A Chilly Future

From grand cold war strategy right down to the latest styles in helicopters, the U.S. had rarely if ever been given so competent and confident an exposition of its defense policies. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, appearing last week before the House Armed Services Committee, read almost all of a 198-page statement and answered Congressmen's questions in a style that often made them feel, quite helplessly, as though they were interrogating a computer. Congressmen certainly knew that they were in the presence of a man who had done his homework. Whether or not his answers prove to be the right ones, they were delivered with remarkable candor.

First and foremost, McNamara not only foresaw the day when the U.S. might be devastated by nuclear attack--but he appeared to be coldly basing U.S. defense policy, and the expenditure of billions of dollars, on that unhappy possibility.

The Force That Counts. Today, said McNamara, "the size, variety and power of our strategic retaliatory forces still greatly exceed those of the Soviets. Allowing for losses from an initial enemy attack and attrition en route to target, we calculate that our forces today could still destroy the Soviet Union." This is the well-known "second strike force," and since the U.S. does not intend to strike first, it is the only force that counts.

But it is also true, said McNamara, that "Soviet resources, industry and technology have given that country the potential to challenge the primacy of U.S. military power." The Russians are now pursuing that aim, he reported, mainly by making their nuclear striking forces harder for the U.S. to knock out. They are developing missiles that can be launched from underground silos (like the U.S. Minuteman) and missile-launching submarines (like the U.S. Polaris). Thus the U.S.S.R. is also developing a second strike force.

When that happens, said McNamara. "even if we were to double and triple our forces, we would not be able to destroy quickly all or almost all of the hardened ICBM sites. And even if we could do that, we know no way to destroy the enemy's missile-launching submarines at the same time." Thus, even though the U.S. remained superior in nuclear firepower, its superiority would not "preclude major damage to the U.S."

Limiting the Consequences. McNamara has a curious theory that the U.S. and Russia, even if they come to thermonuclear blows, might limit their strikes to strategic military installations and avoid 'blasts against major population centers: "It would certainly be in their interest as well as ours to try to limit the terrible consequences of a nuclear exchange."

What the cold war is heading toward, McNamara continued, is "an era when it will become increasingly improbable that either side could destroy a sufficiently large portion of the other's strategic nuclear force, either by surprise or otherwise, to preclude a devastating retaliatory blow. This may result in mutual deterrence, but it is still a grim prospect. As the arms race continues, the possibility of a global catastrophe, either by miscalculation or design, becomes ever more real. But until we can find a safe and sure road to disarmament, we must continue to build our own defenses."

McNamara laid out a five-year missile program that will give the U.S. by 1968 at least 950 solid-fueled, quick-firing Minutemen, 41 Polaris submarines carrying 656 missiles, 108 Titan ICBMs. This accent on missiles, McNamara insisted, "does not mean that we do not want manned bombers." He added: "We plan to continue a mixed force of missiles and manned bombers throughout the entire planning period--1964-68. Although most of the aiming points in the Soviet target system can be best attacked by missiles, the long-range bombers will still be useful in follow-up attack, particularly on certain hardened targets." The Strategic Air Command will retain its 14 wings of B-52 bombers and its two wings of B-58s. The older B-47s will be phased out.

Poor Skybolt. But McNamara shed no tears over his cancellation of the air-launched Skybolt missile, upon which the Air Force had counted to extend the nuclear firepower--and possibly the life-- of its B-52s, and upon which Britain had depended for its only long-range nuclear deterrent. Said he, with the precision of a Ford executive dismissing an unwanted model: "Skybolt would combine the disadvantages of the bomber with those of the missile. It would have the bomber's disadvantages of being soft and concentrated and relatively vulnerable on the ground and the bomber's slow time to target. It would have had the lowest accuracy, reliability and yield of any of our strategic missiles." Its job, he said, can better be done by Minuteman.

Skybolt's disappearance infuriated the British, and at a time when the Western alliance is in enough disarray (see cover story). McNamara was careful about one subject much in De Gaulle's mind: "We have no desire to dominate NATO. In fact, we would be very happy to share more equitably the heavy burdens we now carry in the collective defense of the free world. If our European NATO partners wish to create a European strategic nuclear force, we certainly should have no objections."

But McNamara warned that any retaliatory nuclear strike would be fatal to all members of NATO if it were not care fully coordinated. Accordingly, the U.S. has insisted upon "a single, integrated strategic nuclear force responsive to a single chain of command, to be employed in a fully integrated manner against what is truly an indivisible target system." British willingness to accept U.S. help in acquiring a Polaris force, tied to NATO, is a step in this direction, said McNamara.

Air Cavalry. As nuclear power grows and deterrents work both ways, McNamara expects the Communist bloc to turn increasingly to small-scale conventional attacks, guerrilla warfare and covert operations. To meet such threats, he said he will order an extra 15,000 G.I.s to active duty to mass-test air-assault divisions and air-cavalry combat brigades.

Each air-assault division would have some 460 large helicopters and aircraft, with rockets mounted on the planes. They could leap over natural barriers, strike behind enemy lines. The air-cavalry brigades would use helicopters equipped with antitank rockets, could quickly strike the flanks and rear of an enemy tank assault. In all, the Army would get 1,600 new aircraft in the 1964 budget.

But all of the U.S. preparations to counter Communist aggression abroad would matter little if the U.S. could not defend itself at home. McNamara asked for research funds to speed up development of an anti-missile system--the Nike-X, which uses improved radar and a faster missile than the currently tested Nike-Zeus. He asked to spend $300 million for civil defense--more than half of it to give private builders up to $25 for each shelter space they provide in new or existing public buildings. This would save far more lives, he said, than any defensive missile system and "should be given priority over any major additions to the active defenses" of the U.S.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.