Evening star., 1954-12-19
THE CHRISTMAS BOGEY
Continued from preceding page

When the phone rang in the Smith home at West
Point, The General, spare man with iron-gray hair
was balanced atop ladder putting the angel on top
of the tree, while his grandchildren shriled their
advice and admonitions. Tracy Smith, his daughter
answered the phone and said, Its for you, Dad"
The General said, Tell em I'm busy Tell em to
wait minute
1t took The General three minutes to place the angel
exactly he wanted and exactly straight and upright
WELL he said. climbing down. there's the angel that
stands guard this house. At that moment three
minutes may have been the critical factor
The General picked up the phone. He listened with
out speaking, and then said, A right red alert Order
SCAT. Seats all that will save us now I'm coming"
When he put down the phone The General looked ten
years older. His daughter said. Whats up?"
An unidentified plane. " he said putting his coat.
"off the coast believe an enemy"
Just one?" said Tracy Smith.
''One plane one bomb, one city,. said The General.
Maybe New York"
And he was gone.
MAJOR HAYDEN flashed the SCAT order to every air
field in his SCAT meant Security Control of Air
Traffic. Under SCAT, every plane, military and COM
mercia = except fighters on tactical missions were
to land at the nearest field Immediately. In thirty
minutes the air must be cleared of everything except
the enemy, and our fighters. This would give the
fighters and the antiarcrat batteries, and the Nike
rocket battaons, chance to work in congested areas
Very shortly, Major Hayden discovered that on this
particular night - of all nights SCAT couldn't oper
ate properly. In all the big cities, holiday travel
setting records Planes stacked in layers up to
10000 feet over IdIewild, LaGuardia, and Newark.
Boston, Philadelphia Camden, and Washington
National were the And the arways between cities
were jammed He didn't know how long it would be
before the Nike rockets could be used Nike is smart
rocket, but it cannot tell transport loaded with 80
people from jet bomber.
The General came into the plotting just the
report came in from lonely spotter at East Moches
Long Island huge jet had come in from the sea at
speed he refused to estimate 1t had swept wings, and
its four engines housed in these WINGS close to the
fselage 1t was bigger than B47. 1t had in at
2OOO feet and he swore it marked with red star
The General knew then, that it too late, unless
he ordered everything shot out of the air This he could
not do not at Christmas
A FEW minutes later strange plane joined the traffic
pattern circling Idlewild easing itself between two
Consultations. 1t jet One of the Consultations
came in for landing and then the jet turned on its
wing lights and landed 1t TAXED up to the Admnistra-
ton Building if it owned the place. and the blue and
red flames of its engines snued out, by one
Three men got out. They wore strange uniforms.
The Air Force aison officer at Idlewd called in the
news to The General Two of them are Poles, y he
said land the other Czech
The plane is this new type Russian 428 that they
showed last May Day over Moscow. only this one is
fitted out as weather ship. These three guys said they
had been planning this for almost year. One of them
used to live in Hamtramck and another has an uncle
in Pittsburgh, and they all speak English"
Its wonderful" The General said. but it's
miracle they got here. By rights they should long ago