DEFENSE: Gap Flap

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Ever since the Russians began their space shots, an insistent array of U.S. military pundits, politicos and editorialists have charged that the U.S. is lagging behind the Russians in the missile race, is heading toward a disastrous missile gap in the 1960s, and is foolishly placing a balanced budget above adequate military defenses. Last week, at long last, Defense Secretary Neil McElroy, backed by "the best intelligence there is," rose to the challenge. With General Nathan Twining, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, McElroy went over to the Capitol to set the facts before the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Georgia's Richard Russell. McElroy's theme: There is no missile gap. Points:

¶ "We have no positive evidence" of any Soviet ICBM currently operational.

¶ The U.S.'s 6,000-mile Atlas will be in the field and operational by July 1959, at least as soon as the Russian counterpart is ready.

¶ Reports that the Russians will have 300 operational ICBMs by 1960 are "exaggerated."

¶ Though the Russians lead in engines of greater thrust, "it doesn't make much difference, because the U.S. has the propulsion to get the weapon to the target."

¶ The U.S. has the ability (through Air Force and Navy aircraft operating from a system of worldwide bases) "to deliver strategic weapons of such destructive power that the deterrent effect of this delivery capability would discourage any embarkation by the Sino-Soviet bloc in general war."

McElroy had hardly closed his mouth before Missouri's Democratic Senator and Presidential Aspirant Stuart Symington -who was Assistant Secretary of War for Air (1946-47) and first Secretary of the new Air Force (1947-50), when the

U.S. was asleep at the missile switch -went into counterattack in a prepared speech on the Senate floor. The missile gap, he cried, is not closed but widening. By 1961, he declared, the Russians will have four times the number of ICBMs in U.S. installations -and this because the Eisenhower Administration "is not planning to spend the necessary funds" to keep pace with the Soviets.