One by product of the nuclear arms race has been a proliferation of scholarship and analysis devoted to complexities and dilemmas. The Crimson recently talked to four Harvard experts about the issues surrounding the arms race, both how it is now and where it is likely to go from here. Participating in the two hour discussion were: Michael I. Mandelbaum '69, associate professor of Government and author of The Nuclear Question and The Nuclear Revolution. Michael I. Nacht, associate professor of Government and author of The Nuclear Question and The Nuclear Revolution: Michael L. Nacht associate professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School, currently finishing a book on strategic nuclear questions for the Brookings Institute in Washington. Joseph S. Nye Jr., professor of Government who had dealt with proliferation issues as a State Department officials in the Carter Administration and Martin J. Sherwin, a visiting scholar at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History and author of A World Destroyed. The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance now writing a biography of physicist J. Robert Oppeheimer '25, following is an edited transcript of the interview, which was conducted by Crimson editors Paul M. Barrett and James G. Hershberg.

Crimson: It's been 37 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why are we now seeing such an outpouring of public concern over the dangers of nuclear war? Do you see this movement as some thing which has been building for a long time of as a transitory reaction to Reagan Administration rhetoric?

Sherwin: I think it has been building for a long time, in the same way that the nuclear arms race quantitatively has been building for a long time. In 1948, we had 50 atomic bombs. Today there are something like 50,000 to 60,000 nuclear weapons in Soviet and American missiles, and that doesn't even count the French and British, so the sheer quantity is beginning to get frightening.

But I think that precipitated the present concern for nuclear weapons is the Reagan Administration's rhetoric the foundation for which was laid by the Center Administration discussion of limited nuclear war, that it's winnable discussion by the Reagan Administration, the Carter Administration put forth [an] Presidential Directive 59, the limited nuclear war doctrine. The introduction of a new series of weapons systems into the public arena the neutron bomb again, components for that were manufactured under the Carter Administration's auspices. And then Haig's discussion before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in December of the warning-shot idea...Following the European protests, then followed by Reagan's limited war discussions, it just coalesced.

Mandelbaum: I agree in part with that I think there is a kind of underlying reservoir of anxiety, if you will, or the collective pvsche of the American public, about nuclear weapons....This anxiety stays beneath the surface because most people would prefer not to confront the reality of our nuclear situation. But every so often something happens that compels people to recognize the peril in which we all live....

I agree with Marty that what has prompted it in this instance is the Reagan Administration and its policies. I would say that it is a combination of three things: first, the accumulation of the various policies that [Sherwin] has noted--the discussion of a nuclear warning shot, nuclear war fighting strategies. Second, the failure of the President to do what every president since Eisenhower has done, and that is to speak about nuclear weapons in a reassuring way, to make it clear to the world and to the American people that he recognizes the dangers of nuclear weapons and is determined to do everything he can to minimize them. I'm not suggesting that Mr. Reagan does not recognize these dangers, but I don't think that he has made a public display of his concern or he didn't in the first 15 months of his administration in the way that other presidents have. Third, I think there was an underlying sense of unease about Mr. Reagan in American public opinion based on his previous political career, his political rhetoric, and I would say especially the 1976 campaign.

Nye: I tend to agree; I think it's worth remembering just two things. One is that it's not the first time we've seen an upsurge of public concern about nuclear weapons. I was a student at Oxford in the late fifties, and at that time there was a very strong anti-nuclear movement, which then receded during the sixties to be born again.

I think that the basic dilemma that one has to keep in mind--that was my second point--is that if you want nuclear weapons for deterrence, which we do, since there are Russians out there, there has to be some possibility of their use....If on the other hand, they [turn out to] be too usable, there's always the possibility of their leading to a holocaust, which nobody wants to see either. So you're caught in a very tight space....I think what Reagan has done by his declarative policy is err in the direction of usability and thereby stimulate great public concern. I think that gives him the title of father of the nuclear freeze movement.

Nacht: There's no denying that the Reagan Administration has contributed to this anti-nuclear sentiment in the United States and in Europe, and perhaps it is the primary contributor. But I don't think they are, the Administration, is the only contributor. I would say that there are two other important considerations. One is with a lot of attention in the media to SALT and now START, and to its difficulties, more Americans are at least crudely aware of the fact that the arms competition between the Soviet Union and the United States is not abating in any fashion.

The other is that I think there is quite a deep feeling that Soviet American relations have turned quite cold, and if you've got a seemingly unabated competition and a very cool relationship between the two adversaries and a president who speaks somewhat cavalierly about these nuclear weapons. I think if you put all those things together, then you have a lot of fear and concern.

Crimson: The Reagan Administration's statements, [especially] the Eureka speech, seem to mark something of a change in their policies, especially their admission that the Soviet leaders had learned the necessity of preventing nuclear war. Do you believe that Reagan has significantly altered his [nuclear arms reduction] strategy, and what chance of success do you think the START program has?

Nacht: I would say that the [Reagan] arms control initiative is as much a political initiative for domestic purposes as it is anything else. I think that perhaps the President now shares Professor Nye's view that it is the Reagan Administration that is the father of the nuclear freeze movement, and they don't wish to continue to nurture that child. They would like to dismiss it, and one way to do that is to move, as many students of the presidency have often argued, to a somewhat more centrist position to appear more accommodating, to tone down the rhetoric, to come forth with more substantive proposals....I do think also, it took quite a while for this administration to get its act together and hammer out a start negotiating position. In fact, it wasn't really hammered out, because there are virtually incompatible views within this administration on the START proposal and what the President did.

Nye: What's interesting, to go back to the original question, is the extent to which the Administration has changed from its initial position. After all, this Administration came in saying that we shouldn't have arms control until we've rebuilt our military strength. And any arms control would be tightly linked to Soviet behavior elsewhere in places such as Afghanistan and Poland. And, lo and behold, both of these things seems to have dropped by the wayside.

Crimson: What would be the tip-off for people to start thinking that the Reagan Administration wasn't serious, that the proposal that it was offering wasn't negotiable?

Nye: If they had gone forward with the massive cuts in throw-weight, which essentially required Soviet cuts rather than American cuts....I think that would have been clearly not negotiable.