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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 1959)
own missiles or aircraft before our bases were hit. We're working on a system that we hope will give us 20 to 30 minutes' warning, but we can't expect to have it operating before 1963 or 1964. If then. Also, we have no means of inter cepting these missiles once they are launched. We're working on an "anti missile missile," but we won't have the .first ones ready before 1964 or 1985, if then. Thus our present relative security fades into growing danger as the Soviets gradually acquire the means for their hoped-for, surprise knock out. After 1962 the danger will have become acute unless we do some thing about it in the meanwhile. We are building ballistic missiles of our own, to be emplaced in launching sites both in this country and over seas. But the Soviets will know ex actly where these' missile sites are, just as they already know exactly where our air bases are. In a free society, such massive construction projects cannot be concealed. Some of these launching sites may be "hardened" that is, dug in deep ly and protected by concrete shields. But it takes about two years to com plete such a job and although we have projects for such construction, here again we see in the next few years a condition of extreme vulner ability to sneak attack. " To be sure of smashing hardened missile bases, the Soviets will have to produce "ground bursts" very close to the surface. Such bursts suck up vast quantities of matter into the fireball, producing maximum radio active fallout over a wide area. If as many as 200 or 300 such H-explosions were detonated in the United States, at least half our population might well be killed or lastingly damaged by radiation. Do-it-yourself fallout shelters (as suggested by Dave Garroway in the t e?tv hl -'- vy- r " sir Sept. 6 issue of family weekly) would greatly reduce this loss if every family had one, but our main purpose should be to make sure that no attack ever comes. Even so, such shelters are a good idea because they are a great aid to public morale dur ing periods of crisis. A firm, confident public' attitude helps to make our de terrent power effective. While developing their missile pro gram, the Soviets also are keeping up the most powerf ul army and tacti cal air force in the world, with masses of trained reserves and huge stock piles of arms and equipment. Hitherto, the threat of the Red Army has been offset by our threat of "massive retaliation" with A bombs. and H-bombs delivered by the planes of the Strategic Air Com mand. Now many overseas bases of SAC, and the countries in which they are located, are "under the gun" of the Soviet IRBMs. Our allies are getting jumpy under this double threat. They take some comfort from the fact that the So viets are restrained by the fear of retaliation from air bases in North America which the U.S.S.R. cannot yet attack with missiles. But they are beginning to wonder how firm our will to retaliate will be in the future, when a challenge to Soviet local ag gression might be replied to by a nu clear massacre of half our people! Maybe by the time you've read this far, you are beginning to wonder, too. The facts I've presented aren't pretty. But they indicate what the U.S.S.R. could do to us and to our friends. The other side of the story is what we can do to them. That's been the only checkrein on Soviet aggression since the cold war began. There's never been a moment since 1945 that the men in the Krem lin weren't ready to use force and terror to accomplish their purposes; they've been restrained by fear of 'Vm:tJ:-&i t it rrom with the consequences, and nothing else. They can be restrained in the future only by our continuing to keep them afraid of the consequences! They believe their ballistic mis siles provide the answer to their problem how to free themselves from the restraint of that fear. With the privilege of striking first, with no interception possible and no sufficient warning to enable us to strike back, with the location of all our air and missile bases known to them, how can we dare challenge their power and invite' the devastation of our country? They are confident that when they have enough missiles to knock out our striking power at home and abroad, they will have won the cold war by default. That confidence echoes brutally in every statement of Mr. Khrushchev and his colleagues. They say to us: Communism has won. What can you do about it, if you don't like it? Well, there is something we can and will do about it that will be com pletely effective in keeping the fear of consequences clamped like an iron hand on Soviet aggressive designs. Remember, any surprise attack with nuclear weapons against a pow er which also has such weapons must have for its primary targets the nuclear . striking forces of the country being attacked. Otherwise the attacker is committing both mur der and suicide, The answer to the Soviet missile threat is a very simple one: we ere going to create and expand our nuclear striking power in a form which cannot be destroyed by sur prise. We are going to have a deter rent force continuously capable of wiping out the Soviet Union, so lo cated and organized that the Kremlin can never hope to destroy it in any sneak attack. Therefore there will be no sneak Submarines like the new George. Washington will be armed with Polaris guided missiles, shown launched . l .i : . - - lower, dut receniiy launched from a ship for first fime. Meanwhile car-rier-based planes patrol Sidewinder missiles. attack because the cold, calculating minds which direct the affairs of the U.S.S.R. are not interested in murder and suicide. How is this to be done during the years just ahead, when Soviet missile power may grow by leaps and bounds? Can we hope for no defense and no warning? That question brings us to another fact about the ballistic missile: It is useful only for attacking fixed targets, like air bases and missile bases, whose location is precisely known. Its guidance system has to be p re-set to a programmed flight path. Therefore the ballistic missile is worthless for attack on any moving targets. Gen. Thomas S. Power, SAC Com mander, has already urged that when the Soviet Union acquires a real ICBM capability, a proportion of SAC's big bombers be kept constant ly in the air, armed and ready to attack. Planes in flight are moving targets. They are not vulnerable to ballistic missiles, with or without warning. They can strike back in stantly if a missile attack is made on their base. We shall probably have an air borne alert for some of SAC's planes within the next year. But this is ex pensive and it is a great strain on the air crews as well as the planes if it has to be kept up indefinitely. How ever, we do not have to keep it up indefinitely, because we have another means of putting nuclear striking power into moving bases. We can use the sea for this vital purpose. Indeed, we are doing that already. The Navy's 14 attack aircraft car riers pack a powerful nuclear punch in their heavy-strike aircraft, which can deliver nuclear weapons to any target within 1,500 miles of the car rier's deck. We are building more carriers and improved bombers to operate from them. (Continued on page 9) Family Weekly. October 11. 1959 I : y
