The True Deterrent

The great defense debate that blasted off in the wake of Sputnik I, the honest fears of a dangerous U.S. "missile gap" that flared in the repeated failures of U.S. rocketry -- all the long, loud argument seemed like a fading whisper last week as shot after shot sent U.S. missiles successfully down their test ranges, and headed satellites toward space.

But the debate was well worth the wear and tear. Beyond the wild alarums of the critics and President Eisenhower's smug claim of last January that he knew more about defense than anybody else, it engendered some long-overdue rethinking of U.S. defense policies. For one thing, the Administration finally made up its mind to concentrate on an array of offensive missiles and bombers, and to chuck expensive defensive systems (TIME, April 18). And last week the prestigious House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, in a thoughtful audit, generally endorsed the Administration's "mixed-force concept" of missiles and bombers (and put to rest concern about a missile gap). Then it raised a question far more fundamental to U.S. defense than hardware: Must the U.S. always plan to take the first blow in future wars?

The Obvious. In the slow, careful phrases of Chairman George H. Mahon, a tough-minded Texan who has tackled his job as a Defense Department watchdog with fierce integrity, the report spelled the real meaning of the deterrent. The mixed force, said Mahon & Co., not only makes it tough for an enemy to choose targets for attack, it forces him to maintain a defense against a number of different weapons systems. "This mixed-force capability is being planned or provided through the employment of the large ICBM installations hardened against nuclear attack, the smaller mobile Minuteman ICBM, the elusive Polaris fleet ballistic missile system, and the continuing capability of our strategic bomber force, including the limited development of an advanced version in the B70 bomber.

"In the final analysis," said Mahon, "to effectively deter a would-be aggressor, we should maintain our armed forces in such a way and with such an understanding that, should it ever become obvious that an attack upon us or our allies is imminent, we can launch an attack before the aggressor has hit either us or our allies. This is an element of deterrence which the U.S. should not deny itself. No other form of deterrence can be fully relied upon."

The Result. The Mahon committee's position was in conflict with prevailing doctrine that the U.S. must suffer the first blow in order to justify counter-warfare. It was miles away from the concept of "preventive war" -- a wild notion which never won any converts in Washington -- that enemies dedicated to the destruction of the U.S. should be eliminated out of hand before they grow strong enough to strike. The committee statement was a defense of what has been called "preemptive war." Defenders of pre-emptive war hold that U.S. intelligence can and will know when an enemy is preparing to strike -- just as it had advance evidence of Japanese intentions to attack, though not specific knowledge of when or where, on the eve of Pearl Harbor. They hold that in such cases the U.S. should be prepared, after due warning to the adversary, to strike before an enemy could launch his blow. Presumably, the U.S. attack might have to be delivered without benefit of congressional declaration of war, and a heavy responsibility would be on the decision-makers -- the President and the top military -- to be sure that they were not wrong about the enemy's intentions and actions.

But if the doctrine is clearly understood by potential enemies, it would strengthen the deterrent and preserve the peace. Conversely, deterrent force could turn out to be no deterrent at all if an enemy is led to think that he can prepare for war and strike at will at places of his choosing.

The Balance. Adoption of the doctrine of pre-emptive war would require no formal proclamation. It would require a reversal of previously held U.S. policy, and a decision to stop telling the world that the U.S. intends to absorb the first blow in any future war. It would also require superior weapons, for without weapons it is a dangerous and empty threat.

Last week, while Mahon held up one side of the doctrine, new U.S. missile shots were holding up the other. Items:

P: Well up with its timetable calling for Polaris missiles to be combat-ready on two nuclear subs by year's end, the Navy sailed a pair of the 28-ft., solid-fuel missiles on successful 1,000-mile flights down the Atlantic range. Meanwhile, off Long Island, the nuclear sub George Washington continued testing its underwater Polaris launching tubes with dummy missiles.*

P: With a successful 3,000-mile shot from Cape Canaveral, the Air Force completed the limited-range testing of its advanced, two-stage ICBM Titan, ultimately destined for globe-girdling range.

P: At Vandenberg A.F.B.. Calif., the Air Force was testing a new. coffinlike, weatherproof hangar from which it has already raised an Atlas ICBM into firing position, fueled it in a total of 22 minutes, fired it into a target area 4,300 miles to the West.

P: After seven previous firings without a fizzle, the Air Force scrubbed ten scheduled tests of its 5,000-mile solid-fuel Minuteman ICBM. got ready for a final silo shot. The vastly accelerated Minuteman program, says a top Air Force missileman, has moved Minuteman's anticipated operational date from 1963 to early 1962.

P: In the first static test, all eight engines of the Army Saturn super rocket fired perfectly, belching 1,300,000 lbs. of thrust. This is "more rocket power," said Dr. Wernher von Braun, "than has ever before been developed in the free world." At full blast, Saturn will ride on a 1,500,000sblb. push, making it the basic vehicle for Von Braun's hopeful space-flight timetable: 1960, first suborbital astronaut flight; 1961, manned orbital flight and a moon shot with scientific payload; 1962, first space probe in the vicinity of Mars and/or Venus; 1963-64, controlled landing on the moon and an orbiting astronomical observatory; 1964, unmanned lunar circumnavigation and first launching of a three-stage Saturn; 1965-67, beginning of manned circumlunar program and establishment of a permanent space station; after 1970, manned flight to the moon.

* A show at least partially watched by the Soviet trawler Vega, which was within its rights in international waters but, said the Navy, learned nothing secret.

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