DEFENSE: The Sputnik Syndrome

The Sputnik Syndrome is characterized by whirling satellites before the eyes, by alternating periods of deepest gloom and wildest premonitions of impending doom, and by the steadfast conviction that the U.S., helplessly and hopelessly, is falling behind the U.S.S.R. in military technology. Since last Oct. 4, when Russia’s Sputnik I spun into the sky, the syndrome has afflicted many who should know better. Proclaimed Columnist Joseph Alsop three weeks ago: “It is now the Eisenhower Administration’s policy to permit the Kremlin to gain an overwhelming superiority of nuclear striking power in the next five years.” Wrote retired Army Lieut. General James M. Gavin in his book War and Peace in the Space Age (TIME, Aug. 11): “We are in second place militarily and in second place in the exploration of space.” The syndrome had one of its most remarkable manifestations last fortnight, when Massachusetts’ Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy arose on the Senate floor to say: “Once the Soviets are in the driver’s seat, the question arises as to what basic strategy we employ. The classic strategy [is that] of the underdog—and soon we will be the underdog.”

Last week came one of the first serious attempts to treat the Sputnik Syndrome. In a Senate speech Massachusetts’ Republican Senator Leverett Saltonstall prescribed equal doses of common sense and facts. Far from wallowing in the Soviet technological wake, said he, the U.S. has made historic progress. Items: > The intermediate-range ballistic missile Thor has been put into production, and the intercontinental ballistic missile Atlas has been successfully tested at full power.

> The nuclear submarines Nautilus and Skate have made epochal explorations beneath the ice pack of the North Pole.

> Mobile forces, deployed around the world on 24-hr, alert, are backed up by the world’s most modern manned bombers; atomic weapons have increased the striking power of U.S. military forces a thousandfold.

> Three U.S. space satellites have gone into orbit with better scientific instrumentation than the U.S.S.R.’s Sputniks.

“Is this lack of research or lack of progress?” asked Saltonstall, a senior member of the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee chaired by Texas Democrat Lyndon Johnson. “Does this indicate that we are headed for second best in 1960 or 1964? So let us not sell ourselves short … There is a great deal of difference between making a judgment based on estimates of what we think the Soviets are doing and making a judgment based on what we know we are doing . . . We shall never be the underdog if we keep on the job.”