Power in the Bomb Bays; Trouble on the Pads
Behind the politicking of the missile-gap debate that sputtered in Washington last week lay some troubling nonpolitical questions: Will the missile gap mean a power gap? What dangers will the missile gap bring? Does the Administration's defense program provide for adequate preparations to cope with those dangers?
TODAY there is no missile gap because neither the U.S. nor the U.S.S.R. (so far as the U.S. knows) has any significant intercontinental ballistic missile capability. The U.S. has only three operational ICBMs—three Atlases on launching pads at California's Vandenberg A.F.B. The U.S.S.R. has more—ten, says one Washington guesstimate—but not enough to add up to a meaningful weight on the scales of power. By mid-1961, the U.S.'s total will be up to approximately 72 (four Atlas squadrons with ten missiles apiece, two Polaris subs, each carrying 16 missiles), and the U.S.S.R.'s up to about 100. By mid-1963, according to revised plans and estimates, the U.S. count will be 200-250, the U.S.S.R.'s 400-500. Beginning in 1963, the U.S. hope runs, the compact, solid-fuel Minuteman missile, to be launched either from underground concrete silos or from moving railway-car platforms, will go into mass production, and the missile gap of the time will swiftly disappear.
The Administration argues that an ICBM gap of 2 to 1 in 1963, or even 3 to 1, will not mean a "deterrent gap." In 1963, explains Defense Secretary Thomas Gates, the U.S. will not be relying solely or even mainly on ICBMs for its main deterrent power. The big punch will still be the H-bombs in the bays of the Strategic Air Command's manned bombers. Backing up SAC's bombers will be a growing force of missiles, but SAC alone will provide an abundance of what the Pentagon calls "overkill." The H-bombs carried by a single B-52 bomber add up to 20 megatons of blast power—the equivalent of 1,000 A-bombs of the size that leveled Hiroshima—and SAC has 400 B-52s. During the next three years SAC will add 300 more B-52s (armed with 500-mile Hound Dog air-to-ground missiles as well as H-bombs), plus about 90 supersonic B-58s. The theory of deterrence rests on the assumption that the enemy leaders will be rational, and the Administration argues confidently that Soviet leaders, faced with the prospect of getting hit by SAC, could not make a rational decision to launch a missile attack on the U.S., even with missile superiority of 2 to 1 or 3 to 1.