Needed: Airfields

U.S. high brass fanned out over Western Europe. Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins last week wound up a tour that took him to Paris, Frankfurt, Salzburg and Trieste. General Omar Bradley stopped in Paris to talk over lagging weapons production, went on to London where he tried, but failed, to settle the question of whether a British or U.S. admiral was to command in the Mediterranean. Only the Navy's Admiral Forrest Sherman was still at home and he, too, was getting ready for the grand tour.

The most important mission fell to General Hoyt Vandenberg, boss of the U.S. Air Force: finding enough air bases in Europe for NATO's air needs. At present, the U.S.'s major continental air bases are in Germany, only a few minutes' jet flying time from Communist Czechoslovakia. In case of war, the Red air force could strike damaging blows at these fields before the U.S. fighters could get into the air. Urgently needed: 100 airfields in Western Europe, most of them in France, farther away from the Red border. The French have promised to cooperate in building the fields. But so far they have provided NATO with only one; even that is not yet in operation.

The fields will take a sizable area of arable soil, and French politicians, their eyes on the farm vote, are reluctant to do anything about getting the necessary land. The first U.S. air reinforcements, the 116th Fighter Bomber Wing, due to land in France by July, will probably find no bases available there, may have to go to Britain instead where construction of new fields, able to handle jets, is well under way.

Meanwhile, Moscow was underlining the urgency of Hoyt Vandenberg's air-defense mission in Paris. The Russians were reported to have moved 500 MIG-15 jets and jet bombers into East Germany to replace their old, propeller-driven planes.

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