WILLIAM COLBY/MILITARY-TO-CIVILIAN INDUSTRIAL CONVERSION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 7, 1990
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Si Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100001-0
RADIO N REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM World Day
DATE November 7, 1990 10:35 A.M. aTy Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT William Colby/Military-to-Civilian Industrial Conversion
BOBBIE BATTISTA: The superpowers have declared the Cold
War is over, but Washington and Moscow still are spending huge
sums on expensive weapon systems designed for use against each
other. Entire industries that could be making consumer goods
continue to pump out rockets, bombs, and other arms that may not
be needed.
Next week in Moscow, a conference of U.S. and Soviet
experts convenes to talk about ways of making the so-called peace
dividend a reality and to encourage the superpower economies to
manufacture more peaceful products.
William Colby will be a member of the U.S. team in
Moscow. Mr. Colby was head of the CIA from 1973 to 1976. And he
joins us now from our studios in Washington to talk about the
upcoming conference.
Let's talk about this first from the Soviet angle, as
the conversion will be much more difficult for them. At least a
third of the Soviet economy is connected to the military in some
way, especially, I think, in their technological and industrial
mind-set. Do they have the know-how to go from making arms to
making washing machines?
WILLIAM COLBY: Well, they'll have a hard time. Their
biggest problem will be to privatize many of those industries so
that they can get the incentive to produce the consumer goods.
But there is an enormous pent-up demand in the Soviet Union for
consumers' goods. So there's a huge market there to be served.
And it's merely a matter of unhooking some of the present
commitments and allowing it to respond to that demand.
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BATTISTA: Will you recommend that the Soviets take
control of the resources away from these defense bureaucracies?
Won't that be necessary?
COLBY: Oh, I think it's absolutely necessary. I think
the Soviets are well aware that they have to move to a market
economy and away from this totally state-controlled economy.
Their problem is how to get from here to there without having
enormous unemployment, inflation and uproar.
BATTISTA: I agree with you. I'm wondering if they will
be able to get through their current economic crisis, or will
that derail the effort that you're trying to make for their
future?
COLBY: Well, what I'm talking about is essential to
solve their current problem, as well, because they really do need
better housing, better transportation, better utilities, better
food, better clothes, better shoes, all those things.
BATTISTA: What about retraining personnel and rehousing
military personnel that are coming back from the East Bloc? Have
they made plans to accommodate this yet?
COLBY: Well, the Germans have agreed to build housing
in the Soviet Union for the troops that were in East Germany.
It's kind of a bizarre arrangement. But the Soviets were afraid
that if they brought them back from East Germany, they wouldn't
have any place to live. So the Germans have offered to construct
the housing.
Now, there's a whole business of construction that's
going to give jobs to a lot of people.
BATTISTA: There is another side to this coin. What's
the biggest problem facing the U.S. conversion?
COLBY: Well, we have a lot of problems, too. For
example, something like 60 percent of our research and
development has been addressed to military subjects. Now, that's
an absurd number, when you think of it, when you think of the way
the Japanese have spent sort of 10 percent or less of theirs on
military matters, then they've put the rest on designing good
consumer goods, new kinds of devices, and have gotten way ahead
of us as a result.
Now, we have to transfer that kind of research-and-
development commitment to a new area.
We also have a number of industries which were heavily
involved, and almost exclusively involved, in military construc-
tion. You take things like Northrop and some of those, that
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almost their entire activity depended on the Pentagon. Whereas a
company like Boeing has a large civilian sector, and they can
transition much easier.
BATTISTA: Now, there may be some viewers out there who
are wondering whether it's wise for us to be converting defense
spending right now, in light of the Persian Gulf threat. Should
we be diverting instead of converting?
COLBY: Well, we should be converting more of our effort
in the kind of weapons that we need for a Persian Gulf situation.
We don't need D-5 missiles and an SDI and a B-2 bomber for the
Persian Gulf. We need fewer troops than we have today. We have
2.1 million men and women in our armed forces -- that's the
regulars -- plus the reserves. How many do we have now in the
Persian Gulf? Between two and three hundred thousand, perhaps.
Is that -- could we have an adequate force with a million-man
force? Yes, we could.
BATTISTA: What exactly will be your role at the
conference?
COLBY: Well, I think I will try to talk about where the
peace dividend can come from and how much it ought to consist of.
And my view is that it ought to consist of approximately half of
our present defense budget. As I indicated, reducing the forces
by about a half, reducing a number of our more expensive weapon
systems, like carriers, put them in mothballs. Don't throw them
away, but keep them in case something should happen. And,
particularly, terminating some of these far-out weapon systems
that have absolutely no reason for existence, unless we're
contemplating a nuclear war, which we are not.
BATTISTA: Are you optimistic about the success of this
conference?
COLBY: I think it will be a process. The Council on
Economic Priorities has been engaged in this study for over a
year now, about how they might transition some of these indus-
tries and do some more useful work with them, both in America and
in the Soviet Union. They've had some preliminary discussions,
studies.
This conference will be a lead-up to a later one next
spring here in Washington, an attempt to develop a specific set
of recommendations for the governments and for the industries of
the two nations to consider.
BATTISTA: One more question, if I may.
As a former CIA Director during the Cold War, has this
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been a sort of an interesting personal change in direction for
you?
COLBY: Well, it's an interesting new look into the
Soviet Union. I can go visit things now that I wouldn't have
dared to be anywhere near years ago. So that's quite fascin-
ating. The chance to really talk to Soviets on a friendly and
cooperative basis. All of that is novel.
I've long believed that the purpose of intelligence is
to enable us to know better what the other side is doing. And so
that purpose I'm still prosecuting from my present position. But
that better understanding, I think, gives you the basis for
negotiating rather than threatening.
BATTISTA: Well, good luck and much success to you in
the conference.
COLBY: Thank you.
BATTISTA: Thank you.
We've been talking with former CIA Director William
Colby about converting the U.S. and Soviet economies in the new
age of superpower cooperation.
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