REF ID:A39483 

r 

'-

DENVER 

. ; ' 

We now have radar on U.S. borders, in Alaska and in 

Labrador, hut Russian planes from bases shown at top 

of map c~uld attack by sea routes or through central 

Canada (red-tinted area). Plans call for two more 

radar nets-Alaska-Greenland, Alaska-Labradorwith seaward flanks covered by airborne radar patrols 

32 

' '23~ '" I u , , 

OAKRIDGE .. 
REF ID:A39483 

33 

RUSSIAN PLANES 

Are Raiding Canadian Skies 

C• II,,.,.~ 

IIBy WTIJLILTIAM Ao lUlLJWAN ~ ·ccr :rs 

They sneak in almost daily, our northern outposts report. And now that Russia has the 

H-bomh we're wide. open to attack. What's being done about it? The author, seeking 

the answer, visited installations so secret he can't say he's seen them, flew thousands of 

miles-and saw the Red intruders himself. We are building a defense. Here's the story 

UTSIDE, the arctic summer day was crisp 

and clear; the waters of Bering Strait shone 

dully in the distance. Inside the big alert 

hangar of the jet-fighter interceptor squadron the 

atmosphere was deceptively casual. There were 

13 of us gathered in the fliers' hot room: six pilots, _ six flying radar officers and myself, a reporter seeking the most critical story of our time-the story 

of America's present line of defense against Malenkov's H-bomb. 

We were sitting around playing poker, but we 

were dressed in dark-blue high-altitude pressure 

suits, ready for any emergency. And suddenly, as 

we sat there, it came: the blast of the scramble 

horn. A captain sitting across the table hurriedly 

scraped back his chair, beckoned to me and ran 

out the door. 

One of our big radar stations on the west coast 

of Alaska had picked up the blip of an unidentified plane on its radarscope-almost certainly a 

Russian. 

Almost every day, at least one unidentified airplane ·violates our continental borders. "They 

come in a( all times and places," a general in the 

Alaskan Air Command had t.old me, "and some have even penetrated deep into north central Canada." Teddy Roosevelt would have called this a 

shooting war. To the pilots at our advance interceptor bases, 

it's not a shooting war-yet. They call the Red 

reconnaissance planes "spoofs"; their mission apparently is to feel out our radar defenses and photograph our coasts, and when our jets go out to 

meet them, they run. But someday maybe the Red 

plane will be a real "bogey"-a Russian who 

doesn't run-and the pilots whose job it is to chase 

them off never know that this won't be the day. 

They hope the day never comes. That first bogey 

probably will be accompanied by hundreds more, 

headed for the United States and carrying what 

our pilots sardonically calJ The People's Bomb for 

Peace and Plenty-the hydrogen bomb, Russian 

version. 

My pilot and I charged down the hangar stairs 

onto the ramp, and hurried into our Mae Wests, 

complete with a tricky new pocketful of survival 

gadgets. Next came the parachutes with an attached collapsible dinghy for a seat cushion, then 

the big plastic helmets with earphones, microphone, oxygen mask, glareproof visor-ev'erything 

built in, I thought, except the brains. 

In adjacent hangars, the crews of the other two 

planes making the interception were racing to 

complete their own preparations. 

The ground crew silently and swiftly strapped 

us into the plane's ejection seats, connected the 

oxygen hoses and leaped away. We were already 

moving; a jet needs no warmup. The hydraulically 

powered canopy snapped down over us and locked. 

"Tower to Air Force Jet 994. Cleared for immediate take-off!" It was' just 2 minutes, 40 seconds 

since the horn had first blown. My pilot cut in the 

afterburner, a jet plane device which instantly increases power thrust by 50 per cent. We sped off the 

field, banked sharply, then began to climb at top 

speed to 43,000 feet. By now the operators at the 

radar control center had taken over our threeplane flight, steering us by .voice direction toward 

the blip on their scope. 

Minutes later, we spotted the distant gleam of a 

Russian reconnaissance plane, speeding back toward its Siberian base. "There he goes," said the 

pilot. "Always the same story. Let's go home." 

. We went into a turning dive and headed back 

for the penny-ante game. The room smelled of 

fresh coffee and stale smoke as we walked in. The 

other pilots hardly looked up. The captain returned 

to his seat, picked up his cards and frowned. · "Another of the same," he said. "No sweat." 

I could sense his frustration, but I couldn't share 

it. For me the flight had been both exciting and 

frightening. I kept thinking: What if that had been 

many planes instead of just one-,-planes which 

didn't turn tail, but kept coming, bound for the 

States? What did we have to stop at least one of 

those planes, loaded with a hydrogen bomb, from 

shattering one of our cities? 

The answer, I knew by now, was-not enough. 

For weeks, I had been on a journalistic survey 

for Collier's, trying to find the answer to these 

questions: Can we defend ourselves now against a 

massive sneak air raid intended to knock us out 

in a single blow? If not now, when? Just what 

are the details of our defenses against the new Soviet H-bomb? 

In the course of my assignment, I flew thousands of miles in all kinds of jet aircraft from all 

the edges of our continent. I talked at length with 

the best military and scientific brains in this coun- try and Canada. I visited the headquarters of our 

Air Defense Command at Colorado Springs and 

of the Air Research .and Development Command · 

at Baltimore. I have been inside installations where 

-despite my top-level clearance by the PentagonMAP BY JO KOTULA 

In radar control cen~er today, ma~s of data is 

written backward on transparent board so the 

officers in front can read it. This methodclumsy, complicated and (due to confusion) 

potentially dangerous-has been made obsolete 

by development of a new electronic computer 
REF ID:A39483 

34 

LEW MERRtM 

Brig. Gen. J. W. McCauley (left, with Maj. M. P. Alger) heads air defense of east central U.S., 

where one third nation's wealth, one fourth its people could he destroyed by nine H-bomhs 

some of the equipment was concealed from my • The big gap in our defenses once the radar nets 

eyes. I have even been permitted to enter plac.es I are operating will be fighter planes; We have inter- can never admit I've seen, and have spoken to men · ceptors in northeijstern Canada and in Alaska; in 

I must not identify. between and on both flanks there are holes-the 

Here's what I found: Russians could drive a whole fleet of aerial trucks • We have a partial radar fence along the U.S.- through. 

Canadian border, but it's too wide-spaced, too Obviously, radar nets and fighter protection 

complex and too close to home-"a fence," said alike require the same friendly and vigorous co- one officer grimly, "with no wire strung between operation from Canada that the United States has 

the Washington-New York-Pittsburgh target area. That's 4,200 miles. From the Russian base at 

Franz Josef Land, it's only 3,800 miles; from 

Severnaya Zemlya, 3,875 miles; from the Taymyr 

Peninsula and Novo Sibirskiye Ostrova Zemlya 

Islands straight across the pole, 4,500 miles; from 

Wrangel Island and various points along the Bering Strait or the Chukotski Peninsula, 4,000 to 

4,500 miles." From the very positions of these air 

bases, w_e know that the Russians can mean· to use them only to attack us. , Do they have the planes to do the job? 

The Soviet air force is known to have hundreds, 

perhaps thousands, of the TU-4, a copy of our B-29, which carried the first atomic bombs to 

Japan. Fanning out from Murmansk and the 

Chukotski Peninsula, TU-4s could bomb any point 

in the U.S. except Florida, and still have fuel for an additional 500 miles of flight. Besides the 

TU-4, the Russians have a new Type 31 turbojet 

bomber-similar to our B-36 and presumed to 

carry at least five tons of bomb loa"d at more than 

450 miles an hour for at least 5,000 miles. 

Should the Reds use either of these planes, they 

might not get home, but it would scarcely mattereven to the pilots. They could crash land or bail 

out and permit themselves to be taken prisonersecure _in the knowledge that if a surprise attack came off as planned, the United States would be 

out of the war almost before it started. A success- ful one-way knockout raid, sacrificing perhaps the 

majority of 400 or 500 planes, could kill as many 

as 35,000,000 Americans and destroy the U.S. as a world power. 

Besides the Type 31 and the TU-4, the Russians 

have developed a light, fast bomber like the B-57 we recently announced. It could carry an atomic or thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb, but 'by itself 

it could never fly .the 4,000 miles or so from Russia to the nearest important American target. Does 

that mean we're ignoring it as a possible participant 

in a surprise attack? Not by a long shot. 

the posts." Our border radar won't warn us of always received in the past. But Canada-al- Comment on the New Red Plane 

attack soon enough; onrushing bombers would though its dilemma today is much like that of a · reach some of their targets almost as fast as the person handcuffed to a man who has been publicly In an Air Force installation, I stood talking to a 

warning of their approach. At best, the inhabit- threatened with assassination-,-has reason to look top scientist and a uniformed Air Force officer 

ants of our large Northern cities might have barely. searchingly at any proposals for joint action put about the new Red plane. "The Russkies could do 

time to run for the cellar-and the cellar is no de- forward by the United States. Our past record has this," said the scientist. "They could put a big 

fense against the H-bomb. not been entirely consistent-and a Canadian offi- TU-4 into the air, then send up two of the new • Next year we may be better off. A more effec- cer I spoke to indicated why. light jet bombers to join it. The two jets could ,~-~---~tive·raaar lin-el.Sbem-g:·pushed-ancnest-stationflfr'e~- -· -''Lo-ok here~"-he said, ·"I"believe-we'<lb'e-gla-a-t1Y -- hook-onto-the~Tl;:J~4's wing-tips, tilting-their-own------

being constructed in the Far North; if the first units let you build a couple of bases in the north-central wings to maintain the best possible flight characwork, we probably will have a warning net froni tundra-,but would you man them and keep them teristics, then cut their own fuel-swilling engines 

Alaska to Greenland by the summer of 1954. It manned even after a change in political administra- and hitchhike almost all the way to the target on will give us from four to six hours' warning of any tions? Would you send in enough strength to keep the TU-4's power plant." 

air attack. . the Russians from paratrooping in one day and I expressed astonishment, and the Air Force offi-

,e Sometime later-I'm not permitted to say when using the fields as bases against both of our coun- cer objected. "In _bad weather," he said, "all three -a second row of radar outposts may be strung tries? of 'em would crash." 

across Canada in the more easily accessible _terri- "We can't afford to build or man them. If you "Ah," said the scientist, "but the Russians would 

tory between our present border fence and the can, fine-but stick to your promises!" never launch the attack in bad weather in the first new net being built in the arctic. It will confirm One fact all the experts agree on: something place. And if the three planes ran into squalls en 

the first warning and indicate the actual direction must be done to strengthen our northern air de- route, they could simply unhook, make their way 

of attack. fense. system before Russia has an H-bomb pro- through the front separately, then reunite on the 

Construction Depends on the Weather 

The construction of these two northern radar 

nets depends on the vagaries of arctic weather, the 

uncertainty of Congressional appropriations and 

the strategical concepts of our new Joint Chiefs of 

Staff. The nets, together with our airborne radar 

at sea, would be tremendous steps forward-perhaps enough to make the difference between the 

survival and the utter destruction of our country 

as a major power. The two early-warning lines 

would be far less expensive than has been widely re~ 

ported elsewhere-less than a billion and a half dollars, compared with published estimates of between 

20 and 150 billions. This whole concept of effective 

warning at low cost is made possible by two exciting new devices, never before publicly disclosed: 

a self-watching radarscope and a long-range radio 

transmitter capable of overcoming tb:e especially 

difficult communications problems of the arctic. 

. Right now, our air-defense planners intend to 

build the two radar fences__..:._weather, Congress 

and the Joint Chiefs permitting. 

duction line. If Soviet bombers could claw their other side. A radar operator trying to track them 

way through to our East Coast and. drop only would go crazy. What had looked like one big 

nine hydrogen bombs in a line from Boston to slow TU-4 would suddenly become one TU-4--

Washington, they could blast out of existence a and two very fast jet bombers, breaking away in 

strip 50 miles wide and 450 miles long-a strip different directions for their own targets." 

containing one fourth the nation's population We stood silent a moment, then the scientist 

and one third of its wealth. grinned. "I got the Order of the Heroes of the 

* * * 

The nerve center of our aerial defense today is 

in Colorado· Springs, a quiet, year-round resort 

town less than five minutes from Denver by jet 

plane. There, in a modem four-story office building surrounded by a high wire fence and heavily 

guarded by sentries, Brigadier General Kenneth P. 

Bergquist, deputy chief of staff for operations of 

the Air Defense Command, stood with me at a 

globe and detailed the story of what we are up 

against. 

"Facing us across the polar flats is a crescent of 

Russian and Siberian air bases," he said, gesturing . 

"If you place a bit of string on the globe, starting 

at the shore of the Murmansk Peninsula, it will . 

curve over the arctic by the shortest route to 

Soviet Union for that one," he said. Then he explained: to test defense theories, he and his colleagues try to foresee the most outlandish schemes 

the Russians might coine up with; for particularly 

nasty ideas, they "decorate" one another. 

Virtually all the air-defense people I questioned 

about potential Soviet weapons discount the possible use of intercontinental missiles~long-range, 

atomic versions of the German V-2. Among other 

reasons, they doubt that materials exist to build 

such missiles, at least for. another I 0 to 12 years. 

They are working on countermeasures just to be 

safe, but they feel certain that when and if the 

H-bomb is delivered, it will be carried by aircraft. 

known to us in fact or principle-planes we can 

destroy, provided we have early enough warning 

and sufficient defense forces. If Russia Were to 

Collier's for October 16, 1953 
REF ID:A39483 

_& l \\' I 

36 

U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO 

Russia's basic carrier of atomic weapons is the TU-4, patterned on our B-29. From Arctic 

bases, it could fly one-way to any target in the U.S. outside Florida, with fuel to spare 

U.S. AIR FOlt.CE PHOTO 

One plan for defense against TU-4 is to make a long-distance fighter-inter~eptor of fast 

new B-57. It has enough range to fly far into Canada, enough speed to bedazzle Red bomber 

attack tomorrow, what defenses do we have-right 

here and now? 

We have excellent fighter-interceptors-but not 

enough of them. 

We have highly modernized and efficient antiaircraft defenses, now being beefed up by Nike 

guided missiles battalions-but again, there aren't 

enough of them. 

We have a Ground Observer Corps (ably supported by a like organization in Canada)-but it's 

badly understaffed. 

We have an excellent civil and military communicr.tions system-but it's inadequate for the 

tremendous load an all-out Russian attack would 

put on it. . We have a partly completed perimeter of manually operated radar stations around the U.S., not 

only on our northern border,. but on the coasts 

as well. 

But there are too .few of them, and they are 

tao complicated for efficiency and too close to 

our industrial centers to give sufficient warning. 

Their detecting impulses extend roughly 150 miles 

out to sea-only a few minutes' flying time, by jet 

-and, depending on terrain, about 100 miles into 

Canada. They extend as far again into the U.S., in 

order to allow continuous tracking of an invader. 

One arin of this radar perimeter now extends to 

Labrador. 

We have additional so-called islands· of radar 

coverage deep inside the U.S., aroun<:t such prime 

target areas as Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Hanford. 

We have a couple of Navy radar picket ships- . still experimental· and limited in range. 

We have an adjunct to our defense system, set 

up in recent months and called TOMCIS. (Test of 

Multiple Corridor Identification System). Under 

TOMCIS, the pilot of each incoming international 

airliner gets secret orders at his last port of call 

before heading for the U.S. The orders require 

him to fly a special pattern, always different, as 

he approaches this country. He must keep to that course. If our radar picks up a plane at the wrong 

place or tune, an interceptor goes up to look the 

stranger over-and to shoot him down, if need be, 

over the safe, far reaches of the sea. When the 

system first started there were about 200 interceptions of wandering airliners a month. Now that 

most commercial pilots are getting used to the 

method, the figure is down to about 30 a montbbut that's still too many. . 

There's the picture of our air .defenses as they 

stand today-creaky, insufficient, agape with holes. 

Moreover, there are weak spots which don't appear on the surface. Our radar net, thin as it is, is 

rarely in full operation at all points, although it 

tries to keep a 24-hour watch on our borders. 

All of its equipment is delicate and complicated, 

and at any given moment some components are out of action for maintenance or repair; neighboring installations have to try to cover the gap. 

There's a human problem, too--and it has been 

one of the biggest flaws in the system. · Radar has to be watched, and watchers grow 

weary and confused-weary in monotonous areas like the Far North, where one blip on a radarscope 

is considered heavy traffic, confused in busy areas like the northeastern United States, where there's 

often too much happening for a single brain to figure it out. 

I saw it work both ways. 

At the Alaskan fighter-interceptor outpost where 

·1 observed the Russian reconnaissance-plane chase, 

I spent some time in the radome, standing behind a thin young officer hunched over a radarscope. He was watching the progress of a blip already identified as the plane of a low-flying bush pilot. The offi- cer kept passing a band over his eyes. "Watching 

these damn' scopes gets your eyes after about 30 

minutes," he told me. "You lose your acuity." He 

looked weary, and welcomed another officer's offer 

to spell him .. 

Science of Radar Control Operation 

Now look in, as I did, on a typical aircraft c~ntrol and warning radar station in the U.S. proper. 

It was a dimly lighted, busy place_:.an amphitheater of radarscopes, with the center of the stage 

occupied by a big, vertical, transparent Plexiglas 

map, or plotting board. Behind the board stood 

two airmen and a W AF wearing earphones. As 

information poured in on the various scopes in 

front-some set for 10 miles, others for as much as 150 miles-it was telephoned to the three plotters. They lettered the information on the board 

in reverse, so that it could be read from the other 

side by the scope watchers in the front of the 

theater. 

The mood of the room was tense; the men at the 

radarscopes kept staring up at the big board, their 

foreheads wrinkled, their lips tight. ("This," said 

a stocky little scientist standing near me, "is man's 

new attitude-:-to look toward heaven, his eyes 

clouded with doubt and fear.") There was reason for the tension. 

Suppose a blip appears in one position on a radarscope-and information then comes in from 

.',.,.. "'anotbentation· irrdicating~anoth·er plane·in-tlfe same- area. · 

Are. there actually two planes, or just one? The 

difference in the angle of vision of the two scan- ning stations, perhaps 50 miles apart, could 

give the misleading impression that there are two 

planes when actually there's only one, but the 

watcher has to be sure. And the only way to be 

sure is to do a fairly complicated calculation. Now 

multiply that situation by the 30 or more tracks 

on the big Plexiglas board, and imagine the possible confusion. 

Scores of time-consuming, brain-wearying multiple calculations beset our large aircraft and 

warning radar stations every day. Mental exhaustion is a constant hazard. When it overtakes our watchers ... 

That is the moment when time-and the Soviet 

-could overtake us. 

• • • 

For more than three years, from late 1946 to 

mid-1950, almos.t nothing was done to improve our continental defenses. We lived in a kind of 

heedless complacency, convinced that a cut-rate 

defensive system would serve the purpose. Then 

came Korea_:and the nation awoke to the chilling 

fact that it takes guns to stop aggression. Beyond 

our vulnerable border with Canada there were no 

guns, nor even warning devices to set off the alarm 

in case of attack. 

Our military men, given a go-ahead.at last, began to seek out a method of getting the most protection in the quickest time and at the smallest 

cost. 

They came up with two alternatives. 

First, we could strengthen and extend our borCollier's for October 16, 1953 
der radar to provide continuous tracking of any 

attacking bombers as they approached the continental United States; our fighter-interceptors and 

antiaircraft would then know the precise location 

and direction of enemy bombers, once the radar 

had picked them up. That would give a certain degree of protection, but not much warning in terms 

of time. 

Or second, we could set up a new radar-alarm 

system, constructed far enough from United States 

borders (and targets) to give us the earliest possible notice that an attack was on the way. That 

wouldn't offer the same opportunity to pinpoint 

the location of an enemy bomber as he headed 

south-but it would mean a quick, timely warning, which might be the best protection in the long 

run. 

E1Jectivene1111 of Radar Shown 

Then the planners thought: Why not have both? 

Why not build gradually outward from our borders in advancing perimeters, and also establish a 

warning fence in the Far North, the two radar 

projects ultimately meeting in mid~Canada? 

With strengthened border radar, we could in-· 

crease the effectiveness of our home defenses. 

With the second step-known to military men as· 

a Distant Early Warning, or DEW, Line-we 

could insure ourselves against another Pearl Harbor debacle. 

We could get our strategic bombers--our counterpuncheN-into the air and safely dispersed, 

REF ID:A39483 

ready to launch an attack as quickly as possible. We 

could alert our civil-defense system, and give ourselves time to take cover and time to prepare for a 

fight-time to save the nation. 

The amount of time? With one hour's warning, 

the Strategic Air Command could get no more 

than 10 per cent of its bombers off the ground and 

out of harm's way. Three hours would raise the 

figure to 50 per cent. But a six-hour advance notice would enable. virtually all the SAC's planes to 

disperse and launch a retaliatory strike. What's 

more, given that much time. our fighter planes 

could rally to attack the intruders; the existence of 

a Distant Early Warning Line could mean the destruction of as many as 90 per cent of attacking 

enemy bombers before they could reach their targets-compared with the 30 per cent figure cited 

in 1950 by General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, former 

Air Force Chief of Staff. 

But before the six-hour DEW Line could be 

built, there were some problems to lick. 

Obviously, no defensive system could operate at 

top efficiency where so much depended on human 

eyes and human brainll working under severe 

stress: 

Also, a radar net in the Far North would cause a 

major communications headache. The best radio 

equipment then available was useless in the arctic 

for about four months out of every year because of 

polar magnetic storms; there had to be some way to 

get word from the northern DEW Line to the control centers in the United States. Finally, costs had 

to be held to a minimum. 

39 

The task of making the DEW Line a practical 

project was assighed to the Air Research and Development Command, a three-ring circus of military, scientific and industrial brains, directed by 

Major General Donald L. Putt from an old offic~ 

building in downtown Baltimore. 

In 1950, ARDC l~t contracts for various parts 

of its research operation to the Rand Corporation, 

Associated Universities, Inc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and various other colleges, 

laboratories and scientific centers around the country. Their mission: "To perfect an automatic system for the collection, reporting and display of 

electronically digested intelligence (so it can) be 

channeled instantly to appropriate control and 

command centers where the early knowledge 

could be used for effective defense and counterattack purposes." 

"Automaticity" Latest Coined Word 

The scientists coined a word for the solution to 

most of these problems. "Automaticity," a top scientist told me, "was the obvious answer. Man can 

still make the final decisions, but he's just not 

bright enough to compete with a machine, not 

quick enough to reduce the mathematical problems of modern war to actions which have to be 

taken at supersonic speeds. And even if man 

could do the job," he added, "he lacks the stamina to keep it up." 

By last year, the scientists had come through 

with two revolutionary devices whose developTED GOODMAN, U!AP · 

~----------------------~-----------------~-----... ·~-~-~---~-~------· 

...--· 

...'.'.'-.. "'~ 

-f,'E>..'....-: .-

11 

/: 

/: 

.1' 

' I 

....,.... .. __ j 

One of our border radar 11tation11. Search radar antenna is located under the dome at left, height-finder equipment on the tower at right 

Collier's for October 16, 1953 
42 

( ( 

... --:J 

AIR LINE 

COMPANIES 

.{ 

REF ID:A39483 

Today a foe could fly safely almost to our border 

ment marked the technological "breakthrough" the military men had hoped for. · 

"First," an ARDC official in Baltimore told me, "we had to devise a 

completely new method of sure arctic 

communication by radio. Cable was 

no good, because of shifting ice and 

other terrain and weather considerations-to say nothing of possible 

sabotage. Second, we needed a warning· device on the radar sets to relieve 

men in arctic· stations of the brainwearying job of staring endlessly at a 

blank scope." 

Security still envelops both of the 

devices which solved these problems. 

But this much can be said: 

The new radio transmitter sends 

messages well over 500 miles, and operates even more efficiently in the 

arctic than radio normally does in 

temperate zones. Instead of being 

knocked out of. commission one third 

of every year by magnetic storms, it 

will get through 99 per cent of the _ 

time, year-round. It requires only 40 

kilowatts of power, easily produced by 

Diesel generators. With the new transmitter, our combat commands within 

the United States will get radar intelligence from the arctic within three minutes after it's picked up by our outposts. 

The new self-alerting ,radar is, in 

one respect at least, even 'more important. In essence, it's a radar set with 

a bell which rings whenever the scope 

picks up a signal (that sounds simple, 

but it took months of patient research 

to hook the visual radar to the audible 

bell). Now the radar will not have to 

be watched constantly. As a result, 

there will be far less strain on the men 

assigned to our radar outposts. 

But the great significance of'the new 

radar device is that it will bring about 

a truly astonishing saving in man 

power-10 men to a station, instead of 

-the 300 once anticipated, an-over-all· 

r~duction of perhaps 15,000 airmen 

and many millions of dollars. 

.today, with the last theoretical hurdles cleared, Western Electric has 

started work, under a $20,000,000 

contract, on a test leg of our arctic 

DEW Line: a few ten-man radar stations extending eastward in a 180-mile 

arc from Barter Island, off the northern Alaskan coast. Eventually, the arc 

will push farther and farther along the 

net parallel until it reaches Greenland, 2,000 miles away. 

A husky engineer who had just flown 

back from the area told me: ''We had 

to take up every nail, board and \Vire, 

every ounce of fuel and scrap of food, 

from Seattle and Portland, so we could 

get the building done during the short 

arctic summer." A huge supply convoy, including everything from Liberty Ships to LSTs, passed through 

Bering Strait in July-uncioubtedly 

giving Russian radar operators a nasty 

few hours before it turned away from 

the Siberian coast and headed no'fth• 

east toward Point Barrow. 

In addition to the new manned radar stations, Western Electric is constructing several other stations which 

comprise a new wonder weapon in 

themselves: they are unmanned, and 

will do their reporting automatically. 

These additional statio'ns are needed 

because the manned stations are to be 

built about 100 miles apart, on an average--close enough so that their 

search beams overlap, but so far apart 

that enemy. bombers could sneak 

through under the converging beams, 

or by ducking behind mountain ranges 

which are effective hiding places from 

radar. The unmanned radar sets will 

fill the gaps. 

Duties of DEW Line 

Precisely what will the DEW Line do? 

It will simply alert officials in the 

United States to the presence of enemy 

planes. It won't be able to pinpoint 

their position, it won't be able to supply much information about thembut it will provide this much vital information: a warning that the planes 

are coming, and some indication of 

their number. As one Bell Telephone 

Laboratories engineer is said to have 

put it: "You'll knq,w the planes are 

there-one, two, many ... or jeepers 

creepers!" 

When finished, the arctic DEW Line 

will consist of a string of manned stations, -complete~ with- arctic gap fillers 

and an all-season communications system to the interior of the United 

States. 

"But," said another holder of the 

Order of the Heroes of the Soviet Union, "what if the arctic DEW Line is 

penetrated? At best, we can track an 

, intruder 80 or 100 miles-the range of 

our radar-then we lose him in the wilderness. Washington and Ottawa will 

know only that someone has crossed 

the arctic headed south, probably with 

evil intent, else he'd have filed a flight 

plan and come in like anyone else instead of skulking through. Once· he's 

well past our northern radar stations 

no one will have any idea where he is 

or where he's going until he's breathing 

down our necks. 

"And that's why we've suggested the 

construction of a second DEW Line, 

down around the 65th parallel, or about 

500 miles south of the first one." . In Baltimore, a general also spoke to 

me about the radar fence the experts 

are already calling DEW Line II. "It 

would begin to give us something really 

good in, early warning," he said earnestly. ''We could plot the course of 

an intruder crossing two lines. That 

would prove definitely that'he was dangerous-and, more important, it would 

give us his course, so we could prepare 

our combat defenses." 

DEW Line II, lower down on the 

expanding face of the globe, would require more . stations, running from 

Alaska across Hudson Bay to Labrador. 

Besides the two DEW 'Lines, our 

early warning system undoubtedly will 

be extended over our exposed sea 

flanks, using radar-equipped Super 

Constellations--covering the Atlantic 

from Newfoundland to the Azores, 

the Pacific from Alaska to Hawaii. 

Without this flank protection, our 

whole air-defense system would be 

wide open to end runs, making the 

DEW Lines virtually useless. 

Finally, U.S. · military experts are 

hoping to improve radar defenses 

within the United States-around the 

borders and around large cities and 

vital defense installations. These socalled radar islands are already in existence, but they suffer from the usual 

radar shortcoming: there are potentially dangerous gaps under their beams 

and behind mountains and other terrain features. Now scientists, working 

closely with the Air Force, have suggested plugging these holes with small 

unmanned-gap fillers, perhaps -six-or--

ten to every large radar. 

But increasing the number of radar 

installations creates new problems. Remember the aircraft control and warning radar station in the United States, 

and the strained faces of the watchers 

trying to keep track of dozens of radar 

reports at once? What will happen to 

those men if the number of radar reports is greatly inc;reased-if, instead 

of having to make sense of multiple reports from only one big radarscope, 

they're forced to keep track of eight or 

ten more besides? 

Once more science came through 

Curvature of earth causes holes in radar defense under overlapping beams, making it possible for attacking 

planes to slip past undetected. Solution is to put auiomatic radar gap-fillers between manned sta~ions 
REF ID:A39483 

44 

Wnere .. happy endings s+an-

· Isn't this Just the ticket for a happy 

ending? Going Pullman-you end up the 

way you begin-at a business-like hour in 

the center of town. 

Next titne you goTake it easy 

Go PuttMAN 

COMFORTABLE, CONVENIENT AND SAFE 

Enjoy the Rail-Auto Travel Plan. .,.. 

Your Ticket Agent will gladly 

make arrangements •. 

... 

C•n't our radar· be attacked? Yes 

with a brilliant solution: an adaptation 

of the high-speed electronic computer, 

the ultimate in automaticity. 

Not only will the new computer evaluate any number of ·radar reports-it 

also will take into consideration every 

other possible pertinent fact: groundobserver reports, the weather, flight 

plans and so on. No longer will men 

and women have to scrawl radar tracks 

painstakingly (and backward) on 

transparent boards. No longer will 

the watchers knit their brows over the 

results. 

Here's what will happen instead: 

At any one of the Air Force's big 

combat centers, a team of officer specialists will sit in front of big individual 

radar consoles, each equipped with 

rows of buttons and switches so the 

watcher can call up precisely the information he wants. When a tracker thinks 

he has an actual intruder, he'll buck the 

radar picture along to 

the identification officer's 

screen, while the electronic 

computer busily figures 

out the mystery plane's 

speed, position, heading 

and the like. The identification officer will call on 

the computer for civilian 

and military flight plans, 

ground observer reports, 

everything he needs to 

make a prompt identification; it has a "memory" 

for such matters and will 

supply them _on request. 

If the blip on the identification officer's radar 

screen remains a mystery, 

he swiftly passes the picture to the boss, the sector 

ties everything else together and makes 

it work. 

But one vital component is still missing. A warning of impending attack is 

all very we!J-but it doesn't provide 

protection. That is the job of the 

fighter aircraft, guided missiles and 

antiaircraft guns. 

• • • 

A Russian bomber which approached the United States through 

central Canada today, or via the East 

or West Coasts, would not only go undetected until it was almost at our 

borders-it would go unattacked as 

well. Even if the two DEW Lines were 

already in operation, there wouldn't 

be a fighter plane for miles arounduntil · the enemy was virtually within 

striking distance of United States territory. 

We have fighter-interceptor bases in 

"It's just about time you 

commander (probably a turned over an old leaf!" 

brigadier general), who 

sits with the weapons asCOLLIER'S CHARLES SKILES 

signer. They study the blip -- -~then-· do· the job~ tnar--ncr-machine, -·· easrern'CafiaCla,~ mainly inLabiador, ·-

however efficient, can do: exercise in- and in the west in Alaska. In between 

telligent judgment. there's a deep pocket, aimed straight 

The weapons assigner transfers the at the heart of our nation. Why is it 

still-unidentified picture quickly to the there? 

interceptor officer, who is in touch with Partly for the same reason we don't 

·a nearby air base. He then orders a have a complete radar-warning system 

scramble. today-because of the years between 

As the single jet takes off to inves- World War II and Korea in which we 

tigate, the interceptor officer tells the did little or nothing to prepare our 

pilot where he'll find the intruder, read- . continental defenses. 

ing off information supplied by the Whether we will be able to meet the 

computer (in the not too distant future, deficiency in our :fighter defense dethe computer will be able to pass its in- pends largely on whether the planes . formation directly to· the pilot; he will are made available in time-and that, 

read the course, altitude and position of in tum, depends on budgetary and 

the stranger from dials in his cockpit). policy considerations. 

Antiaircraft Is Made Ready 

Meanwhile~ Air Force officials are 

making additional plans. One suggestion under consideration is that we 

Meanwhile, the weapons assigner develop heavy patrol fighters-or 

has flipped a second switch, and the modify some of our new B-57s, patblip appears before still another man, . terned after the British Canberra 

the antiaircraft liaison officer; who sits . fighter bomber-and set them patrolready to bring into play all the antiair- ling in overlapping arcs across the borcraft guns and rockets in the area if the der. They would have enough range to 

interceptor attacks and misses, or is fly deep into Canada-about as far as 

shot down. DEW Line II-and enough speed to 

From the time an enemy plane is make them a real threat to the relafirst sighted on the radarscopes to the tively slow-flying TU-4, which will 

moment it's brought under fire, only a· probably be Russia's principal longfew minutes have elapsed-and in the distance bomber for some time to 

bustling combat centers, the officers on come. 

whom the nation's very existence may These multiengine jet fighters could 

depend are still fresh and clear-eyed, harass enemy bombers all the way 

re!idY for anything. south, calling for help en route from 

In a very real sense, the new elec- short-range interceptors .. 

tronic computer is the key to the whole The experts are also counting on anearly-warning setup--the device that other development to help turn back 

Collier's for October 16, 1953 
REF ID:A39483 

• .. J

-,, . 

. 

but that's all the alarm we'll need 

enemy squadrons: air-to-air rockets, 

launched by radar-electronic fire-control systems which woUld provide a pattern almost impossible to evade. They 

may eventually be armed with atomic 

warheads, and they certainly will have 

proximity fuses which will cause them 

to explode at precisely the right mom(jnt. Security won't permit any further description of these missiles, but 

their possibilities are obvious. 

Something must be done, and our 

officials are well aware of it. Warning 

is no good without protection. , Their 

aim .is to have the protection readyin some form-by the time our DEW 

Lines go into operation. 

* * * 

What will it all cost? Manned radar,· 

gap fillers, long-distance radios, selfreading radarscopes, complicated electronic gadgets . . . won't they be 

tremendously expensive? 

Here are' the figures, as nearly accurate as they can be right now-the 

first realistic estimates ever published 

of the expected hardware price of our planned radar-warning system (not including maintenance or operating 

costs): 

For DEW Line I: $45,000,000. 

For the longer DEW Line II: $75,-

000,000. 

For ex~ending our sea-appr9ach 

warning lille: $450,000,000. 

For strengthening our border radar: 

$15,000,000. 

For several hundred gap fillers: $60,-

000,000. ' 

For 30 electronic computers: $180,-

000,000; for phone lines, office equipment, buildings, etc.: $500,000,000. 

The total: $1,325,000,000. 

In addition, some $518,000,000 already has been spent on the present 

radar-warning system. It must be emphasized that the grand total of $1,-, 

/ ,84~,0QO,OOQ in money spent or to be · ·spent buys the U.S. vitally needed 

warning and combat tracking ability, 

but no defensive weapons to do the 

fighting. i 

The one and one-third billion dollars 

:i 

still to be spent is a lot of money. But 

it's not 150 billion dollars, the figure 

that some people have reckoned as 

the cost of radar warning. And it's 

insignificant when matched against the 

total defense budget for 1953-'54 of 

$34,372,000,000. 

Most important, the money, in the 

estimate of our top scientists and military pla~ners, might pay for the survival of the nation at a moment when 

nothing else is available. Although 

these vitally needed funds are no(yet in 

the budget, we can't afford not to spend 

the money. 

Won't the whole early warning system be vulnerable to enemy attack? 

That's one of the points raised by critics 

of the plan, both within and outside the 

Air Force. One man told me, "The Soviet would probably try a three-phase 

attack: First, bomb out our radar intelligence; second, shatter our strategic 

bombing bases, both at home and 

abroad; third, use· the H-bomb or 

atomic bombs on a dozen major cities, 

atomic plants and industries, then proceed to demolish what's left in leisurely 

and economical fashion. 

"Where would the DEW Lines be 

then ... ?" 

One of the greatest brains in arctic 

radio communications, to whom I reported this criticism, replied sharply: 

"The day the Russians attack DEW, 

either by air or ground, that in itself 

will be actual war. The price for this 

advance warning is small compared 

with what that warning can save us. 

"These DEW stations are not fortresses! You could call them electronic 

versions of the old cavalry vedettes, the 

advance guards whose one job was to 

warn the main body. Sure, they might 

be lost in the early skirmishes-which 

is another good reason for keeping the 

number of men in each station to an 

operational minimum. Every one of 

thos,e men deserves the highest-" he 

stopped and angrily flipped away his 

cigarette. "Well, what more do you 

expect to buy in a world like this? We'll 

warn you-but we can't gliarantee you 

security, too!" · 4£::::..L::::.. 

COLLIER'S 

"Well, now that it's completed, which 

one of us gets to be the pilot?" HERB GREEN 

Collier's for October 16, 1953 

45 

' ··-~~~by -l~:ne, outstand- ·1 

· ing quarterback af the 

\ '" 

World . Champion De- J 

~oi~ ~i:,n:: i~:~e !,°,;~ J 

pleted 614 pane. for I a total of 8,753 yards. I 

The 2,410 yard• he 

gained passing and 1 

running during the 1952 

...._ '---- season represented 

'-·- -~ver 60% of the 

' \ Lions' offen· 

· . \ sive output! 

~A=~. 

~. 

.. '' 

. 

; 

i 

I 

Dllti' w11)/ ! 

011ff I Ii/Diii 11 f~~. I 

... LASTS LONGER, TOO!" . 

. Prest-0-Lite Battery Company, Inc., Toledo 1, Ohio