RS-70: BUST OR SUPERPLANE?

In the maneuvering last week between Congressman Carl Vinson and the Kennedy Administration, the bomber that was the cause of the fracas was all but ignored. What is the RS-70? Why did it stir such emotion in the Pentagon, the White House and the Congress? Is it a bust or a super plane?

THE RS-70 is the Air Force's new "reconnaissance-strike" version of the B70 superbomber that has been on the planning boards since 1953. It would be a truly revolutionary aircraft, flying at 2,000 m.p.h. at 80,000 ft. for distances, without refueling, of some 6,000 miles. The Air Force wants to spend $491 million next fiscal year (beginning July 1) on a program that would put the first RS-70s in operation by 1967, build up a fleet of 150 by 1970, at a total cost of some $10 billion. Secretary of Defense Robert Mc-Namara wants to spend $171 million next year on a throttled-back program aimed merely at developing three prototype RS-70s. The argument between the Air Force and McNamara stems from basically different concepts of national defense. Both sides claim that the other is absolutely wrong; in fact, neither side is totally right.

The Argument For. General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force Chief of Staff, flew B-17s against Europe, directed the B-29 attacks against Japan, developed the Strategic Air Command as the carrier of nuclear deterrent, and still has deep faith in manned aircraft no matter how fast the art of the missile has advanced. LeMay argues that a man can operate better in the inevitable confusion of combat than the robot brain of a missile. For the advantages of manned aircraft at whatever speed or altitude, he has only to point to the recent experiences of Astronaut John Glenn, who personally took the controls of Friendship 7 when the automatic equipment performed erratically. Even more important, if radar were to pick up signs of an attack on the U.S., an RS-70 could be sent on its way--and recalled later if the warning turned out to be false. No one can call back a missile: it goes or it stays.

The RS-70 advocates maintain that the nuclear deterrent must have the proper "mix" of bombers and missiles to overwhelm an enemy with a variety of weapons systems. If one does not work, another will--and the RS-70 is a whole new weapons system in itself. Those same advocates point out that production will stop this year on the Air Force's last two bombers--the 600-m.p.h. B-52 and the 1,300-m.p.h. B-58. If the RS-70 is held back, they say, the entire U.S. bomber fleet will eventually be obsolete.

The Air Force argues that the RS-70 would be a hard target to hit. Even if the Russians built a fighter that could fly 2,000 m.p.h., intercepting an RS-70 covering 30 miles a minute would be a tricky task. One of the RS-70's defenses against missiles would be highly secret electronic countermeasures. The Air Force admits that some RS-70s would be shot down; but many would get through to annihilate the enemy.

The Case Against. Defense Secretary McNamara trusts his charts, tables and economic projections just as much as General LeMay trusts his own experiences and intuition. McNamara's figures indicate that the money that would have to go into the RS-70 could be better spent elsewhere. For the $10 billion the Air Force wants to spend on RS-70s by 1970, McNamara says the U.S. could buy 2,000 Minuteman missiles, install them with all their equipment in concrete silos buried deep in the ground. What is more, it would cost $3 billion to maintain the RS-70 fleet for five years, v. $2 billion for the 2,000 Minutemen.

McNamara also argues that the RS-70 would be useless unless equipped with target-spotting radar and target-obliterating nuclear missiles that have not yet been designed--and might never be. The proposed radar would have to scan 100,000 sq. mi. an hour while the plane was traveling at 2,000 m.p.h. at 70,000 ft. To separate two points at that height, McNamara argued, would require a radar screen 15 ft. wide and 15 ft. high. By the late '60s, McNamara feels that the job of reconnaissance could be done by advanced versions of the Samos spy-in-the-sky satellite.

Despite these points, McNamara admits that changing circumstances might make the RS-70 necessary in the future. He now plans to spend an additional $52 million next fiscal year to see if the highly sophisticated equipment required for the RS-70 can be built. What is more, McNamara promised Vinson that he would spend at least some of the extra money voted by Congress on the aircraft "if technological developments advance more rapidly than we anticipated."

Both McNamara and the Air Force are persuasive in their arguments about the RS-70. By withdrawing his attempted congressional directive to the President, Carl Vinson staved off a potentially debilitating argument. Yet if Bob McNamara does not live up to his promise to reopen and restudy the issue of the RS-70, he may have history to answer to.

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