Evening star., 1960-03-26
DEFENSE
Continued From First Page


arrive. The Red missiles are SC
good it now looks as If only
the most thoroughly protected
u n d e r ground. concrete-and.
steel-encased air defense in
stallations will have a decent
chance to survive.
The margin Of offense over
defense is such that the Air
Force did not consider it nec-
essary to scrap all air defense,
but it also did not consider il
feasible to spend the billions
Of dollars necessary to "har-
den" all air defense installa-
tions.
The compromise decision
was to go ahead and use what
soft" equipment has already
been bought but not to order
anything new.
So orders for Bomarc mis-.
siles. designed to destroy enemy
bombers and airborne missiles
(pilotless bombers) will be cut
in half. The Bomarc program
was first planned to total 81
squadrons Of 80 missiles each
A year ago it was cut to 1e
squadrons. The new cutback
will reduce 1t roughly by hall
again.
This will save about $3.50
million in fiscal year 1861 (the
year ending June 80. 1861 and
more than $3.50 million in fis-
cal 1862.
SAGE Stay on Surface
1t also has been decided not
to build eight expensive under
ground control centers for the
SAGE (Sem mi-Aut ON a tic
Ground ENVIRONMENT push
button air defense system. T'hi:
will save $l40 million for this
fiscal year and $3.50 million next
year.
SAGE is a wonder-child OF
the electronic age that appar.
emily will never reach votinf
age. 1t was designed to be 6
SIS billion system in the United
States and Canada to find
track and order the destruction
of enemy bombers and airbornt
missiles.
Some of the automatic fea.
lures will be abandoned, anc
the whole thing will be left
relatively exposed on the sur.
face of the ground.
/ At the same time. some odd,
and ends of planned radar sta.
tions in Canada and purchase
of an additional handful oi
F-l02 nterceptors will bt
dropped.
Along with this new series
of cutbacks. the Air Force vii
continue its planned gradua
Production in the number of in.
lterceptor airplane squadrons
The number of squadrons il
secret. but plans announced
last June call for a one-fourtf
reduction in Squadrons by next
January. There are Is plane.
in one squadron.
The Air Force, faced with 9
budget squeeze and belief that
only hard" air defense sites
are really effective, had to de.
eide whether to harden all in
stallations-at the cost of bill
ions-or spend available money
flor something else.
The decision was made tc
Ishift half of the 81 billion saw
ling into added spending fol-
missile-age systems. The phi
losophy was that by increasing
the quantity of this country's
deterrent missiles and by speed
ling up missile attack detection
systems, an attack can be made
less likely. And. therefore, air
defense weapons will be made
less essential.
Gates Accepts Cuts
Air Force officials presented
Mr.. Gates with a package that
included the reductions plus q
request to spend $500 million
of the savings on missiles and
other such newer weapons
Mr.. Gates accepted the cuts
after an explanation of Ali
Force thinking, but, to the cha
grin of the Air Force, failed to
okay the new spending before
leaving last week for a two
week trip to Europe.
Mind-readers in the Air Force
guess they eventually will get
$3.50 million for an increase in
the number of Atlas missiles