Nation: The Scrap over Skybolt

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The Anglo-American crisis, said one angry Londoner, was the most serious since Suez. U.S. and British officials argued bitterly, and the British press roared the Lion's wrath. Britain, it was clear, felt that it had been doublecrossed by its closest ally—and all over a missile named Skybolt that has never yet worked.

Skybolt is a 40-ft.. two-stage, solid-fuel weapon designed to ride under a bomber's wing, then streak off on its own with a nuclear warhead aimed at targets up to 1,000 miles away. So far, the U.S. has spent or committed $657 million to develop Skybolt for use with the Strategic Air Command's B-52 bomber. And Britain has spent $25 million to adapt its otherwise obsolescent Vulcan II bomber to Skybolt.

There comes the rub. Britain has no long-range missile force of its own, canceled one land-based missile project—the 2,000-mile Blue Streak—in favor of a U.S. offer to develop Skybolt and charge Britain only the production costs of the missiles it orders. Since Britain was thereby persuaded to place all its missile hopes in Skybolt, it came as a considerable shock when the U.S. last week threatened to scrub the entire project.

Five Failures. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara has not included any new funds for Skybolt in his next defense budget. Last week in London, he explained why to British Defense Minister Peter Thorneycroft. In five flight tests so far, Skybolt's first stage has three times either failed to ignite or properly to lift the bird; twice, the second stage failed to fire. McNamara stressed Skybolt's "enormous complexity,'' noted that Skybolt development is lagging a year behind schedule, argued that the U.S.'s silo-protected, fast-firing Minuteman ICBM has vastly diminished the need for Skybolt.

Such talk did not calm the British. For one thing, they suspected that the U.S. would be just as happy if Britain continued without its own nuclear deterrent. For another, they thought the U.S. might be using the threat of killing Skybolt to pressure Britain into making a bigger contribution to NATO's conventional forces—a long-avowed U.S. aim. Finally, the British do not agree with McNamara's estimate of Skybolt and its potential. That disagreement is shared by many in the U.S.

High-Flying Pad. Skybolt's defenders insist that the five test failures are virtually meaningless; almost all missiles have failed in their early tests, including Polaris. The Skybolt enthusiasts say that their bird, along with Polaris and Minuteman, would give the U.S. greater missile flexibility—an aim long pursued by the Kennedy Administration. Minuteman's fixed bases can presumably be pinpointed and destroyed by an enemy, and Polaris' submarines move into position at only 30 knots, but Skybolt's bombers can fly at more than 600 m.p.h.