Robert McNamara Quotes

The lesson of history is when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapon it has available. ... Therefore, we must expect that if another war — a serious war — breaks out, we will use nuclear energy in some form.

Dwight Eisenhower… supported the nuclearization of the military and the militarization of nuclear weapons as a cost saving way of deterring the Soviets. Under Eisenhower, custody or nuclear weapons shifted from the civilian Atomic Energy Commission to the military.

Our nuclear weapons are meant purely as a deterrent against nuclear adventure by an adversary.

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

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

We do not believe that a nuclear war should be fought and we do not believe that a nuclear war can be won.

We will use nuclear weapons whenever it serves our vital interests.

Even with the best intentions, you can have a nuclear war, a nuclear holocaust, through miscalculation, through accidents.

My feelings of revulsion and foreboding about nuclear weapons had not changed an iota since 1945, and they have never left me. Since I was 14, the overriding objective of my life has been to prevent the occurrence of nuclear war.

Firing off 1,000 or 500 or 2,000 nuclear warheads on a few minutes' consideration has always struck me as an absurd way to go to war.

The whole idea of a nuclear system is to have a deterrent where we decide if we're going to use it.

I'm still bothered by the threat of nuclear war.

I can't understand why anyone would want nuclear warheads. If you shoot them off, it's not like you can take over that country-all you do is kill millions of people.

My guess is that nuclear weapons will be used sometime in the next hundred years, but that their use is much more likely to be small and limited than widespread and unconstrained.

It's a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

All mankind is now learning that these nuclear weapons can only serve to destroy, never become beneficial.

Nut With A Nuke

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

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.

A nuclear weapon is not just a football that you can use at will.

The way to win an atomic war is to make sure it never starts.

I would not recommend the use of any atomic weapon, no matter how small, when both sides have the power to destroy the world.

The aggressor too should know that the preemptive use of nuclear weapons would not insure victory. With modern detection systems and the combat readiness of the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear forces, the United States would not be able to deal a crippling blow to the socialist countries. The aggressor will not be able to evade an all-crushing retaliatory strike

I view current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous, creating unacceptable risks to other nations and to our own"

We were able and we had a plan to launch nuclear test in 1984, but then President General Zia had opposed the move.