"The creativity to build nuclear weapons began in the universities; the first attempts to control nuclear weapons began in the universities; and the universities cannot now avoid continued responsibility for these weapons," he said.

Moynihan said it is time to consider abandoning our current offensive strategy and switching to a defensive system.

Moynihan said the USSR has pursued a military policy of "the more the better," while the U.S. has followed a "second strike" philosophy. He added, "The USSR now has military and strategic superiority, and they want to turn it into political superiority," and said he is beginning to find the argument for a defensive system more attractive.

To illustrate his argument, Moynihan described a scenario in which the USSR could destroy all U.S. missiles using only half their own, thus leaving the United States powerless to retaliate, even with a second strike force.

Moynihan said that what had started in the '60s as an agreement between superpowers that nuclear weapons must not be used had dissolved into a structure that merely "disguised the failure of the original objectives."