Thomas W. Wolfe Oral History Interview –JFK #1, 10/30/1970 Administrative Information Creator: Thomas W. Wolfe Interviewer: William W. Moss Date of Interview: October 30, 1970 Place of Interview: Washington, D.C. Length: 25 pp. Biographical Note Wolfe, Thomas W.; U.S. Air Force; Regional Director for Sino-Soviet Affairs, Department of Defense (1961-1962). Wolfe discusses becoming the International Security Affairs [ISA] Director for Sino-Soviet affairs, his responsibilities with that role, the missile gap issue between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as his opinion on various government agencies and their members, among other issues. Access Restrictions Portions closed. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed August 2, 1977, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form. Direct your questions concerning copyright to the reference staff. Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation Thomas W. Wolfe, recorded interview by William W. Moss, October 30, 1970, (page number), John F. Kennedy Oral History Program. GENERAL SERVICES ADX!NISTRATION NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE JOHN f. KEl'fNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Thomas W. Wolfe In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Tit l e 44, United States Code, and subject to the terrns and condit i ons hereinafter set forth, I, Thomas W. Wolfe, of Washingt on, D.C., do hereby give, donate and convey to t he United States of America all my righ ts, title, and interest in the tape recording and transcr ipt of per sonal interviews conducted on October 30, 1970, at Washington, D. C. and prepared for ~~posit in the John F. Kennedy Library. Thi s assignment is subject co the following terms and conditions: l. The transcript shall be available for use by researchers as soon as it has been deposited in the John F . Kennedy Libr ary. 2. The tape recording sha 11 be available to those researchers who have access to the transcript. 3. Unt i l May 5 , 1982 I retain all copyright in t he material given t o t he United States by the terms of th~s instrument. Thereafter t he copyright in both t he t ranscript and tape re­ cording shal l pass to the United States Government. Prior to May 5, 1982, researchers may publish brief "fair use" quotations from the transcript and t ape r ecordings without my express consent in each case. 4 . Copies of the interview transcript, but not the tape record­ ing, may be deposited in or loaned to i nstitutions other than the Kennedy Library. Donor ) c) l..£1 !<JI! Dat~ (/ ~/ Arc~ vist of the United States Date / Thomas W. Wolfe Table of Contents Page Topic 1, 25 Wolfe’s background and becoming the International Security Affairs [ISA] Director for Sino-Soviet affairs, as well as his role 3, 13, 19 Missile gap situation 4, 8 Concern and uncertainty regarding the missile balance between the Soviet Union and United States 5 Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric’s address, October 21, 1961, and Wolfe’s involvement in writing it 6, 8, 19 Dichotomy between Robert S. McNamara and the Defense Department’s positions regarding the missile gap 12 Explanation for various intelligence gathering and analysis agencies 15 Wolfe’s opinion of, and discussion about, various agencies’ members 20 Wolfe’s job with RAND Corporation and the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962 21 Wolfe’s thoughts on the United States’ ability to truly understand Russia’s actions and motives 23 Wolfe’s focus and concerns with Sino-Soviet affairs Addendum I Name Index Addendum II Subject Index WITHDRAWAL SHEET (PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES) Document Correspondents or Title Date Restriction Type Pages Containing Closed Portions OH Page 11 September A Reviewed and Determined to Remain Closed 2018 Updated: 12/17/2018 File Location: John F. Kennedy Oral History Project Thomas W. Wolfe, Interview #1, October 30, 1970 Restriction Codes (A) Closed by applicable Executive Order governing access to national security information. (B) Closed by statute or by the agency which originated the document. (C) Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in the donor's deed of gift. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION Oral .History Interview with COLONEL THOMAS W. WOLFE October 30, 1970 Washington, D.C. By William W. Moss For the John F. Kennedy Library MOSS: Let me ask you at the beginning, Colonel Wolfe, how you became ISA [International Security Affairs] director for Sino- Soviet affairs, ~tarting right · at the beginning. WOLFE: Well, I had had some experie~ce i n the f ield of ) Soviet affairs during my professional career. At that time (1960) I was on the joint staff. The head of ISA at that partic·ular time was John Irwin, now the second man in the State Department. Jack Irwin knew me per­ s'onally, slightly; knew me by reputation, perhaps, more . The ISA had felt the need for someone with some experience, bdth political and military, which is the area of their parti­ cular interest, to look after the Sino~Soviet aspect of affairs. Up to that time ISA, although it was the Defense Department 's International Security .Affairs agency, really had no particular expertise on either the Soviet or the Chinese problem. Most of the problems with which .ISA came to grips had to do with relations with our allies r ather more than with potential adversaries. MOSS : A spin-off of. the old mutual security. WOLFE : Yes. A large part of ISA 1 s responsibility was over­ seeing and administering the milit ary aid program. It also had a direct interest in the relations with our NATO -Qforth Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies, and was )_ SA NITIZED E.O. 13526, SEC. ;3.9, NL \Z ~ I S - ?- >> By ·-- . :...2- the port~on of tpe Defense Department which was sensitive to the problems of NATO as they bore both on our own military ) planning and on our allies. · By its nature ISA was also close to the State. Department in many· respects. But there ·had been no. place in ISA to which the: people there could turn for immediate advice on how Sino-Soviet affairs impacted on ISA~s functions. For that reason they wanted an ·office of this kind, and they were looking for somebody to fill it. I just happened to be there and was asked if I'd be int erested, and I said I would. MOSS: That's the way, then, that you would explain your role, as sort of. being the Sino- Soviet expert on tap in ISA, the political, military man in ISA on tap for advice, for studies, staff papers, this kind of thing, or was your role more comprehensive than that? · WOLFE: · Well, it -was primarily that of· rendering advice. It was a small office. I wrote a good many papers. But they were not research papers in depth, of the kind that a large staff would assemble. In a sense, I was also the link between ISA and the various intelligence functions of the government. I knew my way around that part of the bureaucracy. Many times in a large bureaucracy the problems are those of internal communication and, sort of, feedback from one part of the bureaucracy to another. I had had some role, I suppose, in being, if I may say so, a sophisticated communication channel ) for a lot of internal communications. MOSS: Right. I wondered_if that was more the function, because on paper it looks like a lot of functional redundancy in the organization. You have a J CS [Joint Chiefs of Staff) staff that works on international security matters; you h~ve CIA [Central Intelligence Agency); DIA fbefense Intelligence Agency]; you have State Department; you have AID [Agency for International Development)--all of them, in a way, interrelated. I wonder just what the necessity is. What seemed ·to b_e the necessity for the ISA operation? WOLFE: Well, I think it was the felt need of both Jack Irwin and his successor, Paul Nitze, to have close at hand ·· someone in whom they had a certain amount of confidence, whose .