The news as we are all recognized. The doomsday clock. The device that the bulletin of the atomic scientists has kept since the early days of the cold war is. Now at 100 seconds to midnight. Its a close its ever been. It was there in 2020. And the bulletin of atomic scientists doesnt change the clock until january every year. It has not had a chance to do so. But if the current continues to ratchet, as it is now doing in ukraine, i think that it may indeed move a little bit closer. And of course, with every advance of the Ukrainian Army into those four territories that the have annexed claim to have annexed in eastern ukraine, the rhetoric from Vladimir Putin becomes strident and alarming. And even last night, President Biden said that we are now to armageddon since we are now closer to armageddon than any time since cuban missile crisis, 60 years ago. And we are now approaching that 60th anniversary of the cuban crisis. If that wasnt enough, we also have the episodes in northeast asia where the north koreans Ballistic Missiles over japan with the United States and south koreans conducting military exercises. Its a dangerous dangerous moment. And so fortunately, we have with today panelists who help us make sense of where are and how we got here and were going to do so in conversation. That is by the publication of a recent volume as part of the Miller Center studies in the presidency series with the university of virginia. And that is averting doomsday. Arms control during the nixon presidency coauthored by our panel is aaron mahone so were thrilled that aaron is with us here today to talk about her volume that she coauthored with pat garrity a beloved colleague ours who passed away last. Pat had been with the Miller Center and the and the recordings for decades really and was just a mensch was, a wonderful member of team and a great collaborator with aaron. So i thought wed start by giving you aaron a chance to to say a few words about pat, about your collaboration and about how the two of you put this book together. Thank you, mark. And thank you. Thank the Miller Center for having us. And pat was good catholic, so i know hes in here with us in spirit and and both found the Miller Center for many years almost a decade almost like our our home. We both we became friends through and colleagues through working on nixon tapes. We collaborated the book idea was a mutual one kind of a natural outgrowth of listening to of 3000 hours of nixon recordings. Only ken has done that, but by listening a great many especially on arms control. And thats where pat i had bonded. Not very many get excited about talking about, throw weight or so many sarin in the realm. So so this is a bittersweet event for me. Pat cant be here. He did finish the manuscript. He didnt get to see it with its glossy cover. But i hope comments today talking about the portions he wrote do justice to a man who was just an immense intellect, often put to shame how much he knew he worked at los alamos just a really fine intellect and a wonderful, great thanks. Well, let me more formally introduce everybody whos up on the stage today. Erin mahan is, a nonresident faculty senior fellow at the Miller Center. She has another job, which is chief historian at office of the secretary of defense and director of the pentagon. So were thrilled that she could be. She is the general editor of the secretaries of defense historical as well as editor of the salt volumes for the foreign of the United States series in terms of monographs, shes written kennedy de gaulle and western europe, and shes one of the original members of pr, i think original members of prp, certainly going back into the late 20th century, remarkably can use is also one of those original members of of prp. Ken is a Research Specialist at the center focusing, particularly on richard nixon. He is our inhouse nixon specialist and has been such for a long time. Ken has written two volumes on nixon chasing the nixon tapes the chennault affair and the origins of watergate and politics. The nixon tapes, the vietnam war, and the casualty of reelection. And now ken is turning his sights. John f kennedy writing on kennedy in covert action, something that im also interested in. And todd sechser with us to todds is the todd is the edmonds discovery professor of politics at the university of virginia, professor of Public Policy at Frank Batten School of leadership, Public Policy and director of, the Democratic Statecraft Lab at uva. He is also a faculty senior fellow at the Miller Center. Todd is the author of weapons and coercive diplomas c, as well as numerous articles on both themes Nuclear Weapons and coercive diplomacy as well. Articles on deterrence and, military technology, writing for leading journals in the field, as well as for National Publications as the wall street journal and, the washington post, and particularly for our conversation here today. Prior becoming an academic, todd had been a Nuclear Policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for international peace. So we have a great group here to talk about the moment and we got here and i would start with aaron. You as coauthor of the volume, but also someone who had spent so time looking at the Nixon Administration and the saw process and thinking about where nixon had come from to that moment. Could you lay out the landscape us in terms of where arms control had been up to that point . Nixon came in january 1969. What were the efforts that a variety of administration had taken to control the bomb . What the status of the bomb, the the proliferation of nuclear arms around the world, particularly with the superpowers and and how did nixon himself approach those matters on the one hand . But his thoughts about arms control on the other that your questions, of course, get at the very core of the book. So ill try to just give a snapshot here. Let me preface all my remarks today, though. Im here in the capacity a nonresident fellow since i do have my position at the pentagon, i am obligated to to say that everything i say today or my own opinions and do not reflect those of the department, defense or the United States government. So that said, i will address your questions. Of course, the atomic age was born at the end of world war two. So by the sixties we had already been in their arms, an arms race with the soviet union for a couple of decades. But on the eve of the nixon presidency, the United States had approximately what the soviet union had approximately, i think, 2000 iq beams and todd can correct me on the numbers and this was a different scenario than what his predecessor had faced at the beginning of his first term in 1964, when lbj only confronted the soviet union 200. So just that alone showed nixon that there was now parity between the superpowers and that in and of itself changed the landscape. But over the decades before nixon became. President oh, i kind of an eclectic foundation of how to tackle the the arms race had emerged the technical the the the domestic political utopian. There was a whole literature on arms control that had kind of been in the early cold war period and. Nixon on the eve of his presidency can kind of inherited a cornucopia of agreements that were either already signed but not ratified in progress under negotiation. And these ranged from what would become salt there had been stirrings of that in the late sixties but the soviet invasion of czechoslovakia made that not happen the nonproliferation treaty had been pursued by. President johnson and it was signed. But right before nixon took office, he actually encouraged senate not to ratify it, only because he wanted to kind of see how the lay of the land was going to be. The landscape, so to speak. So the npt was signed, not ratified by any of the major signatories, let alone other nations in the world, a treaty that would become called the seabeds. I think the official name is the prohibition on emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and weapons of mass destruction on the ocean floor and the subsoil and thereof. So yeah, just rolls off the tongue. So anyway, what getting at is there was a body of of agreements in the works and nixon and kissinger and his their administration had figure out what to do with these and and particularly regarding prolific action in the nonproliferation agreement from from 1968. As you mentioned, its one of the things that they have to address when come in, how where are they on that . Is this something that they want to embrace . Aaron todd, you can chime in as well. Its this is one of the interesting themes of your book, aaron, is that while there is some interest in supporting a nonproliferation, there is also a times in interest on the part. The administration in supporting nuclear powers, particularly if theyre allies, facilitating their further acquisition of nuclear materials. So if either of you would like to address that, what does nixon really think about proliferation and go ahead. You want me to go first . Well, nixon prided himself on realism. He thought it was unrealistic to it to think that the United States could prevent other powers if they were dead set on getting having a program from getting it. And we hear those debates today. I mean, how far we go to stop iran, how far can we go to stop north korea . So nixon felt like he had kind of a more realistic view of these things. And at the time, we forget that germany was divided. We didnt want what an ally to go down that path as well. And that was a big thorn between the superpowers. So the npt and to do about the perennial german question was at the core of that in the late sixties. But then in other regions of the world at times kissinger and nixon would say that might not be such a bad idea of japan got Nuclear Weapons but in well talk at great length about the recordings and kind of is the disconnect perhaps between private utterances and what are actual policy initiatives. So you know naturally its easy for me to fall back on. You need to read my chapter too because i try to take it nation by nation those that were trying to embark on Nuclear Programs and regionally. This is a time when packaged did not have Nuclear Weapons. So when the pakistani government said, well, why dont you, the United States, help pursue a Nuclear Free Zone like they were doing latin america . That was, i think, a missed opportunity. So in a nutshell, i think the nixon is a very mixed one on the nonproliferation landscape. Yes, it was complex, but they had a whole government to deal with those complex cities and they preferred in many ways to hold that control and power in the white house to. What have you got to say about of that mixed signaling that we see from the Nixon Administration on that on that count . Yeah, in terms of nuclear arms control, i you know erins right that nixon was an arms control skeptic. I dont think theres really any way to put it. He didnt believe that arms control treaty would constrain truly adversaries from building up their arsenals. He campaigned against the nonproliferation treaty. He told his staff, even when he sent it to the senate for ratification, told a staff to downplay it and and not to countries, especially west germany, to sign it and course, the irony is, as we now know part due to the great archival work of many historians is that one of the key motivations for soviets behind the npt, the nonproliferation treaty was to constrain west germany from acquiring nuclear. So i think its right to say that his administration and i would not call the Nixon Administration as having an unvarnished record on arms control. Theyre quite skeptical of it. But at same time, i think also that at times it could be in the us interest to prevent certain countries from acquiring Nuclear Weapons or to put a cap on the soviet nuclear arsenal. So for nixon, his interest in arms control, however significant it was, was part of a larger grand strategy as well. It wasnt just arms control for sake of arms control, it was arms control for american. The of u. S. National interests, the world. And ken, id like to turn to you, because i know that as part of your work on nixon, vietnam, we have this example of nixon engaging in some of this mixed signaling, forwarding empty treaty and saying some generally kind about it initially, nixon himself engages saber rattling with Nuclear Weapons in in the fall of 1969. Can you say some more about this, this Nuclear Alert . What nixon was interested in doing with it and whether or not succeeded in realizing objectives. So nixon was hoping that americas Nuclear Weapons would help him settle the vietnam war. In his first year as president , he thought that nuclear signaling had helped eisenhower settle korean war. And so thought he would try that himself. So through back channels, he sent threatening signals to North Vietnam, saying if we dont settle by november 1st, the anniversary of the bombing halt, which Lyndon Johnson declared on first of 1968, then nixon would take and he made it kind of a vague threat measures of consequence of great consequence and force. And he would use any means necessary to settle the war. He he briefed some republican senators who he knew would leak. And so that there were there was a newspaper article saying that nixon might actually invade vietnam. He stayed on a phone call with Henry Kissinger. Henry kissinger is on the line with soviet ambassador anatoly dobrynin. And nixon was, you know, standing right beside saying the has left the station in order to give the russians an idea that they had better pressure their their client, North Vietnam. The russia was the number one supplier of military economic aid to North Vietnam to make a settlement and he made a very conspicuous nuclear move he staged a worldwide Nuclear Alert. The Strategic Air command put phantoms and b52 at a heightened state of readiness by the end of october of 1969, the there were bombers flying over the arctic, american bombers flying the arctic with the Nuclear Weapons that were bound to trigger the Early Warning systems in the soviet union, all of which was nixons way of threatening to escalate the war a great deal. But what happened that when november 1st came and went, he didnt escalate in any way conventionally or of course, the Nuclear Weapons that was, you know, for a good Henry Kissinger told him that, you know, one of two things will happen if we escalate one. The first thing that could happen is they make a deal. And the second thing is they might not if they didnt if they didnt, then nixon would be stuck with escalating the war. He knew from a private paul that the public was ready to bomb North Vietnam, get a deal and, get out. But the problem was he bombed North Vietnam. They might not make a deal and hed be stuck with this escalation. That was clearly not working. So that was the first problem. Second problem was and the off chance that it did work. Then the american troops would all come home and North Vietnam have the remaining three years of his first term to resume, infiltrate South Vietnam. The deal would unravel and nixon would get the blame for losing the war after promising a peace with honor. So what he wound up doing . Nothing. And the soviets noticed to that. And as did North Vietnamese and nixon. I think, in his memoirs, tried to give the best spin on that, saying, well, there is a there is an english adviser who thought that vietnamization would work if we gave it a few more years. And that would be much more of great deterrent to North Vietnam than a settlement. Of course, nixons own advisers, the pentagon and state department and the cia said vietnamization would never make South Vietnam capable of defending itself. So i think his his later claims with a grain of salt. But i think what nixon learned from that experience was that, you know, while have as president , he has this vast power to destroy world, but that doesnt turn into conventional power to influence parts the world to to make settlement with us that that we favor a turn back to aaron for a second weve been talking about Nuclear Weapons part of this triad of weapons of mass destruction and of the great virtues of your and pats book is that you focus only on Nuclear Weapons. You also look at chemical and biological weapons as well. And i think even in an early draft of the book germ and gas in the bomb were part of the title, which i actually really liked, but i wonder if you could say a few words about that as well, because nixon had to the issue of what to do, chemical we