The Stillborn Bird

In what seemed like a final, fiery protest against the death sentence pronounced on it by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a 40-ft. Skybolt missile flashed away from its B-52 bomber and down the Atlantic Missile Range in a flight computed to be 991 miles long.* Jubilant Air Force officers pronounced the test "a success." But at the Pentagon, Skybolt's critics dourly contended that the missile was 100 miles off target, said the test would not save Skybolt. Declared one: "It was just rigor mortis setting in."

Skybolt was. indeed, dead. Last week the Pentagon formally canceled production contracts for the 1,000-mile missile, which Great Britain had planned to adapt to its Vulcan II bombers, and the U.S. Air Force had counted on to prolong the life of its B-52s. Said Deputy Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric: "The test did not conclusively demonstrate the capacity of the missile to achieve the target accuracy for which the Skybolt system was designed."

But although Skybolt is buried, the controversy over the death is not. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have not retreated from their unanimous recommendation that the missile be continued. Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay remains deeply concerned that present U.S. nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union may become inadequate if such new weapons as Skybolt are not pursued to add further flexibility. The Air Force undoubtedly will plead Skybolt's cause at congressional committee hearings to be held soon.

A central Air Force fear in the death of Skybolt is its impact on the future of the Strategic Air Command's bombers. The B-47s are already being phased out. When they are gone, only the B-52 will remain in large numbers. The Air Force has sought development of a supersonic B-70, and Congress has authorized funds for a modified version (the RS-70), but so far the Administration has refused to spend much of the money. With Skybolt --which could presumably slice effectively through antiaircraft defenses--the Air Force expected to keep its B-52 force useful through the 1970s. But with Skybolt a stillborn bird, many Air Forcemen look gloomily toward the day when the manned bomber will be dead as a dodo.

* The missile carried no nose cone, thus burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere, and its flight had to be projected by computers.

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