The following is a transcript of a CBS 60 Minutes II segment entitled "The Missiliers." Produced by George Crile, it contains an extensive interview between Dan Rather and General Eugene Habiger (Ret.), former Commander-in-chief of all U.S. nuclear forces.

The show first aired on CBS on Tuesday, Feb 8, 2000.

Similar segements have appeared several times on CBS 60 Minutes II and on CNN's Democracy In America series.

The Missiliers...Part I / Dan Rather

Studio Open: If power is measured by the ability to destroy...then tonight’s story is about the most powerful men in the world. They call themselves missiliers. They’re the men and women who command our nuclear forces. And for those of you who assumed that their mission had somehow gone away--a mission to launch thousands of missiles at a moment’s notice--this report is a wake up call.

For the missiliers, the cold war never ended. Tension between the US and Russia is greater than at any time since the end of the Cold War. And just about the only people who seem alarmed by it are the American missiliers and strangely enough, their Russian counterparts. Tonight you will meet them both as they continue to rehearse launching enough destructive power to bring on Armageddon.

Glory Trip Sequence

Narration: It’s 1 am. Pitch black with a dense fog settling in on this remote California hilltop. Hard to figure out what could possible draw anyone to these bleachers on such a gloomy night. But this is a gathering of nuclear soldiers—missiliers-- here at Vandenberg Air Force Base to take part in a full-blown test of American military might.

Loudspeaker Nat Sound: We’re about to commence the countdown.

Narration: A missile is about to be launched. And these missiliers from bases all around the country are here to take part in the event they call "The Glory Trip." It’s a trip that begins a mile away and they all know that the real glory this night belongs to two of their colleagues who are, at that moment, operating 70 feet underground in a fortified bunker... This is a nuclear missile launch facility. And those two missilers - Lieutenant Rich Namath, age 25, and lieutenant Michelle Del Toro, 23, have won the honor of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile.

NAT Sound of Launch officers

Narration: It’s a procedure that nuclear launch officers have been rehearsing in underground silos for decades *long before these two were even born. What’s different about tonight - the reason it’s called a Glory Trip for them - is because, this time, it’s no drill.

Key turn, Rocket goes up

Narration: That is a Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile in its first seconds of flight. 60 feet tall, 200 tons, it’s the mainstay of America’s nuclear arsenal. It’s built to carry three thermonuclear warheads that can hit and destroy any three cities in the world in just half an hour.

Cheers from silhouetted missiles - KEEP going baby...Outstanding...

Reentry Footage

Narration: Exactly 28 minutes and 39 seconds after launch this is how another Glory Trip ended - three warheads bursting onto the night sky over the Quadulan Islands in the South Pacific... and all three, we are told, striking precisely on target.

Dan: The Cold War is over. Why are we, the United States of America, still doing this, still at the nanosecond ready with nuclear weapons and why are the Russians?

Habiger: Good question. Tough answer.

Narration: No one has greater credentials to answer that question than four star general Eugene Habiger. From the time he began his career 40 years ago as a B52 pilot waiting for the call to bomb Moscow until a year and a half ago, when he was honored at this retirement ceremony for his three year tour as commander in chief of all US nuclear forces Habiger has been on the front lines of America’s nuclear forces; unapologetic defender of America’s nuclear policies.

Habiger: The Cold War was a unique war. And when the war ended the loser didn’t really lose. We still had this massive military might on both sides staring each other in the face.

Dan: Do the Russians still have the nuclear capability to wipe us off the planet?

Habiger: Absolutely

Dan: No doubt

Habiger: No doubt

Dan: Could we do that to them?

Habiger: No doubt

Dan: See, I don’t think most people know that

Habiger: Well that’s a dilemma.

Narration: It didn’t seem like a dilemma back in the hopeful days after the cold war ended when America and Russia agreed to cut their giant arsenals of 12,000 nuclear weapons each in half. But to Habiger’s dismay, when he assumed command, relations with Russia began to disintegrate and no further reductions were authorized.

Dan: General when you took command in 1996, how many nuclear warheads did we have deployed? How many nuclear warheads did you have under your command?

Habiger: A little over 6,000 Dan

Dan: And how many did the Russians have?

Habiger: About the same

Dan: And how many do we have now?

Habiger: About the same. And the fact that we have not been able to get down to lower and lower levels of nuclear weapons is troubling to me, and it should be troubling to you.

Narration: And you quickly understand his concerns when you walk into the world of the missilers. For the past 2 years, reporter George Crile has had unprecedented access to America’s nuclear empire, an empire off limits and virtually unknown to most Americans.

Helicopter Sweeping Across Wheat fields

Crile: Wouldn’t you agree that most people... don’t really know that there are missiles here on alert; that they are ready to go just like were during the cold war. That’s true isn’t it?

Col. Stockard: That is in fact, that we are still under the same criteria. We do business as usual just as you said. Nothing has changed from a missilier’s stand point.

Helicopter pilot: Col. Stockard, sorry to interrupt. The launch facility is at 12 o’clock, approximately three and a half miles.

Missile Silo Below

Narration: That facility is hidden in the wheat-fields of Wyoming. And when you go down under and find yourself face to face with "the Peacekeeper." The biggest and deadliest of America’s ICBMs, it seems more like an exhibit in a Cold War museum than a weapon of mass destruction poised on hair trigger alert. But when you go behind these doors and meet the launch officers responsible for those missiles, they force you to confront the reality of what a Peacekeeper can do.

Captain Bob Highley: Well, what we could do is possibly end civilization as we know it. And that’s not something we all want to do. And being rational professionals, we do everything in our power to prevent that.

Nuclear Explosion

Narration: You understand what he is talking about when you consider the power of the weapon he and his fellow missiles are prepared to launch. Just one thermonuclear warhead, the kind America uses to arm it’s ICBMs, carries more destructive power than 20 of the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima.

Highley: It’s fairly quiet on alert so you have a lot of time for reflection. So we’ll sit there and we might talk about sports, we might talk about a movie we just saw but there’s something inside of us that just tells us that we need to look at why we are here.

Narration: You begin to understand their burden when you discover that the missile they are set to launch within minutes carries not one, but ten warheads. And it’s not just one peacekeeper they control from these facilities, but ten. The bottom line equation for them is, 10 missiles, 100 warheads. The possibility that one man could trigger the end of civilization, as we know it.

Dan: Do you ever find yourself saying this is crazy?

Habiger: Well no, not that it’s crazy, it’s just that we need to move on and get down to lower levels in such a way that we feel comfortable with, and doesn’t compromise our national security, our way of life. Again a bizarre twist of history, Dan, where we won the war, that we’re still paying a price for that war today.

Narration: That price tag comes out to $25 billion dollars a year, simply to maintain America's nuclear war making system...fleets of nuclear submarines; networks of satellites and radar tracking stations; thousands of ICBMs...all manned round the clock and on combat alert.

Dan: Now, all of these rituals, all of these commands, all of this equipment is still in place as it was at the end of the Cold War?
Habiger: Yes. Unfortunately, yes.

Missile Competition Outside

Narration: If there’s one event that underscores how little things have changed, it’s this celebration that brings together rival teams of missiliers, each with its own mascots, from bases across the country. It’s sobering to realize that what’s being recognized here, with the awards that are given out, are the skills that go into launching a nuclear war.

Missile Comp Inside, National Anthem

General Estes: Ladies and Gentleman, is this a great evening or what? Are you pumped?

Narration: For them this night is a kind of top gun, academy awards ceremony to recognize the best of the best.

General Estes: The best missile crew is....

Narration: And if it looks like they were celebrating a victory, it’s because everyone here feels they contributed to the Cold War victory. But they all know their old mission hasn’t changed - that America’s nuclear forces are still on alert because...Russia is still on alert with equal force.

Habiger: The only thing that remains out there that can destroy the United States as we know it today are those nuclear weapons in Russia.

Topol missile truck coming out of woods

Narration: Half way round the world, 30 minutes as a missile flies, when you gain access to Russia’s closed and secret nuclear world as our reporter George Crile did, you quickly discover what General Habiger is talking about. Russia may be bankrupt but this is a brand new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile - the Topol M - and it’s moving here through the woods of Russia on full combat alert - ready to stop, tilt its rockets to the sky and launch within minutes of receiving an order.

Topol Launches missile

Habiger: It’s formidable.

Dan: Can they hit anything with this missile, this huge thing, launched off the back of this truck?

Habiger: Yes, very accurately.

Dan: If they chose to, they could hit one of our cities with these things?

Habiger: Once they put the target coordinates in there, yes sir, they could.

Crile: That’s Detroit, Philadelphia, New York in 30 Minutes!

Missilier General: No. Faster.

Narration: And so these frightening rituals play on with eerie similarity in both countries. Two Russian missiliers here, practicing the rapid launch of ten ICBMs with 100 warheads - just like their American counterparts. Even down to the final, simultaneous turn of the launch keys.

Dan: If the President, God forbid, had to give the order, we must fire, are we talking about seconds, minutes, or hours before such a missile could actually and would actually be fired?

Habiger: You’re talking about minutes.

Dan: On both sides, in your opinion?

Habiger: Yes Yes.

Dan: The Russians could get theirs launched within minutes?

Habiger: Yes, sir.

Narration: But this is something most people assumed that we didn’t have to worry about anymore.

Clinton Montage: For the first time since the end of the cold war, your children are no longer threatened by the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Narration: When the President told the American people over and over again in the last Presidential campaign, that the nuclear nightmare was over, it’s because he had just signed an agreement with Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin to stop targeting missiles at each other. What he didn’t say... is that there was no way to verify that agreement ...and that many of the missiles can go right back on their cold war targets within a minute.

Dan Stand-Up: The entire treaty was based solely on trust. And in the second year of General Habiger’s command, that trust was shattered. In January 1998 an enraged Boris Yeltsin publicly warned the United States that it was risking World War III, if it followed through with its threat to bomb Russia’s old ally, Saddam Hussein. For General Habiger, this was a moment when something dramatic had to be done quickly to try to reduce the levels of nuclear weapons on both sides.

Narration: And that’s when he reached out to the one ally he though might make a difference. It was none other than his former enemy Russia’s nuclear commander, General Vladimir Yakovlev, who was equally unhappy about having to operate such a huge arsenal.

General Yakovlev: I think it’s way too much. It’s enough to destroy the civilization a number of times.

Narration: When we come back...the strange, high stakes, diplomacy of the two most powerful nuclear commanders in the world.

End of Part I.

The Missiliers...Part II/ Dan Rather

Studio Open: What do you do if you’re a four star general in charge of all nuclear weapons, and you feel you have too many of them? What if your counterpart in Russia feels the same way? And what if you are both fed up with politicians who are in a standoff. In the case of General Eugene Habiger, the solution was unprecedented and urgent. He decided to bypass the diplomats, to launch his own direct secret diplomacy, and to do it by engaging his old enemy, his Russian counterpart, General Vladimir Yakovlev.

Narration: Three a.m., March 15th 1998, Omaha, Nebraska. A mysterious flight arriving at America’s nuclear command center. It’s been a month since Boris Yeltsin threatened World War III if President Clinton bombed Iraq. And this is the moment General Habiger has chosen to begin his secretive diplomacy—missilier style.

Habiger: Very few individuals can go into this area.

Narration: The first stop for his guest of honor, Russia’s nuclear commander, General Yakovlev, is America’s nuclear war room.

War Room and Habiger lets Yakovlev sit in his chair:

Habiger: Welcome to my command center.... I’m going to put you in my chair.

Narration: It looks and sounds almost ordinary...but the scene is quite extraordinary.

Habiger: And I give you the same warning, please do not touch anything.
Yakovlev: Ha, ha, ha.

Narration: Russia’s nuclear commander...in the chair...and in the room built to give one man, America’s nuclear commander....the ability to blow up all of Russia! And that was only the beginning of the tour which included a visit to the place called *The Air Room* where the targets in Russia are picked.

Missilier: The first step of the selection process is...

Dan: Now, what kind of restrictions did you have on what you could talk to the Russians, when you were walking around these facilities?

Habiger: Absolutely none.

Dan: None?

Habiger: None

Dan: Surely somebody above you said, Listen, be careful General, don’t tell 'em too much.

Habiger: Not at all. I had carte blanc.

Dan: I find that not incredible. But I’m surprised. Were you surprised you were able to do that?

Habiger: No. I felt like....there are nine commanders in chief in the United States military structure, we’re big boys. If we can’t figure out what we can say, and what we can’t say, maybe we have no business being in that job.

Narration: But WHY show the Russian everything? One reason was to gain his trust...the other, to remind him that when you pull open the curtain, America’s entire Cold War fighting machine is still very much intact.

And it includes this plane, which the Russian was shown. It may look innocuous... until you realize that it is the one weapon system in the US arsenal, on daily alert, to be used... only after the unthinkable happens. The plane, known as TACAMO...is an elaborate flying command post, built to direct the final battle, even if America has been decimated by nuclear war.

Missilier 1: TACAMO stands for take charge and move out, an acronym they came up with probably back in the 70s which means we step up to the plate and go forward.

Missilier 2: Right out of high school, 18 years old, you know the first question right before I started my job is do you have a problem launching a nuclear loaded aircraft that could cause the destruction of the world and I said, *No sir.*

Crile: your mission basically has to do with Armageddon, it has to do with the possibility of an apocalyptic exchange of nuclear weapons.

Missilier 3: If we’re doing our job, the…you know…things have obviously deteriorated to a pretty extreme case.

Missilier 4: Check and set, 3011 Pilot...

Narration: The eerie part of this is that the crew of TACAMO prepares for the final battle every single day...as if it might happen at any moment.

Narration: For the next five days, General Habiger led General Yakovlev on a sweep across the country: from the missile fields of Nebraska and Wyoming to the ballistic submarine base in Washington State - even to Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. This Russian general was now entering into the nerve center of America’s nuclear empire - built deep under this mountain, the NORAD Early Warning Command.

General Estes: What we’re approaching is a large building built in the cavity of this mountain in the early 60s.

Narration: The objective behind this strange and elaborate tour...this show of American force...was to send a message, through Yakovlev, to the Russian legislature...that it is in their best interest to reduce the levels of nuclear weapons...by ratifying the latest treaty.

Habiger: One of my greatest frustrations when I was commander in chief of Strategic Command was the fact that the START 2 treaty which would get us down to the 3,000 to 3,500 level was signed by President Bush and Yeltsin in 1993... and here we are today and the Russian Duma has yet to ratify the treaty.

Dan: And therefore we haven’t gone below the 6,000 level?
Habiger: That’s absolutely correct.

Yakovlev approaching Peacekeeper

Narration: And included in that treaty...would be the elimination of America’s most lethal weapon: the Peacekeeper. Remember...each Peacekeeper has ten warheads, each warhead 20 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Yakovlev: I think only missiliers understand the dangers which such powerful weapons present for both countries.

Dan: Correct me if I’m wrong. One of Yakovlev’s points was that people who command missiles... are ahead of the politicians in understanding the importance of building down the numbers of nuclear weapons.
Habiger: Yakovlev understands that better than I think virtually all the politicians in

Narration: By the end of the tour...the mission seemed to be accomplished.

SOT: Take it General...wiggle!

Narration: At this farewell celebration, the Russian commander declared that he now would be able to make a case for the missile reduction treaty to be passed.

Yakovlev hugs Habiger

Habiger’s plane arrives in Moscow

Narration: Two months later, we followed along as the Russian commander gave Habiger a look at Russia’s nuclear empire. A tour that started in distinct Russian style with vodka toasts. Across the vast expanse of Russia, General Habiger saw the weapons built with America in mind: a Typhoon ballistic submarine able to take out a continent in less than an hour. This train, with its hidden missiles, capable of launching 30 warheads on the move. A massive nuclear warhead storage facility, and here, on the edge of Moscow...General Yakovlov’s secret underground war room.

Dan: Now, as part of what they showed you, they put on a launch drill of a Topol regiment for you, did they not?
Habiger: Yes

Pixs of Topols coming out of garages.

Dan: The heart of that mobile system?
Habiger: Yes, to see those doors of those garages open up, and to see those missiles come out, I’ll tell you, Dan, that ran chills up and down my back.

Narration: But nothing could get in the way of the missiliers mission of peace.

Egg Eating Sequence

Habiger: What we have here is a ritual that will separate the wimps from the warriors.

Narration: At the end of the tour Habiger challenged the Russians to engage in an old Bomber pilot ritual -- as if they were all members of the same fraternity. The ingredients? A raw egg and a bottle of Jeremiah Weed Bourbon.

Narration: The real stakes were so high in this exercise that Habiger had brought along his heir apparent, Admiral Richard Mies, to participate in this bonding experience with the Russians.

Habiger: It’s confidence building and how do you build confidence? You build friendship. when you build confidence good things happen.

Narration: That good thing was supposed to be the passage of the START 2 arms reduction treaty and everyone here was certain it would pass.... But it never happened.

Pix of US bombing Iraq (December 1998)

Narration: A year ago, Dec 16 - the United States bombed Iraq. The attacks came just three days before the Russian Parliament was scheduled to vote and, by all accounts, to pass the Start 2 treaty. But because of that bombing the treaty was shelved. And in the months that followed, US- Russian relations went from bad to worse as NATO with Washington at the lead, expanded by adding three 3 former Eastern European countries to its ranks.

Dan: Did you talk about the expansion of NATO and what that meant to the Russians and how they felt about that?

Habiger: Oh yes.... The Russians continue to shake their heads. And they would ask me, ‘Now let me get this right, NATO is a Cold War organization? The Cold War’s over, why in the world do you still have NATO?’ And I’ll tell you Dan, I didn’t have a very good answer for ‘em.

Dan: Well, you’re retired now, what’s your opinion of that?

Habiger:... I’ve done a lot of thinking about this, Dan, we’re doing a heck of a lot of harm to the Russians—or with the Russians—by continuing to poke this NATO stick in their eye.

Narration: The Start 2 treaty came up for another vote in the Russian Parliament on March 16, last year. And by all accounts, it was once again thought certain to pass - a vote that would have led to a 50% reduction in nuclear weapons. But yet again, it didn’t happen.

Pixs of US bombs on Kosovo (March 1999)

Habiger: ....the night before they were to vote, we began bombing Kosovo. And that just blew the entire effort.

Dan: Now ...do you believe, if the bombing at Kosovo had not started at that particular time, that you’d now have a ratified treaty in place?
Habiger: In my opinion, the probability would be very high.

Narration: After the bombing in Kosovo began, the Russians missilers were ordered to break all contact with their American friends.

Habiger: It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that when you shut off that kind of a relationship you’re going down a path that’s not pleasant.

Dan: Are you worried?

Habiger: I am indeed.

Narration: Shortly after the war in Kosovo began, General Yakovlev deployed 10 new Topol missiles and mounted the largest nuclear exercise since the end of the cold war.

Habiger: ... We have reached the point where the senior military generals responsible for nuclear forces are advocating, more vocally, more vehemently, than our politicians, to get down to lower and lower weapons. Think about that.

Dan: I have thought about that. And the irony is extreme.

Habiger: It’s a dilemma. I know of no other situation in the history of our country where we face this kind of dilemma.

Studio Out: That dilemma may well get worse. At a time when trust has disappeared, the missiles on both sides continue to operate on full combat alert. There is, however, one ray of hope to report tonight. It comes in the form of a letter that arrived just last week at America’s nuclear command — from the Commander in Chief of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, General Vladimir Yakovlev — suggesting that, perhaps, it was time for the missiliers to get together again.

End of Part II