The First Blow?

Question put by House Democratic Majority Leader John McCormack to Defense Secretary Neil McElroy before the House Space Committee last week: Is it still U.S. policy not to strike the first blow in war? Said McElroy: "Our policy is that we will not attack first." Democrat McCormack pressed harder: "Isn't this policy a rather untenable one in case of a great emergency?" McElroy acknowledged that to let U.S. enemies strike the first blow in the nuclear missile age would indeed help a potential attacker, then said of U.S. policy: "Whether that will always be true I think could be something else." McCormack noted approvingly that McElroy's atti tude showed "some relaxation" in the U.S. position.

Two days later President Eisenhower was asked at his news conference if he could foresee circumstances in which the U.S. might have to strike the first blow. Replied the President: "No." But then the President, too, added a qualification. Said he: "The right of self-preservation is just as instinctive and natural for a nation as it is for the individual. Therefore, if we know we are at any moment under a threat of attack, as would be evidenced by missiles or planes coming in our direction, then we have to act just as rapidly as possible, humanly possible, to defend ourselves." And although the declaration of war is a congressional function, that there could might be "put "certain your life or circumstances the nation's life right at stake. Then there is no time, and whatever would be necessary the President would then order."

The President's key line: "The reason we have very great and expensive intelligence forces is to keep us informed as well as they possibly can."

Next day Defense Secretary McElroy, at his own news conference, laid down a few of the specifics of what he and the President had in mind. The Communists, said McElroy, could hardly mount an attack of the size needed to destroy the U.S. without preparations that would be detectable by the U.S. Such a huge build up would require 1) heavy communications traffic, such as for readying hundreds of missile countdowns, 2) heavy forces movements which might not go undetected. Duration of such a buildup might be four or five days. And if such a buildup were reported to the U.S., it would, said McElroy, create "exactly the kind of a situation which the President of the U.S. at that time would have a very serious question posed for him . . . That is a description of a situation which would put really a very, very rough problem before the President."

Thus, by warning the U.S.S.R. that it would not necessarily be permitted to mobilize for and then deliver the first devastating blow, the U.S. last week gave the U.S.S.R. one more reason for not trying to settle diplomatic adventures by force.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.