Defense: Strategic Realignment

On Capitol Hill, two of Robert Mc-Namara’s most controversial canons are that 1) missiles must replace manned bombers as the primary strategic nu clear weapons, and 2) superfluous military installations must be eliminated. Last week, with Congress in recess, the Secretary of Defense took giant steps toward implementing both policies.

In one stroke the Pentagon ordered the closing, consolidation or cutting back of yet another 149 bases,* and disclosed a “realignment” of strategic forces that will scrap about two-thirds of the present big bomber fleet by 1971. All of the 80 supersonic B58 Hustlers will go. Some 350 older-model B-52 Stratofortresses will also be phased out, leaving the Strategic Air Command with only 255 of its lumbering eight-engined giants. By then, the U.S. arsenal of land-and sea-based long-range nuclear missiles will have grown from 1,238 to 1,710.

Enter FB-III. McNamara also announced that he would order 210 FB-111 bombers, a heavier version of the F-lll (the celebrated TFX) tactical attack craft now on order by the Air Force and Navy. The Air Force, arguing that flexibility requires a permanent “mix” of missiles and ultramodern bombers, would prefer a three-or four-man craft equipped with exotic “penetration aids” to get it past enemy radar and missile defenses. Its ideal plane would have a range at least equal to the most advanced B-52s—nearly 10,000 miles fully loaded. What the Air Force is getting, at least for now, is essentially a beefed-up two-man fighter with limited capacity for penetration aids, a round-trip range of 4,000 to 6,000 miles and a speed of 1,200 m.p.h., twice that of the earlier B-52s. Thus, for intercontinental strategic missions, the FB-111 would depend on tankers for in-flight refueling. But the movable-wing plane would be able to haul nuclear weapons, air-to-ground missiles or 38,000 Ibs. of conventional bombs.

While his announcement of the new bomber helped to blunt congressional criticism, senior members of the Armed Services Committees were enraged that McNamara acted without consulting them. The committees undoubtedly will try to make McNamara’s life difficult early in the new year, when he brings his fiscal 1967 defense budget to Capitol Hill. But, as in past fights over bombers and bases, Congress will find that it has little power to alter McNamara’s decisions and even less inclination to deny him the $1.7 billion he will request for the new bomber.

* Bringing to 852 the number of installations affected by cutbacks since 1961, for an estimated saving of $1.5 billion a year.