To the Editor:
Stephen Peter Rosen, in his review of While Others Build [Books in Review, June], criticizes both me as the author of the book and my role in public affairs. I have never met, spoken, or corresponded with Mr. Rosen; and his review shows he is not much better acquainted with my book than he is with me. While Others Build tells the story of how the U.S. developed enough technology to protect us against ballistic missiles, and of how the Pentagon bureaucracy has thus far prevented that technology from being used. Although I had something to do with this story, I kept myself out of the book as much as possible. Mr. Rosen, however, avoids the substance of the book and features me prominently—but inaccurately.
Mr. Rosen characterizes me as a gadfly who did some good in Washington by asking first-order questions about the performance of U.S. intelligence in wartime, and who then asked similar questions about anti-missile defense. It would be almost as inappropriate for me to detail my accomplishments during eight years on the Senate Intelligence Committee staff as it was gratuitous for Mr. Rosen to suggest I lacked breadth, depth, and experience. My classified work in intelligence is reflected in the seven-volume series, Intelligence Requirements for the 1980’s, edited by Roy Godson, of which I am the principal author. Does Mr. Rosen have a basis for belittling it?
While Others Build describes how in 1978 Senator Malcolm Wallop and I noticed that certain intelligence technologies could be applied to anti-missile defense. We then worked with the Carter administration, won some votes in Congress, and got some hardware built. Mr. Rosen reduces our role to that of asking questions. He also claims to have been involved himself in anti-missile defense work for a decade. All I can say is that neither I nor anyone I know in this field ever heard of him.
Mr. Rosen’s first point is that I do no more than “assert that defenses would be strategically rational.” But the entire book is packed with technical facts and figures. Through them I argue, for most of 256 pages, that the technology for building space-based lasers, space-based homing vehicles, and various ground-based interceptors has existed for some time. By innumerable examples, I show that the adequacy of technology, or lack thereof, depends on definitions, and I argue that the ones that have been used do not make sense. In a chapter entitled “The Numbers Game,” I show (I think ad nauseam) how different assumptions produce different assessments of the effectiveness of the key technologies. Are my facts and figures correct or not? Are the specific inferences I draw proper or not? Mr. Rosen does not say. Without giving any evidence, he dismisses the bulk of the book as “too terse for the average reader.” But why does he shun substantive discussion in favor of invidious labels?
The answer may be seen in his second point. Here he shows passion. He writes, almost correctly, that “the only heroes in Codevilla’s book, other than [Senator] Malcolm Wallop, are the senior defense administrators of the Carter administration.” Mr. Rosen, who served in the Reagan administration, implies that this is self-evidently absurd. But I argue that, rhetoric aside, U.S. anti-missile programs were closer to fruition at the end of the Carter administration than at the end of the Reagan administration. Mr. Rosen presents not a shred of evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, he much resents my contradicting the popular image of the military and of the Reagan administration, calling it “intemperate and unfair.”
I do argue at some length that the senior officers of the armed services have served their country badly with regard to anti-missile defense—for reasons much like those that Edward Luttwak has adduced in The Pentagon and the Art of War. I do sum up this argument by referring to Mosca’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy. But for Mr. Rosen to misunderstand this as a charge of “venal” corruption is naive. If only the senior military were merely venal! Mr. Rosen’s years in Washington should have taught him that money may be the least of the things that corrupt people in high places. Far more powerful is inertia—the urge to believe that today can be like yesterday, and tomorrow like today. Even more powerful is the urge to justify past decisions—one’s own and the ones of the people who raised one up. The ever-present need to satisfy existing constituencies also tends to push new missions to the hindmost—or out of the picture altogether. At any rate, Mr. Rosen does not deny that the senior military is the principal opponent of antimissile defense. He simply says that they have good reasons for their attitude—though he does not tell us what those reasons are, or why they are good.
Angelo M. Codevilla
Hoover Institution
Stanford, California
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To the Editor:
Stephen Peter Rosen asserts that Angelo M. Codevilla’s explanation of why the U.S. has not built a strategic defense is wrong. Mr. Codevilla seeks to demonstrate that bureaucratic self-interest and poor political leadership are the key factors that explain why the U.S. has not deployed any existing weapons after a ten-year research program.
Mr. Codevilla makes a case. Mr. Rosen does not. He should provide some evidence to support his opinion (based on his unspecified experience), to explain or justify the failure of the U.S. military to resolve perhaps the most important postwar strategic dilemma to confront the U.S.
Roy Godson
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.
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Stephen Peter Rosen writes:
The interested reader can go back to my review of While Others Build. He will find that it is, on the whole, favorably disposed toward Angelo M. Codevilla’s activities in the intelligence community and toward his call for deployed missile defenses. It laments his tendency to lash out intemperately in personal attacks on those who disagree with him, however gently, in ways which do the causes we both support more harm than good. His letter indicates that he continues to indulge this tendency. He should stop doing so.
With regard to Roy Godson, he is correct that Mr. Codevilla makes a case. That case rests on the assumption that Mr. Codevilla’s arguments for deployment were so self-evidently true that failure to deploy had to result from venality or stupidity. My review noted that Mr. Codevilla’s arguments for deployment had some specific weaknesses and concluded that his case was weak.
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