Atomic Guarantee

Britain gave notice last week that it is, and intends to remain, one of the Big Three atomic powers. In a White Paper presented to the House of Commons, Defense Minister Lord Alexander announced that British-made atomic weapons, including atomic bombs, are being delivered to the British forces, and that the Royal Air Force is building a fleet of strategic bombers, "capable of using the atomic weapon to the fullest extent."

Alexander's statement, greeted with loud hurrahs in the London press, gave practical effect in Britain to the same "New Look" defense philosophy which atomic air power -- and the need for long-range economy -- have produced in the U.S. Britain's $4.6 billion defense budget for 1954-55 will 1) thin out British army garrisons abroad, 2) invest most heavily in guided missiles, jet bombers and swept-wing fighters. Old Soldier Alexander was hopeful that the West's defense buildup would prove a "strong deterrent to aggression." But -- and the but reverberated in Westminster -- "if by some miscalculation in Communist policy, or by deliberate design, a global war were forced upon us," Britain will not hesitate to hit back with atom bombs.

There Is No Defense. Such plain speak ing in Britain is most unfashionable. It represents a considerable victory, won in disregard of popular British opinion, for a group of professional strategists led by a famed airman: Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Cotesworth Slessor.

Like most strategic airmen, Sir John is convinced that atomic air power is not a tragedy but a boon, for willingness and capacity to use it will make its use un necessary. He believes that "the super sonic airplane, allied to the atomic and soon the hydrogen bomb . . . has made total war an obsolete conception." There is no real defense against atomic air power ("I advise you not to be unduly impressed by the stories about the wonderful guided missile that is going to shoot down all these supersonic bombers").

Cockpit & Goggles. Slessor's convic tions hardened, as he did, in the school of experience. The son of a British major in the Indian army, he grew up with a cruel impediment: a "gammy leg" that kept him off the rugger field, gave him a lifelong limp. Nerve alone won his commission in the Royal Flying Corps, but once in the air, Slessor proved a topflight pilot. In the Sudan in 1916, he swooped down on a dervish cavalry outfit, routed it with Lewis gunfire and bombs, and "by this unexpected method of assault," wrote the official R.A.F. historian, "destroyed the enemy morale."

At 56, Jack Slessor still misses his World War I biplane. "Flying isn't nearly as much fun as it was when you had an open cockpit and goggles." As chief of a bomber group in World War II, he was often compelled to decide how many airmen's lives it was worth to destroy an enemy target. "He would sit down on one of the kitchen chairs in the operations room," wrote one of those who watched. "For anything up to ten minutes, he would quite literally do nothing at all. He simply sat there and thought. Everyone instinctively fell silent. Then, very quietly, he told the duty officer what to do. . ."

Man with a New Look. As the R.A.F.'s top air-power philosopher, Slessor showed greatest talent by his ability to weld experience and theory. In 1936 he wrote the pioneer text (Air Power and Armies) on strategic air bombardment ; in World War II he used it. He also reasoned that land-based aircraft, because of their longer range, would be more effective than carrier planes as submarine killers. As chief of Britain's Coastal Command, Slessor amply proved his point: of the 280 German U-boats sunk by British aircraft, land-based planes sank 259.

Most formidable of Slessor's "notions" was his postwar proposition that the Atlantic alliance could only maintain world peace through "massive deterrent air power." This is how it began. In 1952 Winston Churchill summoned Slessor and the other British chiefs of staff to No. 10 Downing Street and advised them that British finances could not stand an indefinite policy of piling up guns and tanks.

There must be a cheaper way, said the Prime Minister: your job is to find it.

Slessor and his colleagues sat in seclusion for several weeks, and without bene fit of advisers, produced the first blue print of what is now called the New Look strategy. Churchill was delighted: Slessor was sent to Washington to sell the new idea to the Americans. He found that U.S. airmen had already reached the same conclusion. But the Pentagon's soldiers and sailors were still too firmly wedded to the theory of "balanced forces." They gruffly turned Slessor down. Only when air-minded Admiral Arthur Radford became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did the U.S. adopt the New Look.

Air Control. In U.S. and British stra tegic atomic-bomber fleets, Slessor sees the world's best hope of keeping the cold war cold. The question is how -- and as usual, Slessor has a notion. He calls it Air Control.

Air Control began in the '203, when Slessor and the R.A.F.'s Air Marshal Sir Arthur ("Bomber") Harris used it to subdue rebellious Arab tribes in Mesopotamia. The rebels got fair warning: cease raiding and lay down your arms, or your villages will be destroyed. Those who took no notice were bombed.

Ruthless as it was, Air Control was effective (and probably saved lives), at least in Mesopotamia. Now Slessor wants to use it against aggressive Communists. The Berlin Conference, he argues, proves that "there is not the smallest chance of agreement by the normal civilized methods . . . with the Communists." Last week, in a major BBC broadcast which presumably had the blessing, if not the backing, of the British government, Slessor offered this alternative:

The U.S. and Britain should give Moscow a solemn warning: "That in the event of aggression [against any of the NATO powers, including Germany], the aggressor will be subjected to the full weight of Anglo-American air power, using the atom, and in due course, the hydrogen bomb." The West should also inform Rus sia that West German forces are ready in two or three years . . . British and U.S. troop will be withdrawn "from the Continent, and the French forces back into France." Western troops would remain in Berlin "as a token force," but the protection of West Germany would be left to Germans "under the new guarantee."

"I do not envisage the bomber fleets taking off at the drop of a hat to slaughter millions of defenseless people," said Slessor. "In a situation like, say, the Czech crisis of 1938, the first step would be a clear warning in secret that any attempt at a solution by force would bring the guarantee into operation. If that did not work . . . the people concerned should be told clearly--by radio and pamphlets dropped from the air--what will happen if their government uses force, and warned to evacuate a specified list of cities . . . At the same time, we should move the bomber forces to war stations, and publish the fact that we were doing so.

"There are grave risks about this," the Marshal of the R.A.F. concluded. "But terrible perils are implicit in the situation I am discussing."

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