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The Case Against. Defense Secretary McNamara trusts his charts, tables and economic projections just as much as General LeMay trusts his own experiences and intuition. McNamara's figures indicate that the money that would have to go into the RS-70 could be better spent elsewhere. For the $10 billion the Air Force wants to spend on RS-70s by 1970, McNamara says the U.S. could buy 2,000 Minuteman missiles, install them with all their equipment in concrete silos buried deep in the ground. What is more, it would cost $3 billion to maintain the RS-70 fleet for five years, v. $2 billion for the 2,000 Minutemen.
McNamara also argues that the RS-70 would be useless unless equipped with target-spotting radar and target-obliterating nuclear missiles that have not yet been designed—and might never be. The proposed radar would have to scan 100,000 sq. mi. an hour while the plane was traveling at 2,000 m.p.h. at 70,000 ft. To separate two points at that height, McNamara argued, would require a radar screen 15 ft. wide and 15 ft. high. By the late '60s, McNamara feels that the job of reconnaissance could be done by advanced versions of the Samos spy-in-the-sky satellite.
Despite these points, McNamara admits that changing circumstances might make the RS-70 necessary in the future. He now plans to spend an additional $52 million next fiscal year to see if the highly sophisticated equipment required for the RS-70 can be built. What is more, McNamara promised Vinson that he would spend at least some of the extra money voted by Congress on the aircraft "if technological developments advance more rapidly than we anticipated."
Both McNamara and the Air Force are persuasive in their arguments about the RS-70. By withdrawing his attempted congressional directive to the President, Carl Vinson staved off a potentially debilitating argument. Yet if Bob McNamara does not live up to his promise to reopen and restudy the issue of the RS-70, he may have history to answer to.