The Missile Gap

In the presidential-election year of 1960, Democrats charged that the Republican Administration had imperiled the nation by permitting a "gap" to grow between the U.S. and Russia in the development of long-range missiles. That turned out to be wrong.

In the presidential-election year of 1964, it is Republicans, notably Barry Goldwater, who are talking about a missile gap. Goldwater insists that there is a crucial difference between the actual reliability of U.S. missiles and the promises made about them by officials of the Democratic Administration. Last week, despite a previous public rebuke from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (TIME, Jan. 17), Goldwater was still at it. Speaking in New York, he accused McNamara of deliberately misleading the U.S. by saying that the Nike-Zeus antimissile missile is the "best weapon" of its kind. Said Goldwater: "I have never agreed with Secretary McNamara that we should lie to the American people about weapons systems."

As Goldwater pointed out, the actual facts and figures about missile reliability carry a secret classification. But the Scoreboard on test firings, generally carried out under the most favorable possible conditions, is public information and does furnish a reliability index.

Kiddie Cars if Necessary. In early U.S. tests, recalls an Air Force general, liquid-fueled Atlas missiles "were blowing up like tin cans." But later improvements have raised the success average to about 70% . Of 199 Atlas firings, 137 have been successful. For liquid-fueled Titan I, the score reported by the Air Force is 47 successes, ten partial successes, seven failures. For Titan II, just becoming operational: 19 successes, seven partial successes, one failure. For the solid-fueled, Minuteman: 45 successes, eleven partial successes, nine failures.

Even if these are the figures Goldwater has in mind, the Pentagon insists, he is telling only part of the story. Because of the "mix" of the total sb U.S. nuclear force and the multiple-teaming of strategic objectives by "cross-targeting," SAC Commander Thomas Power says, he is certain that 90% of the targets would get plastered by U.S. missiles. The mix of which Power talks includes 554 ICBMs, 176 submarine-launched Polaris Al and A2 solid-fueled missiles (90% reliable in tests), 630 B-52 bombers and 720 B-47s. In "cross-targeting," as many as six missiles may be trained on a single target, with a wave of "follow-on" bombers ready to mop up if anything goes wrong. Says Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay: "If kiddie cars will do the job, we will use them."

"Uncertainties." Goldwater suggests that a high-altitude nuclear device set off over the U.S. by an enemy might produce electromagnetic rays that could trip circuits, blow fuses, melt wires, and leave missiles like sitting ducks in their silos. Though ranking officers claim that development of such a device is no more than a "wild chance," SAC has nonetheless protected its missiles with special electromagnetic shielding and ray-resistant circuits. Says one Defense Department official: "I think we've overprotected." Liquid-fueled missiles, which must take on their explosive loads of liquid oxygen just before firing, are giving way to quick-firing, solid-fueled Minutemen and Polarises.

"Certainly the missiles are not 100%," says a Defense Department official, "but we are improving every day." For all of that, the missilemen are not satisfied. "Over 90% of our present systems' unreliability," says Air Force Lieut. General Howell M. Estes, "is due to component-part failures. A failure of a $25 fuel valve in a missile, for example, brought about both loss of the bird and major damage to the launch site, for a total bill of $22 million."

Moreover, U.S. missiles have not been tested under combat conditions. Only one U.S. missile--a Polaris--has ever been fired with an atomic war head aboard. Minuteman, says General Power, "has never been operationally tested all the way through from stockpile to detonation . . . There are many voids in our knowledge as to the operational capabilities and vulnerabilities of this weapons system." No one knows whether a nuclear blast could penetrate protective, underground missile silos, and McNamara has admitted to "uncertainties" in silo design.

Thus, while it is impossible to say that Goldwater is right, neither can it be said that he is all wrong.

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