Inexcusable Risk

When the Senate's Preparedness subcommittee began public hearings last week on the state of the nation's air defenses, Chairman Lyndon Johnson of Texas was ready to hear the worst. Results of the subcommittee's preliminary studies, he said, had been "deeply disturbing." The testimony of the week's two main witnesses did little to disperse the gloom.

Witness No. 1 was General Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz, wartime boss of the bombing of Germany and first Chief of Staff of the separate Air Force. He began by reviewing the nation's reckless dismemberment of the world's greatest air force. In less than two postwar years, it had shrunk from 200 groups to 55, of. which only two were fit for combat. "In retrospect," said Spaatz, "you can see why Mr. Stalin felt pretty free to move around."

Spaatz was just as concerned by the Administration's defense policy today--specifically, its decision last winter to stretch out the mobilization program, delaying achievement of the Air Force's goal of 143 wings from 1954 to 1956. In dollars alone, said Spaatz, the stretch-out was a $2 billion mistake. As "gambling with our security," it was "an inexcusable risk . . . Time is running out as far as we are concerned . . . We have not faced the fact that Russia is acquiring a stockpile of H-and A-bombs. Ruthless as they are, when they have that stockpile they will use it to get whatever they want."

Even tougher talk came from Witness No. 2. Lieut. General Ennis C. Whitehead, one of MacArthur's top airmen in World War II and boss of U.S. air defense from 1949 until he retired last summer. He pleaded for the fastest possible creation of a minimum air force: an atomic "strike force" ready to take off on retaliatory raids within a few hours after an attack on the U.S.; enough transports to service the strike force at overseas bases, and fighters to escort the bombers on their missions; at least 30 wings of all-weather jet fighters to intercept enemy bombers. Until these minimums are achieved, the Army & Navy should be cut to "token" appropriations.

The ground troops fighting in Korea were not likely to think much of that last suggestion. But Whitehead had come prepared to make his argument sink in. As of last July, he said, the U.S. mainland was defended against atomic attack by fewer than 100 all-weather fighters, which could not have destroyed more than 10% to 15% of a force attacking in daylight. At night, or during instrument conditions, U.S. interceptors would have shot down less than 5%. A well-executed surprise atomic air attack on the U.S. would have succeeded, said Whitehead, "beyond the fondest hope of the [enemy] commander."

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