Nation: Protection with Progress

Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay is another who seldom makes public speeches—and minces no words when he does. Last week, attending an Air Force Association convention in Philadelphia, LeMay said that the U.S., despite all Nikita Khrushchev’s boasts, is well ahead of the Soviet Union in its stockpile of “superbombs,” and could have, if it had wanted to, built a 100-megaton bomb “a long time ago.”

There was no doubt in LeMay’s mind about the will and purpose of the U.S. people. Said he: “Never before in our nation’s history have we as a people been more patient and more determined to stand together to meet aggression.” But LeMay had another concern: “Deterrence of aggression is composed of three basic elements—forces in being, public understanding of this force, and national determination to use this force if necessary. These are the three elements that make our force credible to our friends and to our enemies. If any of them is missing, credibility suffers proportionately.”

To LeMay, there seemed to be a danger that public understanding of the U.S. “aerospace”‘ force has become fuzzy. “Yet,” he said, “our basic concept has remained firm through the years—national security requires that we build, maintain and modernize our aerospace power, and that we emphasize forces that can survive an attack and react with war-waging and war-winning capabilities. Today, for the first time in history, we can be attacked by strong aerospace forces…

“Because of my service in the Strategic Air Command, a lot of people think I am only interested in big bombers and have little faith in or use for missiles, tactical air power, air defense, and the many other essential elements that go to make up total aerospace power. This most emphatically is not true.

“I seek weapon systems that I think can do the best job and afford the nation the most protection. I am a military conservative in that I believe we shouldn’t discard a proven, reliable weapon system or concept unless we have something that is able to replace it and do a better job. In short, I believe in having protection along with progress.”