THE NATION: The True Deterrent

The great defense debate that blasted off in the wake of Sputnik I, the honest fears of a dangerous U.S. "missile gap" that flared in the repeated failures of U.S. rocketry — all the long, loud argument seemed like a fading whisper last week as shot after shot sent U.S. missiles successfully down their test ranges, and headed satellites toward space.

But the debate was well worth the wear and tear. Beyond the wild alarums of the critics and President Eisenhower's smug claim of last January that he knew more about defense than anybody else, it engendered some long-overdue rethinking of U.S. defense policies. For one thing, the Administration finally made up its mind to concentrate on an array of offensive missiles and bombers, and to chuck expensive defensive systems (TIME, April 18). And last week the prestigious House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, in a thoughtful audit, generally endorsed the Administration's "mixed-force concept" of missiles and bombers (and put to rest concern about a missile gap). Then it raised a question far more fundamental to U.S. defense than hardware: Must the U.S. always plan to take the first blow in future wars?

The Obvious. In the slow, careful phrases of Chairman George H. Mahon, a tough-minded Texan who has tackled his job as a Defense Department watchdog with fierce integrity, the report spelled the real meaning of the deterrent. The mixed force, said Mahon & Co., not only makes it tough for an enemy to choose targets for attack, it forces him to maintain a defense against a number of different weapons systems. "This mixed-force capability is being planned or provided through the employment of the large ICBM installations hardened against nuclear attack, the smaller mobile Minuteman ICBM, the elusive Polaris fleet ballistic missile system, and the continuing capability of our strategic bomber force, including the limited development of an advanced version in the B70 bomber.

"In the final analysis," said Mahon, "to effectively deter a would-be aggressor, we should maintain our armed forces in such a way and with such an understanding that, should it ever become obvious that an attack upon us or our allies is imminent, we can launch an attack before the aggressor has hit either us or our allies. This is an element of deterrence which the U.S. should not deny itself. No other form of deterrence can be fully relied upon."