For a Continental Defense

by JAMES R. KILLIAN, JR., and A. G. HILL

1

Now that we know that the Soviets have achieved a thermonuclear explosion, the defense of our homes, our cities, and our lives is given a new and awful urgency. Long carried on behind closed doors, the debate on the issues posed by our present vulnerability to atomic attack should now come into the open, for our government must have — and knows it must have-the help of informed public opinion in dealing with the problem.

The President and our military leaders are the only ones who can adequately brief the American people on the true nature of the threat we face and the means to meet it. Because of the part which research and technology have played and are playing in our defense, however, the special knowledge and outlook of the scientist and engineer have relevance in the current discussion of defense against atomic attack. Without assuming any military expertness, we seek to examine our defense policy from this special point of view. How vulnerable are we, and what are the issues involved in forming national policy to deal with the threat?

Within the limits prescribed by national security, our vulnerability can be described this way. One hundred atomic bombs dropped on selected targets in North America could kill or injure not just hundreds or thousands but millions of people. A grim calculation by informed experts can forecast the number of millions of casualties. This calculation leads to the conclusion that America might not survive this kind of attack even though we were able in the meantime to destroy our enemy.

If there should be a surprise air attack on the United States next week, next month, or even within a year, our defending forces would be able to intercept and destroy only a small percentage of the invading planes. This is not adequate to prevent the delivery of one hundred bombs. This is not adequate to ensure the continuity of our government or the maintenance of vital industrial activity. This may not be adequate to ensure the continuity of the United States.

Competent authorities, both military and scientific, agree that these macabre hazards are real; they are not bogeymen summoned out of a fertile imagination to induce Congress to vote more funds. They are brutally real, deadly reasonable calculations of the threat we face.

It is unlikely that the Soviets are yet able or ready to launch this kind of fatal attack on the United States. It is almost certain that within a few years, at most, they will be able to launch such an attack—unless our defenses are enormously improved. Competent opinion holds that even at the present, time, the Soviets may have the capability of delivering a crippling atomic attack on the United States.

The American people must know and understand the possibilities. It is sometimes said that the facts will produce panic. Even if this were true, it would be better that we be frightened than that we remain serenely ignorant and vulnerable. The facts may frighten a few people, but they will produce determined action by most. The American people need facts in order to reach resolute conclusions. In the debate so far, the facts have not been adequately available because of understandable security restrictions. Not only have the facts been inadequate; they sometimes have been inaccurate and misleading — misleading because they were bootlegged facts and assembled piecemeal by people who have no direct access to authoritative sources.

In advocating a stronger defense of our continent against atomic attack, we are mindful that this is but one part of a comprehensive military responsibility. We visualize that this total responsibility consists of five major tasks, which we list without attempting to suggest relative priority: —

1. Control of the high seas

2. Defense of the North American continent

3. Capability to mount a devastating counterattack on an enemy’s bases and homeland

4. Our share of the defense of Western Europe

5. Control of sudden outbreaks such as the Korean attack

We cannot neglect any one of these major tasks and still have a coherent military plan and policy in the world we live in today. We cannot concentrate either on offense or on defense and have a sound plan and a capability designed for the threat we face. These are truisms, yet we find ourselves at the present time wide open to the delivery of atomic bombs by air.

There are three principal reasons why we are in this predicament: 1) we have traditionally tended to favor offense in our military planning; 2) we have underestimated the time required for the Soviets to achieve a strong atomic capability; and 3) we have assumed that a reasonable air defense of the North American continent was beyond our technical and economic means. These attitudes and assumptions, now challenged by the Soviets’ achievement of the H-bomb, have led us so far to give low priority to the continental defense of North America.

With determination and skill, our Air Force has created its Strategic Air Command, or “SAC,” as a great offensive striking force ready at any moment to launch an atomic counter-attack on an enemy. Our Navy is also readying its air arm as an atomic striking force. Our capability in atomic weapons, coupled with our possession of these powerful air offensive forces, is an essential part of our military defense, our diplomatic strength, and our leadership. It is unquestionably a mighty deterrent to a would-be attacker — assuming that potential attacker to be a rational power, not a mad or desperate or capricious dictator. We cannot forget, however, that three times since 1914 we have been involved in a war started by a dictator who thought he saw the chance for victory in a surprise assault.

In view of the prime importance of this offensive strength and in the face of the evangelical zeal which SAC commands, it has proved difficult outside as well as inside the military establishment to introduce the concept of continental defense as a normal and natural partner of offense. There has been a fear, for example, that adequate air defense would undermine air offense. One of the immediate problems is to dissipate this deep-seated fear that attention to air defense on any substantial scale must inevitably weaken SAC and other offensive forces by diverting from them both attention and funds. We must achieve a stronger defense without weakening or subordinating our offensive power. We know of no informed, thoughtful advocate of a strong air defense who is not convinced of the importance of SAC and of an over-all offensive power so great that it will provide a strong deterrent to the Soviets. We must continue to have creative thinking and planning for offensive power.

One of the chief concerns of those who advocate a stronger air defense is that SAC be protected to do its job. It must be defended if it is to be effective, and there is great apprehension that it is now vulnerable to severe damage by an air attack on its bases.

We need versatile military forces, competent both for offense and for defense. This poses grave problems of allotting matériel, money, men, and attention. The balancing of the branches of our military services may require enlarging present budgets; if achieved within present budgets it most certainly would require some drastic reallocations of funds within the government as a whole. In seeking a balanced military force, we must also squarely face the effects of additional expenditures on our economy; we recognize the hazard of spending ourselves into bankruptcy.

There are other current misapprehensions and false issues in regard to air defense. The unfortunate impression has been created that the Air Force has little interest in air defense; that if is narrow-mindedly committed exclusively to the offensive concept embodied in SAC. As we shall later show, this seems to be a misreading of the Air Force position. Both within and without the Air Force, there are those who disagree vehemently about the degree of emphasis which should be given to offense and defense, but those who are really informed will not share in any charge that the Air Force has no real interest in the creation of a defensive system against air attack.

The statement has been given currency that a few scientists, naïve in the ways of military operations, have promised complete security from an air attack. This is rubbish. No informed and competent scientists who have considered the problem have concluded that a perfect defense is possible or probable. They hold the view that our present low defense capabilities can be improved manyfold. We have the technical resources to accomplish this if they are mobilized and put to use. It is this improvement that scientists advocate, not the building of a perfect system with all the astronomical numbers that this implies. The estimated percentage of invading planes which can be shot down once we have some of the improvements now under development is secret information. It is not 100 per cent, or even 95 per cent, but it is a great gain over our existing powers of attrition. Let no one be under the misapprehension that a perfect air defense is technically or economically feasible. Let it be equally clear that we are not helpless in greatly improving our defense.

Although present laboratory developments and military plans promise substantial gains in the future, these gains are not enough. We need still further to step up research and development to ensure further gains after those now under development have been applied. Able teams are at work, but they all could be strengthened by the addition of more of our first-rate scientists and engineers. We also need imaginative studies to seek new concepts for distant interception and for augmenting the offensive capabilities of SAC. The improvements which we might thus achieve could spell the difference between America saved and America lost.

2

THE furtherance of air defense has been made more difficult by the creation of another false issue— the alleged ineradicable conflict between the scientific mind and the military mind. The impression has been given that it has been the scientists and engineers who have advocated air defense over the strenuous objections of the generals. The argument has been frequently heard that the scientists have a guilt complex for having developed the atomic bomb and that this guilt complex leads them to denounce and to deny offensive concepts and to take refuge in the Maginot Line complex of an idealized defensive system.

There may be some scientists who are motivated in this manner, but their number and their influence are insignificant. There are many considerations which have led scientists who are knowledgeable in military matters to advocate a greater emphasis on air defense than we have so far accepted or achieved. One of these considerations has been the knowledge that there were important technical developments which make an improved air defense more feasible.

There are other and quite subtle considerations which have led scientists to believe in a strong air defense. Perhaps the most compelling has been their understanding of the catastrophic implications of atomic bombs in the hands of a dictator, of atomic bombs made steadily more powerful and destructive, of atomic bombs so powerful that several of them would be equivalent in tons to all the bombs dropped by the Allies on Germany in World War II. This understanding leads the scientists to think in terms of forthcoming or potential innovations in warfare, to be preoccupied with the warfare of the future. This understanding has led the scientists to the conviction that we must miss no bets in planning for the defense of our country, that we need all the offensive and defensive strength that we can muster. It has given them the conviction that a really determined scientific effort may produce, as it did in World War II, wholly unexpected additions to our weapons and our concepts.

This point of view, however, is not unique to the scientists. In the face of charges that the Air Force has been indifferent to air defense, the fact should be made clear that it was the Air Force three years ago that induced a group of scientists to tackle the problem of air defense, a responsibility they were reluctant to undertake until urged by Secretary Finlettcr to do so. It was General Vandenberg himself who wrote the letter which set in motion a substantial research undertaking by civilian scientists in the field of air defense.

It is creating a dangerously false issue to charge either the military mind or the scientific mind with having a warped or distorted point of view. This charge has been made too often and too indiscriminately, and the effects have been damaging to the officer personnel of the services. There is now extensive agreement and cross-fertilization between scientists and military personnel of the Army, Air Force, and Navy in regard to air offense and defense.

To aggravate or to promote differences between our military personnel and other professional groups in the nation is a vicious game, and those who play it in the hope of weakening the opposition to their position or concept may be opening a dangerous fissure in our national security. The same hazard exists in efforts to set one group of scientists against another, or to discredit those who advocate unconventional views on means to security.

In World War II, the Germans gave a convincing demonstration of failure properly to utilize the resources of science and of a cultivated incompatibility between military planners and scientists. We should diligently seek to prevent such a catastrophe in the United States.

Another aspect of the air defense problem which has been subject to much loose discussion is the cost of improving our air defense. Public discussion of an early-warning net has hit upon the figure of twenty billion dollars or more as the cost of such a system. This estimate has been credited to a group of scientists who participated in a summer study project and whose report suggested that such an earlywarning system might now be technically feasible. This group estimated no such figure. It did conclude that an early-warning line could be built at a cost which is high but which was very much less than twenty billion dollars. As a result of this summer study, pilot-plant studies are now under way which should yield a conclusive estimate of the total cost of such an early-warning system. The twentybillion-dollar figure bears no recognizable relationship to any informed estimate which has yet been made, and it has misled many people in their appraisal of air defense possibilities.

The problem of cost of an early-warning system is inseparable, however, from the broader question of the cost of an effective over-all air defense system. We have already invested billions of dollars in providing our existing air defense with its interceptor planes, its antiaircraft guns and guided missiles, and its radar screens. Can we realize any effective defense from this investment? We have the public statements of our Air Force leaders as to our present severely limited capacity to down invading planes. It would seem, therefore, that we are faced with making an already huge investment of men, matériel, and systems really workable. If we can give our present system better eyes to detect low-flying aircraft which the existing radar doesn’t see; if we can give our interceptors and our antiaircraft — as well as our civilian defense — time to get set to fight an invading force; if we can improve the capacity and speed of our communication and control systems so that our generals can properly, amply, and quickly exert the functions of command — if we can do these things by further technical development, then we shall have a sound basis of appraising the proposed expenditures. We cannot isolate air defense from the whole military system to protect the continent of North America, which of course embraces land and sea power.

Our real problem and decision are not concerned with any one separate concept, such as early warning, but the whole system of air defense and what will make it effective as a system. Actually, there is evidence that effective early warning could reduce expenses and uncertainties in other parts of the system and thus partly offset its own cost. Only the concept of an effective over-all air defense system is meaningful when we consider capital and operating costs, and we should not be misled by charges that an adequate early-warning system would cost twenty billion dollars or some other figure that could only impoverish other arms of our military services.

The brutal conclusion is inescapable, however, that an adequate program for continental defense will be costly to the nation and will require sacrifices. Nevertheless we are not convinced that the costs need be a backbreaking burden to the country. We are convinced that this cost may be small compared with the risks - the loss of whole cities. We hasten to add that we advocate no particular budgetary allotment or solution. We seek only to point out the budgetary implications of current technical developments.

3

LET us now turn to a more specific examination of the technological aspects of air defense.

Electronic technical improvements essential to air defense are being systematically pursued by a variety of groups, and particularly and concentratedly by the Lincoln Laboratory at Cambridge and Lexington, Massachusetts. This laboratory is operating under an Air Force contract, but it is a tripartite organization working for and with all three military services, with each service sharing in the cost and in the management, and the Air Force providing the bulk of the funds. This laboratory is not limited in its program to early warning or any other component. It carries on its activities from both the components and systems points of view. Out of this project, and from others in industry — as, for example, in the Bell Telephone Laboratories— are coming certain promising developments. These cannot be guaranteed to come through as originally conceived; the only certain answer implicit in research is that certain answers may emerge, but not necessarily the ones envisaged.

Technically, the problem of defense, apart from the destruction of the enemy’s bases, requires putting the defensive weapons (interceptors, antiaircraft guns, or guided missiles) in position to destroy the invading planes and giving these weapons a high probability of effectiveness.

In these days of high-speed aircraft and guided missiles, the time for defensive combat to take place is very small, and there is seldom opportunity for a second shot if the first shot misses. It is, therefore, important to receive and analyze the information about the striking force extremely rapidly, and to deliver to the defensive forces in very short time the necessary instructions to put this force on target. In order to accomplish this, technological developments for rapid data processing of information are absolutely necessary and are being pushed toward the solution of the air defense problem. Having successfully brought the defensive weapon close to the enemy bomber, the kill potential of the interceptor weapon must be great enough to ensure a high probability of the bomber’s destruction.

Since the time of engagement is very short, since there is seldom an opportunity for a second pass at a target, and since the results of leakage through the air defense net are devastating, it is necessary to spread out the defenses in a series of zones or lines. A series of defensive weapons prevents any one of the weapons from becoming overloaded by a very heavy raid.

First, we need reliable early warning which can assuredly tell us that an actual attack is on its way or that a very serious and powerful feint is being made — the system giving this information without turning in false alarms. Such early warning not only serves to alert the defense but allows the civilian population and other military forces such as SAC to take proper defensive action. The warning should come hours and not minutes before the attack. Second, we need the ability to harass and destroy the attacking forces at long ranges from their targets. Third, we need an area defense in the regions of large population and industrial concentrations. Finally, we need short-range weapons such as antiaircraft guns and short-range guided missiles near the targets of greatest importance. Such a system, where each zone of defense can reduce and upset the striking forces and where the effect of a disastrous saturating raid is greatly reduced, can provide a measure of defense which is economically and technically feasible.

The solution of such a systems problem requires the very close coöperation of both military and technical persons. Technical developments are not useful to the military until they have been carefully adapted to military needs. Similarly, military concepts of defense must be guided by and based in part upon new technical developments.

One more word on the technology of continental defense. Atomic attack may not be confined to air or to delivery by manned aircraft. Defense against other methods of bomb delivery must not be neglected. Technology already promises to give us a better defense against submarine delivery — provided current developments are aggressively carried through to operational use. Delivery by intercontinental missiles is a future threat, but we must not be complacent about its being far in the future. The possibility of clandestine importation of atomic bombs must not be underestimated. We believe, however, that the aspect of defense which warrants special attention immediately is defense against delivery by manned aircraft.

4

WE COME now to some of the broader considerations which bear upon an adequate air defense. In the atomic arms race in which we are engaged, we have sought to make sure that this nation stays ahead, that we produce more and bigger bombs and better ways of delivering them. While we can derive satisfaction from our capacity to stay ahead, we cannot at the same time assume that this will provide us with security. As the former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Gordon Dean, and others have repeatedly pointed out, some point will be reached in the atomic arms race when relative atomic strength will be substantially less meaningful than it is now. This is true because the enemy will have enough — enough to cripple us if bombs can be delivered. Since the country with the lesser supply will have enough, simply adding to our atomic strength will not, under those conditions, ensure our security.

As we approach this condition, defense becomes increasingly important along with our capacity to deter. The knowledge that we have a good defense can add to our power to deter, combined with SAC and other arms. As the atomic race plunges on, air defense — the defense against the enemy’s delivery of his atom bombs— becomes inescapably more important.

The argument is heard that the advocates of a stronger air defense are isolationists, and that they seek to have America hide behind some mysterious electronic wall where she will maintain herself in lonely splendor and without entangling responsibilities. The reverse is actually true. Those who have a deep philosophical conviction that a stronger air defense is essential, reason from a different premise. They see the leadership of the United States strengthened by the world knowledge that we are prepared to repel as well as to invade. In the event of war, there is scant hope for our friends if we destroy our enemy and find ourselves destroyed.

An adequate defense can also add something to our bargaining powers at the international table. It provides another weapon for the arsenal of the free world. Moreover, it we can solve some of the problems, especially the technical problems, related to air defense, we can make a further important contribution to the success of NATO — to the defense of Europe. Our European allies look with dismay and horror at the prospect of an atomic war fought, not alone with the Soviets, but in Europe itself. If we and they are to prevent this, we will need more economical and more advanced methods of keeping the Russians out of Europe, and air defense improvements can help. A better air defense for North America can mean a better defense of Europe. Where does the defense of our allies or the confidence in us which brings us allies — where does this kind of defense differ from offense?

Our present and ultimate aim must of course be the prevention of war. A better defense will help in achieving this goal. Moreover, we might be more willing to enter into some agreement on the control of atomic weapons if we felt we had some reasonable means to detect treachery that might conceivably occur despite solemn covenants. If the Communists knew they would have great difficulty in breaking through our defense and in achieving a surprise, and that they would in turn be crippled by our retaliatory blow, they might he more amenable to some understanding.

These are factors which remove from air defense the tag of isolationism and which give it significance in the matrix of international relations. For these reasons it bears an important, if subtle, relationship to the sum total of our defensive efforts—the achievement of genuine peace.

As we in the United States examine the issues inherent in the air defense debate, we need above all to have more facts. We need more quantitative information about the threat we face. We need to have placed before us the qualitative considerations which affect our policy-making. When the recent Kelly report on continental defense was summarized in part in a news release, certain of its grim conclusions about the present threat to America were made less grim. The time has come for boldness and plain speaking. The American public is not well served by withholding facts that are vital to the decision-making of a democracy and to its self-preservation.

In resolving the issues posed by Russia’s possession of the H-bomb, our government will need the calm and courageous support of all Americans. The problem is immense in all phases, in its military, budgetary, technological, and political aspects. It cannot be adequately handled by the Department of Defense alone, or by the Administration alone, or by Congress alone. It requires the mobilization of the best wisdom and highest competence available in the nation.