Defense Under Fire

When it comes to General Curtis Emerson LeMay, the able, black-browed boss of the Air Force's Strategic Air Command, official Washington and official Moscow have one thing in common: they both regard him with considerable respect.

Moscow knows that Curt LeMay can drop SAC's bombs on target and on schedule; Washington knows that he can drop his hard, soldierly opinions the same way.

Last week as LeMay testified under oath before a Senate Armed Services Sub committee, chaired by Missouri's airwise Democrat Stuart Symington, the capitol rushed to man its security defenses. Symington's committee submitted all of its questions to LeMay in advance. In advance, LeMay wrote out all his answers for the next day's session. In all-night conferences, both questions and answers were reviewed at the Pentagon by an Air Force task force and by a high-ranking Navy security specialist. Of the 153 questions asked during two days' hearings, LeMay answered 78 in secret session. Despite all this, his public answers stirred up the thickest defense debate the Eisen hower Administration had yet seen. The key answers:

P:Although SAC presumably could still win any war the Soviets might start, "we are not capable of winning it without this country receiving very serious damage. Five years ago we could have won the war without the country receiving comparatively serious damage."

P:As of April 30. the U.S. had produced only 78 intercontinental jet-powered B-52 bombers, and SAC had been obliged to delay acceptance of 31 of these because they had a defective turbine in the electrical system, "for which we now have a solution."

P:"If our estimate of Soviet production is accurate," the Russians are producing Bears and Bisons. their two modern long-range bombers, "at a combined rate substantially higher" than U.S. production of B-525, and "we believe they now have more Bisons and Bears in their inventory than we have B-525."

EP:By 1958-60 "the Soviet air force will have substantially more Bisons and Bears than we will have B-525 ... I can only conclude then that they will have a greater striking power than we will have."

Special Dedication. Even before LeMay finished testifying, the Administration brought up its big bazooka. Defense Secretary Charles Wilson, to fire a challenging round. His "best information," said Engine Charlie enigmatically at a news conference, was that the Russians are indeed producing more long-range bombers than the U.S., but "in itself that is not a very high rate either for us or for them." Speaking of Curt LeMay, he added: "A dedicated specialist usually gets pretty well sold on his particular part of the business. That is no criticism . . . but in my experience, if you added up the desires and the stated needs and ambi tions of all your specialists, you would have an impossible total on your hands."

Bolstering Wilson's point, another top-level Administration spokesman declared that to give LeMay everything he wants for SAC (including a force of 1,800 B-525 in 1958 rather than the 500 now planned) would require an immediate increase of $55 billion in SAC appropriations. "Curt LeMay," said the spokesman half in admiration, "thinks only SAC."

Broadened Vision. The basic fact is that Bomber LeMay's command has long had top priority on U.S. defense funds and resources, and with this priority LeMay has performed a wonder of military organization in welding a precision instrument of atomic retaliation. But precisely because SAC has guarded the peace, a changing world and technology have come to demand new and varied weapons--e.g., the atom-powered, atom-armed Navy envisioned by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke, and a missiles system that can match the evergrowing threats of Russian missiles development.

As President Eisenhower told his press conference: "I think we ought to broaden our vision a little bit more widely . . . when we begin to compare our position with those of others . . . We have the most powerful Navy in the world . . . No one has talked about that. We have bases around the world, established for the particular purpose of using the [B-47] medium bomber and not being forced to make all our bases in the U.S. and there fore depend on intercontinental machines.

"I think by the time the Defense Department gets done presenting its full picture, the U.S. will see that they have had great bodies of men who have not been . . . indifferent to the security of the U.S. and who have carried their duties ... to the point that the U.S. will feel a lot better than just on this one piece of testimony."

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