New Big Gun

On Nov. 6, 1937, Army Fullback Jack Ryan finally got into the Harvard game with the Crimson holding a 6-0 lead. In quick succession, he 1) tackled a Harvard runner so hard that the fellow fumbled and Ryan recovered, 2) bucked over a score on an Army fourth down, and 3) kicked the point after touchdown that won the game for Army, 7-6.

That glorious occasion is what is mostly remembered about John Dale Ryan, now 48 and a four-star Air Force general who still moves with the catlike grace of a 5-ft. 10-in., 175-pound fullback. Last week President Johnson named Ryan to succeed, effective this week, General Thomas Power as head of the world's most powerful military organization--the U.S. Strategic Air Command.

Ryan lacks the bulldozer force of SAC Predecessor Curtis LeMay, soon to retire as Air Force Chief of Staff, and he does not pretend to Power's burning brilliance. But he was a favorite of both LeMay and Power, and he knows SAC as perhaps no other man.

A World War II bomber pilot. Ryan flew 58 combat missions in Europe, on the final one lost his left index finger to flak; in SAC circles he is fondly, but not to his face, known as "Three-Finger Jack." In 1946 he helped plan U.S. atomic tests at Bikini atoll, then joined SAC, which was just being formed. With the exception of a year's tour as Air Force inspector general, he has been a SAC man ever since, most recently serving as Power's deputy commander. He knows all the tools of his trade, is an expert bombardier as well as pilot, knows his way around the inside of a jet engine and the innards of a missile.

Ryan takes command at a time of SAC transition, with 100 Atlas and 54 Titan I missiles being phased out, along with 400 B-47s, six airfields and 14 missile sites. But he will still have plenty left: 600 B-52s, 80 B-58s, 600 KC-135 jet tanker planes, 200 KC-97s, 54 Titan II missiles and 650 Minutemen (he will eventually have 1,000 Minutemen), all comprising 90% of the free world's explosive power.

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