A healthy and fully functioning society must allocate its resources among a variety of competing interests, all of which are more or less valid but none of which should take precedence over national security.

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.

Only those who are ideologically opposed to military programs think of the defense budget as the first and best place to get resources for social welfare needs.

It may literally turn out that a Hottentot, an educated and literate Hottentot it is true, but one who is a member of a relatively primitive society, would be able to make bombs.

Because of new technologies, new wealth, new conditions of domestic life and of international relations, unprecedented criteria and issues are coming up for national decision.

To the extent that these advanced weapons or their components are treated as articles of commerce, perhaps for peaceful uses as in the Plowshare program, their cost would be well within the resources available to many large private organizations.

Deterrence itself is not a preeminent value; the primary values are safety and morality.