DEFENSE: Determined Ally

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The free world's best military news last week registered most plainly in the outraged headlines of Rome's Communist daily L'Unità: ALARMING AMERICAN REVELATIONS OF AGREEMENT FOR MISSILES IN ITALY. The Red worry was well founded. Italy, after long debate, had decided to install two squadrons of U.S. intermediate-range (1,500 miles) ballistic missiles. The news from Rome put fresh mettle into NATO, greater depth and power into the West's entire defense structure.

Simple geography (see map) explained it. During the early '60s, when Russia may hold a temporary lead in numbers of intercontinental missiles, NATO's IRBMs based in England and Italy, later perhaps in Turkey, will cover enough targets in Russia to bridge the gap between less effective SAC bombers and rising numbers of U.S.-based ICBMs. Perhaps even more important, possession of missiles by NATO nations (for the time being the U.S. controls the atomic warheads) gives them a sense of participation in their own defense in the missile era.

While the Italians leaked their firm decision to a semi-official news agency, the missile they will get, the Army-designed Jupiter, was again proving its bright new reputation for reliability. In a summery twilight test-firing, Jupiter blasted aloft on its tenth successful flight (out of 15 tries, only one blowup), its third flight since Chrysler Corp. started supplying birds off its regular assembly line.*

But hardware did much less than the Italians last week to steady the West's sometimes teetering confidence in its security. "The American people," wrote Washington Columnist Roscoe Drummond, "would like nothing better than to stand up and salute a courageous, riskful and determined ally."