weapons development, versus weapons effects, versus safety and reliability testing. Although mostly of historical importance, these data could be helpful in assessing the scale of weapons development in other countries.⁷

Turning to nuclear delivery systems, we find great disparity in the information on the annual operations and support costs for these weapons. Several figures currently exist and each is different. Because these are current rather than historical costs, it remains disturbing that there is no agreed upon figure: these data have considerable impact on current and future budget debates and on assessments of what it will cost to maintain various levels of nuclear forces in the future. Although this issue must ultimately be resolved by the various government agencies involved, researchers in and out of the government can provide valuable input on the matter.

Perhaps the murkiest expenditure data relating to nuclear weapons concern the costs borne by U.S. intelligence agencies to support nuclear weapons operations. Notwithstanding the recent decisions by the CIA to declassify the total U.S. intelligence budget for fiscal 1997 and 1998, the time is long overdue for the routine disclosure of the aggregate annual intelligence budget; indeed, the open secret of the annual figure makes a mockery of the entire classification system (see Chapter 3). While recognizing the need to keep secret certain aspects of the overall intelligence effort, we strongly support breaking down the annual intelligence budget into functional components (or at least segregating nuclear weapons-related expenditures from all others) so that lawmakers, scholars, the media and the public can better comprehend how funds are being expended. Although some categories might necessarily overlap (for example, SIOP target analysis and selection and counterproliferation), such a functional approach would offer significant benefits while safeguarding the costs and operational details of any particular program or agency.

We have attempted such an approach with regard to the nuclear side of the equation, though it is admittedly less detailed than we would have preferred. Nevertheless, if extended across the spectrum of intelligence programs, it would go a long way toward demystifying the intelligence budget and community. This should be seen not as an effort to expose programs or to eliminate them, but as a way of furthering democratic debate about a crucial aspect of U.S. national security at a time when it is buffeted by charges of incompetence and mismanagement. Such scrutiny is sorely needed to properly inform the calls and proposals for reform.

Now that much of the historical data detailing the cost of building and deploying the nuclear arsenal have been assembled, new attention should be focused on the costs associated with maintaining and dismantling that arsenal. These should include the costs of day-to-day operation and support, of taking apart the warheads (and storing or disposing of the fissile materials), and of dismantling missiles and missile silos, strategic bombers and ballistic missile submarines. Verification measures under the INF, START, and test ban treaties should also be assessed and tracked. Although such costs historically have been relatively small compared with those of the buildup of nuclear weapons, they assume increasing importance with the end of the Cold War and the pursuit of deeper cuts in the arsenal. Quantifying the historical and current trends can help improve fiscal planning for the future.

The environmental aftermath of nuclear weapons production and deployment also requires careful attention. Although DOE began monitoring its expenses and providing detailed annual assessments through its Baseline Environmental Management Reports, this effort has now been terminated in favor of a far less comprehensive one. Furthermore, most of the DOD costs pertaining to nuclear base cleanups, while significantly smaller than DoE's obligations, remain unknown because of their aggregation within the overall defense environmental restoration budget. More effort should be made to understand the costs related to decontaminating former nuclear bases, both to assess the complete budgetary implications of the overall program and to provide sound guidance for the future.

Much also remains to be done in assessing the full costs of exposure to radiation and fallout from mining, production, and testing. In the past several years, various programs have been established (or are in the process of being established) to monitor the health of some plant workers and civilians living downwind of production and test sites (see Chapter 7). These studies are generating valuable data about the long-term consequences of the U.S. nuclear weapons program and its relative indifference to the impact of nuclear weapons production on health. Such programs are of concern not only to the people who were adversely affected, but also to scholars seeking to understand the total impact of the U.S. program. They should be of interest to policy-makers as well, insofar as many of the costs may ultimately be borne by taxpayers.

Recommendations

The overall sum expended to date by American taxpayers for nuclear weapons is significant: nearly $5.5 trillion. More telling, however, is the fact that taxpayers and government decision-makers had no idea what that figure was (and is) or how it came to be so large. This lack of knowledge and, perhaps more important, the lack of understanding about the history of the overall program, has important ramifications for ongoing debates about nuclear weapons.

For example, during 1996 and 1997 several members of Congress supporting legislation mandating the deployment of a nationwide ballistic missile defense system by 2003 argued that such a measure was required in part because until the advent of the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983 little had been spent on missile defense programs; nor had any such system been deployed. In fact both of these assertions were false and their promulgation contributed to the failure to pass the legislations when it became known to the Congress at large and the public that nearly $100 billion had already been spent on such programs with little tangible benefit.⁸

Although the costs of nuclear weapons have decreased dramatically in recent years with the cancellation of modernization programs and the dismantlement of many weapons systems, current costs remain significant: amounting to some $35 billion a year, or about 14 percent of the annual defense budget. Without a full understanding of the present and future costs, policy-makers are ill equipped to assess the budgetary ramifications of decisions concerning the nuclear stockpile, including the costs of retaining forces scheduled to be dismantled under the START II Treaty should it not be ratified by the Russian Duma.⁹

We therefore recommend that Congress pass legislation requiring the president to prepare and submit annually with each year's budget request a report detailing the comprehensive costs of all nuclear weapons-related government programs. The Office of Management and Budget should be designated the lead agency for assembling this report, which in addition to the costs for the budget being submitted should include the actual costs for the prior year and the estimated costs for the following year. If data were assembled on an annual basis, lawmakers, executive branch officials, policy analysts, journalists and the public would be better able to track nuclear weapons-related spending and discern trends in such spending. The DOE and DOD, which together are responsible for nearly all of this spending, would also benefit by obtaining a clearer understanding of their respective programs. With more than 60 percent of its annual budget allocated to "atomic energy defense activities" and related programs at present, the DOE's budget submissions already contain much of the necessary data. What remains to be done, however, is to demarcate clearly the costs of those items that are not fully part of the weapons program, such as naval nuclear propulsion, environment, safety and health, intelligence, and so forth. The amount of effort required to accomplish this should be relatively modest.

Since 1995, the DOD has produced several charts in its annual reports showing spending for strategic nuclear forces based on funding levels for Major Force Program 1 (Strategic Forces). This welcome step is far from adequate. The data in these charts can be (and already has been) assumed to represent the sum total of nuclear weapons spending by the DOD or, worse, the entire government. This assumption prompts the misleading conclusion that nuclear weapons currently consume less than 3 percent of the defense budget.¹⁰ What is needed is a comprehensive accounting of all nuclear-related costs in the budget (as delineated in this book). Owing to dual-capable systems and uncertainties about true operations and support costs, assumptions will have to be made about what percentage of certain programs to allocate to the nuclear side of the ledger (much as we have already done here; see Chapters 2, 3 and 4). Since intelligence-related costs are formally included in the defense budget, the nuclear-related portion of these should be reported as well. As explained earlier, there are ways to accomplish this that will not jeopardize sources and methods yet allow for a clearer understanding of how the intelligence community at present supports the nuclear weapons program.

The OMB should include the nuce the nuclear weapons-related programs and costs of all other government agencies. These include the Commerce Department (Bureau of Export Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration); Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board; Department of Health and Human Services (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry); Department of Veterans Affairs; Environmental Protection Agency; Executive Office of the President (National Security Council, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Science and Technology Policy, White House Military Office, White House Communications Agency); Federal Emergency Management Agency; Interior Department (Office of Insular Affairs/Marshall Islands, U.S. Geological Survey, Military Geology Project); Justice Department (representing the government in weapons-related lawsuits against DOE and DOD, Federal Bureau of Investigation, compensation paid by the Torts Branch/Civil Division, under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act); Labor Department (Occupational Safety and Health Administration); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Space Shuttle operations); National Archives (storage of classified nuclear weapons documents and declassification of historical documents); State Department (including the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, soon to become the Assistant Secretary for Arms Control and Disarmament); and the Treasury Department (U.S. Customs Service). The costs attributable to legislative branch acitivities, including the Congressional Budget Office, Congressional Research Service, General Accounting Office, and Congress itself, should also be included.

The president should also play a more active role in formulating nuclear weapons policy and requirements. The last (and only) president to immerse himself in the nuclear planning process was Jimmy Carter, a former nuclear submariner. His successors have not been as engaged or attentive. In fact, President Clinton's repeated and misleading assertions during the 1996 campaign that nuclear missiles were no longer pointed at "the children of the United States" betrayed a flawed understanding of the largely symbolic 1994 ICBM detargeting measure jointly undertaken by Russia and the United States.¹¹

The president currently signs off on the annual Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Plan, which determines the overall size of the stockpile and the number of weapons to be built and dismantled, but presidents typically have provided little input or guidance to this plan before it reaches the Oval Office. With nuclear weapons currently consuming a sizable percentage of the overall military budget, it is vital to understand how the figures in the plan were derived. Moreover, these costs (except for those associated with environmental remediation and waste management programs) are linked to the Single Integrated Operational Plan, historically and today the most important factor driving the maintenance and deployment of the nuclear stockpile.

We do not intend to suggest that the president personally dictate the composition of the nuclear stockpile, select targets, or otherwise manage the preparation of the SIOP. But as the legally designated official with the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons, he should participate in some fashion in the detailed planning process for the plan he may one day be called upon to execute. After all, even today the SIOP concerns the lives and potential deaths of hundreds of millions of people.¹²

Because of the singular importance of the SIOP, we recommend that the president authorize an independent review of the current SIOP and the process by which it was devised. The review committee could include current and former military and civilian officials with nuclear planning responsibilities, as well as nongovernmental experts, and it should be given access to all relevant classified materials in order to enable it to render a truly informed judgment. This committee should also review the most recent nuclear weapons stockpile plan, which contains provisions for maintaining large numbers of nuclear weapons in inactive storage, as a hedge against sudden reversals in the current international climate.

We also encourage DOE to continue the Openness Initiative started by Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary in late 1993. It has already brought important dividends: increased trust in the department improved public understanding of its nuclear weapons missions. Further steps are needed, however, to ensure the release of all relevant historical data pertaining to nuclear weapons development, production, and testing. The DOD and the various nuclear agencies under its aegis should initiate similar efforts and Congress should amend the Atomic Energy Act to make permanent the reforms recommended by the Fundamental Classification Policy Review. A complete history of the nuclear age cannot be compiled?nor the costs and consequences fully understood?without better and broader access to the original documentation held by these agencies. In particular, the detailed annual and semiannual histories by the Defense Special Weapons Agency and its predecessors are likely to prove an uncommonly valuable resource to future scholars.

Last, but not least, we urge Congress to strengthen its oversight of nuclear weapons programs by focusing not just on the most expensive or most controversial items in the budget in any given year but rather on the larger strategic picture of how nuclear weapons would be used, how the various elements of the program contribute to deterrence and, what constitutes deterrence in the post-cold war era. Congress has begun emphasizing the broader picture to some extent in its scrutiny of the DOE's environmental remediation and waste management program (especially from 1990 through 1994): it examined the overall goals and cost of the effort in great detail, but the individual programs at facilities throughout the country generally received less attention. Clearly, a mixture of the two approaches is needed to ensure a full and fair treatment of the budget. Yet with strikingly few exceptions, the annual congressional debate usually focuses on the minute details of a few programs at the expense of the overall effort those programs are supposed to support. This approach can be compared to building a house by carefully examining the cost of only a few of the obvious elements and rarely pausing to consider what the house will actually cost or look like, or if it will even meets one's needs.¹³

Given the structure of our representative democracy?particularly its myriad constituent groups and their ability to pull policy in many conflicting directions simultaneously? decisions about nuclear weapons budgets or any other item of public spending will never be entirely coherent. Nevertheless, the record to date (see Chapter 9) demonstrates that Congress has been less than diligent in exercising its oversight responsibilities with regard to the nuclear weapons budget. Armed with the data that we have provided, and with data that we hope the executive branch (with Congressional prodding) will continue to provide on an annual basis, Congress will finally be able to make truly informed decisions, not just about individual weapons, but about the arsenal as a whole and about the sometimes hidden or overlooked costs (such as waste management, command and control, and intelligence support) that inevitably accompany decisions about which missile, aircraft or submarine to purchase. The fact that much of the current arsenal was acquired on the basis of arbitrary or strategically irrelevant decisions and justified by post hoc rationales should serve as an important reminder that programs, policies, and weapons levels frequently cited as sacrosanct did not necessarily originate from an objective, clearly defined military purpose (see Chapter 2).

More than half a century after the advent of nuclear weapons, almost a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and with the cold war receding into history and the future of nuclear deterrence the subject of increasing debate, the time has come to consider carefully the costs and consequences to the United States, and the world, of producing tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and basing national security on the threat of nuclear annihilation. We have provided what we hope will be a starting point for such an assessment, focusing on the one aspect of the endeavor that until now has been largely ignored. As we anticipate the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, we cannot rectify our mistakes or build on our achievements if such a crucial part of our nuclear history remains incomplete or unwritten. Neither can we hope to prevent other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons if we do not fully comprehend the forces that have driven our own program and affect it still. Given the enormous sums expended and the substantial risks incurred, we owe it to ourselves and future generations to seek answers to these questions, to fill the gaps in the atomic ledger.

Notes:

² In 1989, during the first public congressional debate on the B-2 bomber, Representative Floyd Spence (Republican of South Carolina) argued that the cost of the B-2 bomber was irrelevant in light of the plane's contribution to national defense. "If the B-2 bomber can help keep us free then it is one of the most cost effective programs we have. Cost? What price tag do you put on freedom?" he asked his colleagues. Representative David Dreier (Republican of California) added, "If we spend too much for our national security, what do we lose? We lose something very important, some money. If we spend too little...We violate our oath of office to ?provide for the common defense.'" Congressional Record, 101 Cong. 1 sess., vol. 135, no. 2 (July 26, 1989), p. H4309. [Back]

³ This is evident in that both programs consumed essentially equivalent amounts of public funding over the same period of time (see figure 2 in the introduction). [Back]

⁴ Because certain nuclear weapons (principally artillery shells), now retired, used only highly enriched uranium, even the aggregate cost of nuclear materials in these weapons could possibly provide enough information to calculate the total amount of material they used. If so, we would support releasing only the total cost of such weapons without providing a breakdown on the cost of the individual components. [Back]

⁵ The weight of the plutonium core of the first nuclear device?nicknamed the Gadget?detonated on July 16, 1945, was actually declassified and published in 1975; it was about 13.5 pounds (6.1 kilograms). This device was essentially identical to the Fat Man bomb detonated over Nagasaki. The Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima reportedly used about 132 pounds (60 kilograms) of HEU. Modern weapons are much more efficient. Non-governmental experts have argued that current international safeguards for plutonium and HEU be tightened, so that the minimum amount considered dangerous from the standpoint of being able to construct a nuclear weapon be lowered from 17.6 pounds (8 kilograms) of plutonium to 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) and from 55.1 pounds of HEU (25 kilograms) to 6.6 pounds (3 kilograms). See Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin and Milton M. Hoenig, U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities, vol. 1, U.S. Nuclear Weapons Databook (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1984), pp. 31-32; Thomas B. Cochran and Christopher E. Paine, "The Amount of Plutonium and Highly-Enriched Uranium Needed for Pure Fission Nuclear Weapons" (Washington, D.C.: Natural Resources Defense Council, 13 April 1995); William J. Broad, "A Smuggling Boom Brings Calls for Tighter Safeguards," The New York Times, August 21, 1994, p. A1. [Back]

⁶ For more on this point, see the discussion beginning on p. 93. [Back]

⁷ Ironically, Russia has already provided a great deal of this information to the United States. From December 1992 through December 1995, the Defense Special Weapons Agency paid 200 senior Russian nuclear weapons designers more than $300,000 to write a secret history of the Soviet Union's nuclear testing program from 1949 until 1990 (each author was actually provided only about $500, with the remainder covering expenses and taxes). The resulting seventeen chapters, with illustrations, provided unprecedented details of specific tests that the United States expended tens of billions of dollars to uncover during the Cold War (see Chapter 3). Although it did not discuss specific weapons designs or deployment information (concentrating instead on scientific analyses of the test results and their impact on people and the environment), DSWA has thus far refused to release the document citing Russian claims that the information is sensitive and should only be made available to properly cleared government and contractor employees. Others (including one of the authors of this book) argue that if the information is not secret it should be made available to the public, especially since public funds paid for it. See David Hoffman, "Russians Wrote Atomic History for Pentagon," The Washington Post, October 27, 1996, p. A1. [Back]

⁸ Joseph Cirincione, "Why the Right Lost the Missile Defense Debate," Foreign Policy, No. 106, (Spring 1997), pp. 39-55. For example, Representative Curt Weldon (Republican of Pennsylvania) wrote, "In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, Congress funded, without controversy or fanfare, programs that researched potential defenses against missile threats. However, these programs received minimal funding and little attention from members of Congress. Not until President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" speech on March 23, 1983, did the concept of missile defenses receive national attention." ("Why We Must Act at Once," Orbis, Vol. 40/1 [Winter 1996], pp. 63-69). Sen. John McCain (Republican of Arizona) similarly wrote, "This country has spent 13 years and $38 billion to develop capabilities to defend effectively our citizens and our troops overseas from ballistic missile attack. It is time we deployed a system that will defend Americans at home." ("The Missile Threat the White House Ignores," The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 1996, p. A22). Representative Robert Erlich (Republican of Maryland) asked the readers of a column he wrote when the United .States completed construction of a national ballistic missile defense system - 1958, 1963, 1971, or 1985 - and then provided the answer: "none of the above. In fact, the real answer is never." In reality the answer is 1975, the year the Safeguard system became operational (see chapter 4). Robert Erlich, "Missile Vulnerability Grows," Defense News, January 13-19, p. 21. [Back]

⁹ Demonstrating the great uncertainty surrounding the current costs of nuclear weapons, in 1996 and 1997 DOD officials estimated that maintaining strategic forces at START I levels would cost either an additional $10 billion beginning in 2000, $6 billion to $8 billion between 1998 and 2002, $5 billion between 1998 and 2004, or $1 billion annually beginning in 1998. To address this potential funding shortfall (and avoid spending billions of dollars on weapons due to be retired), the DOD is considering retaining those weapons but foregoing planned upgrades. See Elaine M. Grossman, "Russian Failure to Ratify Start II Would Cost U.S. $10 Billion After FY-00," Inside the Pentagon, April 25, 1996, p.1; R. Jeffrey Smith, "U.S. Studies Deeper Nuclear Warhead Cuts," Washington Post, January 23, 1997, p. A4; Jeff Erlich, "Safety in Nuclear Numbers," Defense News, February 3-9, 1997, p. 1; Elaine M. Grossman, "To Save Funds, Pentagon May Let Some Start I Nuclear Forces Age Out," Inside the Pentagon, May 29, 1997, p. 1. [Back]

¹⁰ See, for example, James Brooke, "Former Cold Warrior Has a New Mission: Nuclear Cuts," The New York Times, January 8, 1997, p. A12; Brent Scowcroft and Arnold Kanter, "Which Nuke Policy?," The Washington Times, March 2, 1997, p. A15. [Back]

¹¹ See Bruce G. Blair, "Where Would All the Missiles Go?," The Washington Post, October 15, 1996, p. A15; J. Michael Waller, "The Missiles Pointed at America," The Washington Times, September 2, 1996, p. A15; Douglas Berenson, "DOD Concedes Strategic Missile Detargeting Deal Is Easily Reversed," Inside the Pentagon, May 29, 1997, p. 1. [Back]

¹² For a more detailed discussion of this point see Janne Nolan, Guardians of the Arsenal (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1989), esp. pp. 263-270. [Back]

¹³ For a similar perspective on this issue, see Nolan, Guardians of the Arsenal, pp. 274-278. [Back]