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MEDFORD (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUNE FIVB ctflssedl Dim dsddti p5(g Sunday, February 9, 19-58 Budget Emphasis On Revolutionary New Weapons (Editor's note: This is the second in a series of eight articles discussing this year's Great Decisions top ics. This week's subject deals with security in the rocket age and the propos ed budget for next fiscal year). The administration's pro posed defense budget of 39 billion dollars for the next fiscal year is the highest ever requested In peacetime. Yet a sputnik- conscious Congress and public have raised a na tional debate whether or not the budget will be adequate. The emphasis in the new budget will be on revolution ary new weapons. More mon ey will be spent on research and development. At the same time, military manpower and conventional armaments will get less money. Budget Message The President's budget mes sage describes the "areas which should now receive greater emphasis." These in clude "ballistic missiles, bal listic missile submarines, bal listic missile detection and de fense, the further dispersal of the retaliatory forces (such as the Strategic Air Com mand) and the improvement of their alert status, modern ization of the early warning system, outer space projects and basic research." The budget message also ar gues that "rapid progress in military technology has dim inished the importance of cer tain other areas of the mili tary program." There will be "lessened efforts" to maintain conventional hardware. The Air Force will get the largest share of the new bud get $18,736,000,000. This is 2 per cent more than last year (1957-58). A major part of this sum will be spent for weapons not yet in produc tion. One billion dollars, for example, will be spent on the B58, a supersonic bomber that is not expected to be opera tional for another year. Ballistic Missiles The Air Force will also in vest heavily in its ballistic missiles, Titan and Atlas, which will not be ready this fiscal year. The B52 present work horse of the Strategic Air Command will, meanwhile, go out of production as soon as cur rent contracts are filled. At the same time the Air Force will cut its operating strength from 130 to 105 wings by June 1959 and will lose 1,200 of its 22,000 air planes and 40,000 of its 890, 000 officers and men. Present Hardware Some experts outside the administration question whe ther present military hard ware should be allowed to lapse before the "new" wea pons become operational. The Navy's budget is to be increased by 2V4 per cent to $10,913,000,000. This is ex pected to buy 11 guided mis sile destroyers and frigates, the first nuclear-powered guided missile frigate, a big ger nuclear-powered submar ine fleet and other "new" weapons. But the Navy will decrease the number of commissioned ships in service. Rapid progress in the de velopment of the Navy's sol id fuel, 1,500-mile Polaris missile may produce a Navy request for nine new submar ines capable of launching this missile either surfaced or submerged. This would give the Navy what Rear Adm. Hyman G. Rickover likens to "the ideal mobile platform. It could go anywhere at any time. It could remain well hidden from the enemy. It would draw the enemy's mis siles and bombs away from our cities and factories and farms . . . Over-All Cut The Army is the one ser vice to take an over all cut In its budget down a quar ter of a billion $8,800,000,000. The Army will lose another division (leaving 14 by the end of the fiscal year). Mis siles will get 40 per cent of this service's procurment money. Foreign Policy Association, Inc. ROCKET AGE This week's Great De cisions topic concerns security in the rocket age, and President Eisenhower's $93 billion budget for the new fiscal year. The question of whether the budget is adequate for de fense purposes in an age of missiles is discussed. Nothing in the new bud get, is being done about im proving the Army's "airlift mobility." As long ago as 1956 Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, director of plans for military operations, warned that "in order to lift one 5,000 ton division, practically the whole available Air Force transport capacity would be utilized." One contract for new Douglas transport planes (CI 32) was killed. The new defense budget, its supporters claim, will build in the next few years the kind of massive nuclear defense force we need at a price the nation's economy can afford. Some critics, worried about the downgrading of conven tional weapons, are not so sure. We may, they warn, he putting all our eggs in a nu clear basket, leaving our selves helpless for anything but all-out nuclear war. Adequate Defense Adequate defense, in the opinion of some critics of pres ent policies, means an ade quate military, force to handle any kind of war which the United States may be called on to fight. The budget currently be fore Congress favors a de fense establishment capable of massive nuclear retailia tion. The current arsenal of conventional ground forces will receive less emphasis. Yet, some observers point out, all the battles fought since the end of World War II Greece. Korea, Indo China, Suez, Algeria have been fought with convention al, not nuclear weapons. Rockerfeller Report The Rockefeller Brothers Fund report on national se curity, released Jan. 5, warn ed "it would be dangerous to rely too heavily' on the prin cipal deterrent . . . Though all-out war is our greatest danger, it does not represent the most likely threat." The report calls for a flex ible military establishment capable of "discrimination and varsatility . . . modern sea lift and an airlift capa city we do not now possess . . . Limited wars may re quire . . . nuclear weapons (and) they may involve con ventional forces . . . We do not now possess the neces sary versatility." Nor, in the opinion of some critics, will the proposed new budget provide that versa tility. Not Manned, Equipped Secretary of the Army Wil- ber M. Brucker, testifying before a House committee on Jan. 21, complained, " we can't do the job we are com mitted to." The United States, he testified, is neither man ned nor equipped to fight a limited war. Russia, meanwhile, appears to be building both its con ventional and its nuclear forces. "There is no good evi dence," observes Hanson W. Baldwin, military expert of The New York Times, "that there has been any decrease in the numerical strength of the Soviet armed forces in recent years; in fact Moscow maintains more divisions in Eastern Europe today than two years' ago." A versatile defense estab lishment, equipped to fight limited wars with convention al weapons as well as mas sive nuclear wars, would cost more than the proposed bud get, all experts agree. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund re port calls for three billion to be added to the defense budget each year for the next several years. Business Recession In the midst of a business recession some observers feel the nation cannot afford this kind of outlay. Others say that higher defense spending will in fact stimulate the economy At present the national pro duct increases by about 15 billion dollars a year, enough to absorb the higher expendi tures without substantial tax increases, they argue. The Rockefeller study comments, "we can afford to survive." The debate has not yet end ed. But the American public and its representatives in Congress will have to make a decision soon. It may well be the most critical decision of the cold war. Matter of Fact By Joseph Alsop 1 - a -war. 1 DIALOGUE AT TEMPELHOF Berlin The scene is the rather bleak restaurant at Tempelhof, the great airport If that was like a ft a - n ( hi"it 5? g A cab ai L i jr ? nourishing all Berlin through out the Soviet blockade of this city. The time is shortly after the bitter for eign policy de- Jnsonh Alson DSie in me German Parliament. Supping at one of the res taurant tables is the man who most passionately denounced Chancellor Adenauer in the Bonn debate Gustav Heine mann, once a member of the Adenauer Cabinet and now a neutralist Socialist. In his pale face, good intentions damply, unmistakably shine from the pale, prominent blue eyes. Heineman's questioner, who , perhaps lacks the same outer guarantee of virtue, is your correspondent. In the result ing dialogue, the most signifi cant passage runs approxi mately as follows: QUESTIONER: No doubt you have noticed, Herr Heinemann, that the Soviets keep saying they only want to negogiate "on the basis of the status quo." Obviously, the status means some kind of Communist rule in East Ger many, and it is even hard to see how the status quo can be consecrated without the abandonment of West Berlin. Would you advise the Western allies to consider such condi tions? HEINEMANN (with horror): Of course not. QUESTIONER: What do you think the Western allies should do, Herr Heinemann, if the Soviets again blockade Berlin? - HEINEMANN: Start another airlift, of course. QUESTIONER: But the new radar jamming devices will certainly prevent all-weather landings here at Templehof so an airlift will not work again. What then? HEINEMANN (after a long pause): Then you should re lieve Berlin with an armored column. yuiiSiiOJMER: That was the idea of Gen. Clay. But you yourself, Herr Heinemann, are an ardent advocate of the so-called Rapacki Plan, which would have the effect of de priving the Western forces of tactical nuclear weapons while leaving such weapons in the hands of the Soviets. How can we send an armored column in these conditions? HEINEMANN (indignantly): I have always said the Ra packi Plan must be controlled. I would not have one side give up atomic weapons unless the other side also gives them up. QUESTIONER: Well, Herr Heinemann, we have had some experience in Korea with "controls" applied to Communist armies. No control of the Rapacki Plan could pos sibly be relied on, unless Western control teams had the right to open every truck and railroad car entering Poland and East Germany. Do you think the Soviets would ac cept that kind of control? HEINEMANN (after another long pause): No. I do not think the Soviets would ac cept. QUESTIONER: Most assur edly the President of the United States could not accept any weaker form of control after the Korean experience. Otherwise he would have to assume that the other side possessed nuclear arms while our own forces did not; and he would therefore be morally bound to withdraw the Amer ican divisions from Germany. Do you favor such a unilateral American withdrawal, leaving the Soviets of course in the East Zone. HEINEMANN: Certainly not : QUESTIONER: Am I mis taken then, Herr Heinemann, in supposing that you favor the Rapacki Plan? HEINEMANN: I have only said I favor it as a basis for negotiation. Maybe it is not a good plan. Maybe as a plan it is worthless. But I think we should take it as a starting point for talks. QUESTIONER: But in pub- Ejst Main St. JL DAIRY-SMITH at Genessee Adolescence is that period when a boy refuses to believe he will some day be as dumb as his father. O TREE TOPPING O TRIMMING jL- O REMOVING Now is the time to have these shade trees trimmed or topped for easy spraying ... or removed if dangerous. Are your trees breaking your sidewalks or curbs? Call us to obtain permits for removing them. FREE ESTIMATES CALL SP 2-8052 Work guaranteed satisfactory prices right! RAY CHAMBERLIN TREE SERVICE (Formerly Ore.-Cal. Tree Service) LICENSED AND INSURED licly welcoming the Rapacki Plan and urging negotiations on this basis, without ever once hinting that the plan is worthless, are you not gravely deceiving your own people by raising all sorts of false hopes? HEINEMANN (with tri umphant accusation): Now you are speaking the lan guage of the cold war. I be lieve in ending the cold war.- THROUGHOUT this curious dialogue, it should be add ed, Heinemann quite visibly wriggled witji discomfort every time he was asked to consider any of the hard facts of Germany's tragic situation. The point about the Heine manns of the world, in truth, is that they actively detest hard facts and positively love false hopes. They even regard not cherishing false hopes as a symptom of bad character. But if you study the fore going dialogue, with all its evidence of false hopes, you will also find in it reasons for real hope. On the one hand, even such a German leader as Gustav Heinemann retains a kind of vestigial sense of' political reality. He has not reached the ultimately wish ful stage of favoring unilater al disarmament, for instance. On the other hand, Gustav Heinemann is still, in Ger many at least, an extreme and isolated case. In contrast, So cialist leader Ollenhauer and the vast majority of other ad vocates of negotiation-for-ne-gotiation's-sake are still rath er toughly realistic under their politital surfaces. So here in Germany, there is no need to fear any really da maging paroxysm of wishful ness at present. The time for that will only come if the West is further demoralized by further great defeats. (Copyright 1958, New York Herald Tribune, Inc.) GRANTS VISA Washington (IP) The state Department has authorized a visa for Hungarian track star Istvan Rozzavoelgyi to enter this country for the National Amateur Athletic Union's in door meet Feb. 22. The Hun garian distance runner holds world records for the 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 meter events. Burrighf Tosses Hat in State Ring Salem (IP) Lawrence Larry Burright, Portland, fil ed late Friday for the Dem ocratic nomination for state representative from the east Multnomah county subdist rict. Richard Anderson, New port, filed for the nonpartisan post of circuit judge of the 21st judicial district. Ander son is the present judge. House Hunting! Check the Bulletin Board Section 2 Page 1 1 Oregon Scout Talks To U. S. Leaders Washington (IP) Eagle Scout Robert A. Vetter of Sil verton Saturday spoke for the entire Western Scout region at the ' annual Boy "Scout breakfast here honoring lead ers in government and in dustry. His topic was last year's Scout Jamboree at Val ley Forge. Vetter, 18, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Vetter of Sil verton and was sponsored it the breakfast by Sen. Rich ard L. Neuberger, (D-Ore.). A full - grown elephant weighs about 10,000 pounds. Earl L Lawson, M.D. Duane I. Gil I urn, M.D. Radiologists Announce the Removal of Their Principal Office from ... Medical Center Building to PROFESSIONAL CENTER 842 East Main Street, Medford Suite 10 Telephone SPring 3-6251 Entrance on East Main Street Parking on Myrtle Street WIEI (MEM Southern Oregon's Oldest and Largest Furniture Store is?-. gsjBj IS! fell! RECLINING CHAIR Relieves angling nerves, strain en tired hearts, sore aching fegs and muscles end tired worn-out feeling caused by tension, stress and pressures of modern living! 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