Decision on Missiles

When the guided missile whistled into everyday military planning, the brainy brass of the U.S. Army whistled in low alarm. If nations were going to fight wars by trading off hydrogen payloads, then the Army was going to have a hard time justifying a budget for a 1,500,000-man ground force and the armament that goes with it. The Army's answer was to lobby hard--on contradictory lines: 1) the world will probably succumb to an atomic stalemate, hence the U.S. will need a conventional army which for maximum efficiency will need its own air arm; 2) the airplane will soon be supplanted by the missile as a strategic weapon, and, therefore, so will the Air Force; 3) the Army should be allowed to develop its own long-range missiles since, after all, missiles are only an improved form of artillery.

Last week armor-plated Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson stopped the Army's arguments cold, handed down an eight-page memorandum that was the clearest contribution to a definition of service roles and missions since the battered and bruised Key West agreement of 1948.

The Army. "We're not going to set up an air force within the Army," said Deputy Defense Secretary Reuben Robertson, as he explained the Wilson memo to newsmen. Army aviation is strictly limited to such functions as liaison and observation within a combat zone extending not more than 100 miles beyond the front lines, and the Army is specifically forbidden to provide its own strategic and tactical airlift, tactical reconnaissance or close-combat air support. More important, the Army is restricted to a 200-mile range in its surface-to-surface missiles (on the theory that they could be launched 100 miles behind the lines and travel 100 miles beyond). Gone, therefore, was the dream of longer-range Army-built missiles that could (as the Army Information Digest recently said) attack "distant troop concentrations, marshaling areas and communication centers" and destroy "enemy missile sites, atomic stockpiles and airfields." The Army was assigned responsibility for point, i.e., local defense and the franchise on such radar-directed, land-to-air missiles as Nike, with a range of not more than 100 miles.

The Air Force. Handed to the Air Force was almost everything that the Army had wanted: responsibility for tactical air support as well as strategic bombing; tactical and strategic airlift; all land-based missiles with ranges of more than 200 miles; area defense with missiles ranging more than 100 miles, to be integrated by the continent-girdling SAGE (SemiAutomatic Ground Environment) early-warning system. But in anticipation of an increase in the firepower of the Army's short-range tactical missiles (taking over part of the tactical air-support job), Wilson called for a cutback in the Air Force goal of 137 wings.

The Navy. While the Army and Air Force were fighting, the Navy sailed serenely along, kept out of trouble. The Wilson memo gave the Navy a go-ahead for all ship-based missile development (i.e., everything except the intercontinental ballistic missile), and the Navy announced that it was commissioning an experimental ship to work out the gyroscopic navigational system required for accurate firing of a 1,500-mile ballistic missile (see SCIENCE).

Charlie Wilson tried to soften the blow against the Army by pointing out that the peacetime assignments did not necessarily predetermine the weapons and forces that field commanders could use in war time. He also promised that the Army could conduct "feasibility studies" on the use of an intermediate-range missile. But his assurances did not mollify the Army brass. Snapped a top Army planner when Wilson's decision was handed down: "This thing isn't going to stop us." The Army's probable next line of defense: congressional hearings at budget time.

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