COLD WAR: If Trouble Is Brought To Us

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Shooting down another nation's plane these days involves less and less risk of turning the cold war hot. Since the end of the Korean war, the Communists have attacked and shot down seven U.S. reconnaissance planes over the Pacific. The U.S. has shot down three of its Communist attackers. Such incidents are increasingly regarded as one of the inevitable hazards of the costly reconnaissance along the cold war's bristling frontier.

Last week, in the midst of all the diplomatic blowup over Formosa, and at a time of international handwringing, a U.S. RB-45 reconnaissance jet bomber flew peacefully above the Yellow Sea, between the coasts of Korea and Red China, with twelve F-86 Sabre jets above it as top cover. Suddenly from nowhere flared out eight Communist MIGs—nationality uncertain, but intentions lethal. Four MIGs went for the RB-45, four for the Sabre jets. The Far East Air Forces' communique was laconic: "Pilots of the 4th Wing returned the attack and shot down two of the MIGs. The other six attackers then returned to Communist territory." U.S. losses: none.

This affray above the Yellow Sea differed from its predecessors in that it was the biggest and best organized Communist air ambush since Korea; also in that the Communists did not even bother to protest. Six hundred miles southward, in the storm center around the Tachen Islands, the Seventh Fleet took wary note. "I want tight formations, no straggling," one Navy flight leader told his pilots. "Test your guns as soon as you get into a clear area. Make certain they are ready. Remember this—we are not out looking for a fight. But if trouble is brought to us, I want every pilot ready to meet it."