Brien McMahon Quotes

Every thinking person fears nuclear war, and every technological nation plans for it.

Local defenses must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power.

I could not conceive of any President engaging in all-out nuclear war unless we were in danger of all-out devastation ourselves.

I built a nuclear option to get peace, not to have bombs. Our enemies learned that they could not destroy us.

We are told that the possession of nuclear weapons - in some cases even the testing of these weapons - is essential for national security. But this argument can be made by other countries as well.

I visited the Chinese side last year. The Chinese are in a constant state of military readiness. They have all their nuclear weapons in the area, presumably trained on targets across the border.

I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.

The decision to use the atom bomb on Japanese cities, and the consequent buildup of enormous nuclear arsenals, was made by governments, on the basis of political and military perceptions.

A great amount has been talked and written about what constitutes a sufficient balance and what really is meant by the concepts of 'balance' and 'deterrence'.

Nuclear arms is pretty scary because that could end the world. I'm more interested in that stuff than I am Bill Clinton. I mean, I think Bill Clinton is a good president.

The stark and inescapable fact is that today we cannot defend our society by war since total war is total destruction, and if war is used as an instrument of policy, eventually we will have total war.

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.

The thing that makes countries want to pursue some kind of nuclear deterrent is precisely the fact that they feel threatened.

This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack.

In the late 1950s a major topic under discussion was whether Canada should acquire nuclear weapons.

Pakistan has made no mention of ending our tests. We have a missile program, and it is in the national interest whatever we want to do.

If an SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) system were to keep out ninety percent of incoming nuclear missiles, it would be a ninety percent success and most Americans would be dead.

If the race of nuclear armaments is allowed to develop, the only apparent way in which our country could be protected from the paralyzing effects of a sudden attack is by dispersal of industries which are essential for our war effort and dispersal of the population of our major metropolitan cities.

We ought to nuke North Korea right about now just to give the world a warning.

Let no one expect us to disarm unilaterally. We are not a naive people.

Without power, without a strong army and a strong navy, there can be no welfare for us .... The German nation will be either the hammer or the anvil.

Cuba does not have nuclear rockets but it does have moral rockets.

The dangers of atomic war are overrated. It would be hard on little, concentrated countries like England. In the United States we have lots of space.

Relatively weak countries, targeted as ‘rogue states’ and repeatedly threatened with military attack, are naturally desperate to achieve the deterrence that only weapons of mass destruction can provide.

The nuclear threat is a direct product of the cult of force that has dominated the world for centuries.