Evening star., 1962-09-11
Not Yet the Ultimate

General Curtis E. LeMay, our Air
Force Chief Of Staff, has Just made
some comments of more than passing
interest. They have to do with the
enormously complex problem of dis
armament and the possibility of devel-
oping revolutionary new weapons, de-
fenSive as well as offensive.
Both the problem and the possibil-
ity are so immense that even the most
hyperbolic adjectiveS could hardly exag-
gerate them. The subject has been dis
cuSSed by many American experts, but
by none more knowledgeable-in his
peculiarly aweSome field of RESPONSE
bility and command over virtually in
describable magnitudes of destructive
power-than General LeMay. So these
following words of his, from the current
issue of the authoritative Air Force mag
azine, seem to us to be well worth quot
ing:
An idea that is impeding military space
progress is that nuclear weapons are
the ultimate weapons. This concept assumes
that no weapon can ever displace the nuclear
weapon-except a more powerful or differ
ent form OF the same weapon.
People who believe this say that there
are already enough nuclear weapons to de-
stroy the world and they say that this abun-
dance of weapons is intolerable. Most of the
arguments for arms control, the stalemate
theories and the minimum deterrent theories
derive from this basic idea. ...
Now don't think the nuclear weapon is
the ultimate weapon man will ever devise.
And don't think the one that replaces the
80 iii
Tomorrow's weapons may employ en-
tirely new and nonnuclear principles Of
operation. For example, we are still ac-
quiring greater understanding of the prin-
ciples governing focused energy. And, even
tually, we may see these developments lead
to focused-energy weapons.
The energy directed by such weapons
could travel across space essentially with
the speed of light. This would be an inval-
liable characteristic for the interception of
ICBM warheads and their decoys. And, If
a new generation Of ornaments operating in
space could neutralize an aggresSors ICBMs,
warfare as we have known 1t would be out
moded by the advance of technology.
The naturalization Of ICBMs by q sys-
tenn deployed aboard a maneuvering space
vehicle is no irresponsible oscillation Of an
arms race. -.
weapon such as I have described . .
would move the world into a new era Of
warfare E. into new era Of preventing iUdr.
Assuming, of course, that it was in the proper
hands.
These are words that ought to be
kept constantly in mind by all those
people (more than few Of them emo
tionally unbalanced or dedicated serv-
ants of the Kremlin) who delight in
staging demonstrations against Western
nuclear tests while ignoring those Of
the Soviet Union. General LeMay, in
effect, has delivered a powerful argu-
ment against any ill-considered, willy
nilly, headlong rush by our country to
achieve disarmament simply for dis
armament's sake.
Clearly enough, any such policy
could be catastrophe. We must keep
on thinking about arms. We must con-
tinue to test in the nonnuclear as well
as the nuclear field. We must try to de-
velop, as General LeMay has suggested,
things like the focused-energy weapon.
To do less would be to gamble with our
very survival as free nation.