LOTTMAN: Let's talk about the Pentagon's plan to invest in tactical aircraft over the next twenty years or so.

MURRAY: Well, at present, as I think you know, on the Pentagon books, we have three major programs, two of which are about to be produced and one which is in the sort of beginning stages of development. But the financial commitments that the Pentagon has obeyed or planned for over the next thirty years call for grand totals somewhere in excess of $300 billion. $100 billion every decade is how it works out, and this is an enormous expenditure, and I think there are a number of us who look at the larger strategic situation the United States is in, as well as the condition that the American services across the board are in, and this seems to be an expenditure which is simply unreasonable and doesn't make any sense.

Well, I think rather than identifying and addressing one particular aircraft first, I think you have to ask first which is the -- what is the most likely strategic framework within which the United States military will have to act over the next twenty to thirty years. And I would argue that -- and of course, you have to discuss the political framework as well.

And I think there are two basic factors. First of all, it seems pretty clear to me that for the next certainly two decades, and probably longer, there is not going to be a major peer competitor, and there may not even be a major regional competitor, the way the Pentagon talks about it, in terms of the high tech end of war. We may have major regional competitors, but they may not address or challenge the United States on the high tech end of war.

I think the second factor, which is of sort of crucial importance in discussing tactical air fighters and what we should buy or not buy, has to do with the fact that, by and large, the United States' armed forces have, since the Cold War, been returning to the continental United States, and this process is going to continue over the next two decades, and my guess is that we will have somewhere around 80 maybe even 90 percent of U.S. forces back in the continental United States.

And then there's a third element, which is I do not see defense budgets increasing over the next ten to twenty years. If anything, given public apathy and public disinterest, or public belief that, in fact, nothing threatens the United States, I see defense budgets continuing to decline -- not radically, but the kind of belief that I think permeates too many people within the Beltway, within the Pentagon, that somehow more money is going to be available for acquisition costs is simply unreasonable.

Now, I think one could argue that one could free up more funding for tactical fighters or other acquisition by thing such as a third and fourth round of BRAC, which is sort of the base-closing thing. That's a possibility, but unlikely, and it's also clear that the previous two rounds of BRAC have not freed up that much money, given all of the environmental concerns and the rest of it.

It's conceivable that major reorganizations of the Pentagon could save some money, but again, the question is, is how much. And again, in comparison to a $300 billion bill, the answer is, all the reorganization in the world, and all the sort of base closings in the world are simply not going to free up enough funding to make and fund a $300 billion acquisition program for tactical fighters, unless one was willing to close down all tanks, all ships, everything else?

LOTTMAN: That's one of those…. Air Force doctrine folks are talking about cutting manpower across the board, as a way to pay for this.

MURRAY: Well, yeah. I think one of the real dangers in this approach is that, on the high tech end of war, where I think it is extremely unlikely we're going to be challenged over the next twenty to thirty years, that you can get away with fewer individuals and more computing power, although I think that carries some dangers with it, as well.

The real issue is that, in the kinds of wars and contingencies the United States is going to most likely be confronted with, we're going to need manpower, Marines, soldiers on the ground, and we're probably going to need substantial support forces within the Air Force and within the navy to support, if you will, the low end contingencies.

And in that sense, there -- yes, we can replace individuals with technology, and computers and the rest of it, but there are, I think, severe limits again there. This is not going to be a panacea the way some within the Air Force very clearly believe it's going to be.

The other -- one final point along here is that I think we've got some huge vulnerabilities in terms of over reliance on technology. Particularly, it's very clear that EMP, electromagnetic pulses which come out of nuclear weapons, are now -- we are going to have conventional weapons that can give you EMP, and to be perfectly frank, the Pentagon has not been protecting its computer systems against -- or satellite systems -- against such bursts.

And so the more technological you become, in some ways, the more vulnerable you become to somebody turning your lights off.

LOTTMAN: To your knowledge, are they using hardened technologies for tactical aircraft? You know, that could survive something like that? I know they supposedly are with the B-2.

MURRAY: Yeah. I think that on the war fighting end of it, particularly since most of the systems we're flying now were built during the Cold War, in fact were built to work in a nuclear environment.

The problem is that the supporting technologies in terms of satellites, in terms of communications, are not hardened, and certainly a substantial number of civilian systems are absolutely not hardened against EMP. And the kind of support computer systems are within the logistical system. The rest of it are not hardened.

So you run into some substantial problems that SHARP [PHONETIC] may be protected against EMP. The problem is, the support structure isn't. And I think that is -- is again, something which would cost money to address, and in fact, one of the easiest ways to address it is to have human back ups. The human being is, after all, the best computer in the world.

LOTTMAN: Okay. Sticking with the idea of supporting forces, and the new tactical fighters, what about this idea that the next generation of aircraft is going to be cheaper and easier to maintain and to support and to keep combat ready? Do you have an opinion on that?

MURRAY: Well, we've had 25, 30 years of that, and we've also got graphs that indicate that every time they say that, the opposite has turned out to be true, that new technological weapons systems cost as much -- certainly cost far more to build, and the reliability comes down to -- I mean, there are difficulties with it. I mean, it just simply -- we have not seen any evidence, when you're working on technology in the real world, flight lines and aircraft carriers with salt spray in the air, things turn out to be not quite so perfect as we thought, in terms of designing.

Again, the real issue, I don't think, is the supporting of the force structure. The real issue is, can we afford to spend the kind of money that's being talked about? And again, one of the major issues is that unless you make some hard choices now, you're going to end up making hard choices in terms of the budget by slowing down procurement, which makes the systems that much more expensive, and you end up getting that many fewer than if you'd made some hard choices now.

LOTTMAN: Okay. Just to put all that in perspective, can you give us sort of a capsule description of the role of TAC AIR.

MURRAY: Yeah.

LOTTMAN: And then how that might be evolving, you know, at the present time? What is this capability that we're investing so in?

MURRAY: Yeah. I think, in terms of TAC AIR's mission, there are a number of crucial areas. Since 1943, U.S. tactical air forces -- navy, marine, particularly Air Force -- have achieved air superiority over U.S,. ground forces, and that's played -

LOTTMAN: And that's keeping -

MURRAY: Keeping the other guy from messing in your sand pile. That's a major role, major advantage, major role.

The difficulty is that it is entirely conceivable that guys looking at the results of the Gulf War aren't going to play that game any longer. They would simply no longer put the money into aircraft to challenge us, and challenge us in some other asymmetric way, with Cruise missiles, or SCUD missiles, or whatever.

The second major role of tactical air power, as we saw in the Gulf War, was, quite literally, to carry out surgical strikes, which is a phrase which has been used probably too often in the Pentagon, but very clearly in the Gulf War, F-117s, F-111Fs, using laser guided bombs were able to achieve really some spectacular results in disassembling the Iraqi air defense system. And in doing some substantive damage to Iraqi military and political systems.

The third role is very clearly in support of ground forces. There are two ways you can do this. During the air campaign before the ground war began in the Gulf War, allied air forces, coalition air forces, navy, marine air force aircraft, pounded the be-Jesus out of the Iraqi ground forces and played a major role in breaking Iraqi morale.

Second major factor is that air power can provide you, in terms of close air support or what the British call battlefield near interdiction, some substantial help for the ground forces in terms of fire power and responsive fire power

All those are very important missions for any kind of major American involvement of ground forces in a future conflict, whether it be in the third world, the second world, or even potentially possibly the first world. The difficulty is that there are a lot of other areas that, in terms of acquisition and new equipment, American forces, air, sea and ground, are going to need help over the next twenty to thirty years.

We've been on a procurement holiday since the end of the Cold War, by and large, and we're going to need to replace some military equipment. The difficulty is that if you put all your money into tactical fighters, you basically are short circuiting a whole bunch of other crucial systems.

LOTTMAN: Clearly the tactical fighter fleet is getting old. You know, not just older, but is getting old, you know. The average age is at some sort of historical record high for tactical fighters. So is there -- do you have in mind any sort of alternative plan to get well tactical fighter planes?

MURRAY: Well, I don't think we're ever going to get well. I mean, I think the issue is going to come down to a series of, if you will, Hobson choices in which, you know, I mean, the British General Well-off before Quebec said it all. He said, "War is an option of difficulties." There's no cheap easy solution.

I think there are some alternatives which have not been addressed by the Pentagon. In particular, the first of these major tactical fighter programs is the Navy F-18E and F, which is about to be produced, and in large quantities. Within the next two to three years will begin to roll off in substantial numbers from the plants at McDonnell-Douglas.

I would cancel the program and continue to produce Cs and Ds, which can be -- which are, in fact, also being produced right now, and can be produced at maybe 60 percent, 70 percent of the cost. And again, all that depends upon how many you produce, what kind of deal you make with the manufacturer, what kind of penalty you have for cancelling the E and F. That's got to be written in there.

But that would be a start, that the super hornet, the F-18 E and F seems to me to be so expensive compared to an easily procured alternative.

The second problem with the Hornet is that both the C and D and the E and F don't have much range, and the result of this, as the Navy carrier fleets have come to rely more and more on the F-18 is that the carrier fleets are now being pulled in closer to, if you will, the Latorals, where the navy plans to operate, where there are mine dangers, and where they come within range of diesel submarines.

LOTTMAN: It's exposing the carrier-

MURRAY: It's exposing the carriers, and in addition, the navy is running already, of all the services, into a procurement crunch, in that, if you buy the F-18E and F -- and perhaps you could even argue that the navy has got too little money for what it's trying to do, you end up making decisions such as basically having no mine clearance capabilities, and destroying, if you will, or substantially downsizing your anti-submarine forces, which, again, it's the closest you come into the Latorals, both of those become more and more crucial.

And those are the kinds of choices which I think will affect the entire Pentagon's procurement and operational framework, that if you focus all your money on the F-18E and F so that you can have enough aircraft on your flight decks, then you -- again, in terms of navy decisions made recently -- you get rid of all your inland electronic intelligence aircraft capabilities. You end up cancelling the arsenal ship. Maybe it wasn't a good idea, but it was certainly worth trying. Because that's where we should be in the business now.

The follow on carrier for the Nimitz, the CVX, has been also cancelled, even though the National Defense Panel said that probably we should be focusing on that rather than on building another Nimitz class carrier. Navy has cancelled that, because the money isn't there. And we will see this increasingly once the F-18E and F goes into full production.

LOTTMAN: Is the Super Hornet an upgrade of the Hornet, or is it a -

MURRAY: New aircraft.

LOTTMAN: -- is it a new aircraft?

MURRAY: It's a new aircraft. It looks something the same, but it's a new aircraft. I think that certainly in terms of what Congress, in terms of its acquisition legislation, it should be considered a new aircraft. It's being called a follow on model so it can avoid part of the nightmare that Congress has created in terms of an acquisition program, which is insane is the best way to put it.

But again, I guess the best way to describe the American acquisition program at the present time is that if the Soviet -- if we'd asked the Soviets to send somebody over to design a program that would spend the most money for the least results, they couldn't have done any better than we've managed to do.

LOTTMAN: It's a Communist conspiracy

[Laughter]

MURRAY: Yes. We've done it to ourselves. And I think there's a lot of recognition of that. I think there's some hope in the Pentagon that somehow we'll fix the system quickly, and I -- nothing in this town gets fixed quickly. And so to believe that, again is to believe the impossible.

LOTTMAN: There are some voices of concerned dissent?

MURRAY: But I mean, again, I would argue that in terms of some of the money you would save in buying the C and Ds that you might actually, if you had a -- if you were willing to take some risks with an acquisition program and toss the acquisition program out in terms of all of its gates, you could come up with an aircraft which would help you man your carrier decks and it would be probably a -- it could even be a turbo prop, God forbid, but it would be something that would allow you to reach far longer ranges than the C and D, that would probably allow you to put some tankers -- make some of these aircraft tankers so that you could tank the Cs and Ds and get them out further, and to be really frank, I think carriers, for the next twenty or thirty years are going to be in the business of dropping bombs on people who do not have much sophisticated gear in support of -- whatever. Most probably allied coalition ground forces.

And so we're not going to -- perhaps we can do a little bit away with the sort of emphasis on sophistication, which is, I think, the bugbear of the American military right now.

LOTTMAN: We are sort of, from the beginning of hearing about the Super Hornet program, there were some concerns expressed about the design of the plane, whether a plane with bombs strapped to the outside of it should really be bringing those bombs back to the carrier. They've had some problems with the -- actual aerodynamics of the plane.

MURRAY: I think those are over-exaggerated.

LOTTMAN: Okay.

MURRAY: The real issue is that, because of the way the procurement program was -- has been -- the acquisition program has been designed by Congress and DOD, that the navy deliberately tried to build an aircraft that it could call a follow on model. What that did was it put the navy within the constraints of the C land D model, so in fact you couldn't do all sorts of things in making the E and F, because if you went too far, you were going to, very clearly, have a new fighter aircraft, and then you were going to have to put it out to some sort of competition, and then you were going to lengthen the acquisition process.

So in effect, the navy was put in a box, and it was not willing to say, "Well, we'll put off acquisition of the next follow on to the C and D for ten years to wait for the Pentagon's acquisition to come up with."

Again, it reflects some bad choices on the part of the navy. The A-12 catastrophe, which -- $5 billion in procurement plus -- there could be very large penalty charges apparently, in terms of what the courts have decided.

When Chaney cancelled that -- and I think he cancelled it for good reason, but he left the navy with a very large hole, a replacement for the A-6 intruder. It's a sort of medium-range bomber, which has put the navy in a desperate hole, and it's --

LOTTMAN: Let's switch over to the Air Force for a minute, and I was wondering if you have any, like I asked with the Navy, do you have an alternative for them to get well --

MURRAY: They don't have an alternative.

Yeah. The F-22 is a very different kettle of fish, and the issues that come down there -- I think one can say that the FA-18E and F does not represent any substantially new technologies. It does not carry any substantial tactical advantages over the F-15 -- excuse me, the F-18 Cs and Ds, except 50 to 60 or 70 miles additional range, which is not a heck of a lot of range. And certainly no more loader capabilities.

The F-22 is the leading edge of technology. Absolutely no doubt about that. Of course, that's one of the reasons why it is so expensive per copy. But it is very clearly far and away, and will be far and away for the next thirty, maybe forty years, the premiere tactical fighter in the world.

Stealth and -- and again, I think one of the things that every once in awhile the Congressional Budget Office has a pretend to tack on Stealth, in which they argue Stealth really doesn't work. It works.

We put two F-117s over the heart of an operating Iraqi air defense system with the best Russian and French equipment available, and they didn't see it, and it put down the critical initial bombs on Baghdad which turned off, among other things, CNN. In fact, that's how General Warner knew that it had worked, was CNN went off the air at exactly 0300 hours, when it was supposed to.

It has got the capacity to cruise at supersonic. It can't be seen. It's going to have wonderful, superduper downlinks from satellites. You'll be able to zap any fighter systems out there with AWACS support. It is a wonderful, tactical fighter. Absolutely no doubt about it.

The difficulty is that there's absolutely nothing out there that's going to challenge it. And I think I would argue that for at least the next decade, and perhaps longer, there is no threat, in fact, even to the F-15. So in effect, we'll be buying an enormously expensive piece of hardware, with some extraordinary capabilities, but no threat. No substantive threat to it.

And the aircraft has some deficiencies. The deficiencies are that, unlike the B-2, its range is limited. For example, at a recent war game up at Carlisle, the F-22, flying out of Diego Garcia, required seven refuelings to get to its targets in the Middle East. That's not acceptable.

And I think the question is going to be, we may not have access -- just as we did during this crisis in the Middle East -- we may not have access to the bases in the area where we're going to be. And in addition, those bases may well come under attack.

There will not be a free lunch for coalition forces in the next war against a second ranked power like Iraq, because those guys, ten, twenty years from now will have Cruise missiles, Scuds in large numbers, and they will fire them at the airfields. And anybody who's seen pictures of the Gulf War, with airplanes all over the place, target rich environment springs to mind.

So I think -- now the second part of the equation is that if you acquire the F-22 land the kinds of costs that one is talking about, one isn't going to acquire much else. And I would argue that the Air Force needs, particularly, some substantial increase in air lift capacity, that we're not buying enough C-17, and maybe we should even be buying a substantial number of 747s.

The issue is going to be to get American forces from the continental United States and North America out into areas of the world where it is important.

And I think the same thing comes down to the navy. The issue is, the navy is going to have to spend more money on sort of the light carriers for the Marine Corps, and support ships to get the Marine Corps and the Army out into the second and third world if we are going to be a super power for the next twenty or thirty years. And I think we're going to be.

I think it's required, unless we really want the world to go to hell in a hand basket. But you're going to have to make some hard choices with the F-22.

Now, I think there are a number of alternatives. We could -- my own personal preferences would be not to buy the F-22 at all, but simply to do what a lot of people, a number of people, have suggested, which is develop weapons systems, put them on the shelf. Keep the plant. Keep the line. Make all the preparations to build it, and then pay McDonald-Douglas $100 million a year, or 50 million, or 70, whatever it costs, to keep that plant prepared to produce the thing ten years from now, or fifteen years from now.

It's a lot of money. On the other hand, it's a lot less money than you would be spending on buying a full fleet of F-22s.

And in place of that, I would buy F-15Es, which -- the line is there. The airplane is about half the cost, maybe slightly more than that.

Now, there are -- I think one could find some things in between. One might buy just two wings of F-22s, and then buy F-15Es. At, again, substantially larger savings. So we could take a look at what the F-22 gives us.

The problem is, we have got to free money up from this huge tactical fighter budget.

LOTTMAN: Okay. So it means you would sort of preserve the force levels by buying more F-15s in the meantime until a threat emerges to justify the F-22? Is that a fair -

MURRAY: I think that's -

LOTTMAN: -- calculation on that.

MURRAY: I think that's right. And use the money in a number of ways. I mean, the Congressional Budget office suggests that there are all sorts of mixes.

Again, one of the things you mentioned, which I think is a substantial problem, is the fact that the fleet is aging. I don't think the age problem is quite what the Pentagon or you suggested a few minutes ago. I think it's -- in fact, it is handleable -- it's not a crucial, decisive, catastrophic for the next three to four years. It may begin to become a really bad situation in five years to ten-year timeframe.

In that timeframe, if you're not going to buy F-18Es and Fs, or F-22s in large numbers, then you've got to do some other things, like buy F-15Es, maybe begin even to start buying some F-16s in substantially larger numbers.

And that brings us to the final question, which is the JSF problem, the Joint Strike fighter. Which is a massive program which is supposed to deliver the first twelve aircraft in 2005 for each service. I think this is, in fact, in terms of Pentagon acquisition programs, partially driven by Congress, partially driven by the difficulties the services are having in coming to grips with the current strategic environment.

The JSF program is a program to design as Life fighter for the Air Force, a Stealth fighter for the Navy, a VSTOL short takeoff and landing aircraft for the Marine Corps, 80 percent commonality between the three variants, by the tens of thousands, or actually by the thousands, to replace not only American F-16s but -- again, in terms of how murky this program is -- again, we're talking about seven years from now, the first ones are going to be delivered. The Air Force is planning to use it to replace the A-10 and the F-15Es. That's craziness.

What we heed is, I would argue, two or three, maybe even four or five, research and development programs which real competition to fit, if you will, niche missions, and looking at production in terms of JSF, probably 2010 and afterwards.

But again, all of these three programs coming together create a situation that by the year 20 -- I think it's, in terms of figures in the Congressional Budget Office, 20 --- 2009, we will be spending nearly double on tactical fighter procurement to what we did at the height of the Reagan buildup. That's insane. Anybody who believes that has been smoking the wrong kind of stuff.

LOTTMAN: What about this idea of fighter wings going off to fight wars by themselves, essentially, which is, you know, is the sort of revolutionary idea that certain Air Force thinkers are putting forward?

MURRAY: Yeah. Difficulty of tactical Air Forces, particularly in terms of the environment we're going into. You need air bases to operate out of. And those air bases within relatively close distance of, if you will, enemy, guerilla, special forces, cruise missiles, Scuds, whatever it is, from my perspective are going to come under attack. And to be perfectly frank, the Air Force is incapable of defending itself and its forces against such attack.

Now, I suppose the reply would be, "Well, we'll send the Marines and the Army to protect the air bases." Again, I think that's sort of missing the larger problem of, Well, that means you've got to bring in large numbers of army and marines. Do they come in first? Do they come in -- are you going to be willing to land your tactical fighters, F-22s, each at whatever it is, $90 billion -- who knows what it's going to cost -- in an area in which cruise missiles are impacting.

I mean, the difficulty is is that the more expensive and technologically sophisticated you make this stuff, the more unwilling you're going to be to put it in harm's way. Because -- let me put it very simply -- the destruction of half of a wing of F-22s, F-15Es, and whatever, would be a -- in terms of the Treasury -- an unmitigated disaster. Not to mention, of course, the lives of troops on the ground.

LOTTMAN: So would carrier-based forces be more appropriate than -

MURRAY: Well, I think, in some ways, carrier-based forces have -- and the Navy's right, in terms of moving. The problem is that the Navy is, in effect, by the kinds of disastrous acquisition programs that's run over the last fifteen years, putting the carrier in harm's way, in the sense that it is going to be seen -- because it doesn't have the capacity to reach and do the kinds of things that the carriers were able to do in the 1980s, in terms of reach with F-14s and A-6s, that it's going to -- I think going to become increasingly vulnerable that maybe we can do away with the carrier force.

Which I think would be a tragedy. But it reflects a sort of -- sort of a navy unwillingness to think outside of the box, and to try and come up with both the technology and a recognition of what kinds of airplanes they really need.

LOTTMAN: Let's talk about some of the importance of the milestones that are coming up with these programs. Decisions being made, you know, this year, the next year or two.

MURRAY: The F-18E and F milestone is this year, because next year substantial production begins. And we're talking about acquisition on a level of two to $3 billion per year. I don't have the exact figures with me. And then it begins to ramp up towards 2003 or 2004 when it reaches full production.

I think the -- well, I don't think the -- the F-22 is slightly behind that, but it's, if you will -- it is almost at that sort of absolute decision point, after which you force them to go down that road.

Worth noting that the only major acquisition program that I can think of that was cancelled after production began was the B-2. And there were were, of course, talking about rally, really billions of dollars.

So -- and the F-22, I think, reaches that point in another year or two, and by 2001, its production is ramping up towards full production.

LOTTMAN: Okay. Notwithstanding the external military situation, you know, the threat environment, are these planes being rushed into production?

MURRAY: Yes.

LOTTMAN: Prematurely?

MURRAY: Yeah. I would think -- yes. Particularly -- well, I think both the Navy and the Air Force are pushing the production because of a sense that they want to cross, if you will, the line of departure as fast as they can to create a situation in which the cancellation of those aircraft becomes almost impossible.

And then, of course, what one is talking about, in looking at the defense budget, one will get, instead of whatever the year it's supposed to be produced for the Air Force, instead of getting 20 F-22s, they'll get ten at three-quarters of the price. So instead of costing 90 million apiece, they'll cost 125, $130 million a copy.

LOTTMAN: Okay. One last question, since you're a historian. Whatever happened to the skunk works approach? You know, where --

MURRAY: Well, I think it -- well, the skunk work approach was crucial for development of the F-117, because it existed in the black world. And the difficulty is that -- and again, I don't have any access, and if I did, I couldn't talk about it, I don't know what's going on in the black world.

And skunk works stuff worked because, in fact, aircraft like the F-117 -- we wanted to develop the technology without giving the Russians any kind of -- or Soviets any kind of handle, as to what we were doing.

And the result was an acquisition program which was, by the way, very expensive. The F-117 is the most expensive per pound, by far. Much more than the F-22.

But of course, it reflected -- part of the problem is how we're doing our accounting, too, which is we are including R&D costs in the per-aircraft costs, so that -- in fact, all of this can be fundamentally misleading unless you understand what the basis, the -- in effect, the F-22 is cheaper than -- than what the Pentagon is saying it costs, because it's -- the Pentagon is forced to calculate in R&D costs.

LOTTMAN: And the idea of that approach was, you know, smaller numbers of contractors and engineers, you know, being involved in that, using off-the-shelf technologies, and, you know, sort of have -- you know, being able to be more creative. I don't know if there was this secrecy that gave them the room to do that, but now it's -

MURRAY: Well, it was -- I mean, the problems was, it was more expensive, but the results of the skunk work, because, in fact, people were allowed -- now, the difficulty is that you might well develop a really good airplane with R&D costs that were quite high, but then the production of the aircraft might be relatively low.

The difficulty is that that would be missed, because you would be forced to include the R&D costs in it.

Again, I think that anybody who looks at the Pentagon's acquisition system has to say that this was a -- this is a system that reflects the sort of worst aspects of top down management of the 1970s and '80s, which American business has gotten away with.

LOTTMAN: The current system.

MURRAY: Yeah. I think there's another problem here, which is the most effective system development, and then those systems in which sort of one individual was given responsibility for developing the Polaris missile on the submarine development in the '50s and '60s was a brilliant piece of acquisition. The difficulty today would be that I don't think, in terms of how we run our programs, you can't give one person the ten to fifteen-year responsibility they need to run one of these programs through to fruition.

LOTTMAN: You won't get the same political protection, either.

MURRAY: Yeah. I think that's certainly correct.

LOTTMAN: Okay. I think that's all.