Word: bomber
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Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara wants to spend the comparatively modest sum of $180 million next fiscal year (beginning July 1) to develop three prototypes of the bomber. McNamara reasons that missiles like the Minuteman are the weapons of the future, not manned bombers. But General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force's tough Chief of Staff and an old bomber pilot, made a strong plea to Vinson's committee for rapid development of the full RS-70 weapons system...
...more important was the form of the proposal. To make sure that McNamara would spend the extra $491 million on the RS-70, Vinson's committee set a precedent: it urged that the Administration be "directed, ordered, mandated and required" by Congress to build the bomber...
...candid with Congress, he need not have passed the word to tough-talking Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay. LeMay always says what he thinks-and what he thinks is clear and consistent: U.S. long-range striking power is being neglected. LeMay fought for greater strategic bomber strength as boss of the Strategic Air Command, and last week he took on the Kennedy Administration with gusto. Taking blunt issue with McNamara's proposed 1962-63 budget, LeMay told the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that the Air Force must have 300 new Minuteman ICBMs instead of the planned...
Last week the Air Force tested an enclosed escape capsule that may solve the problem. Chief Warrant Officer Edward J. Murray, a parachute tester, took off from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in a B58 Hustler bomber. He was strapped into an elaborate device that looked a little like an old-fashioned baby carriage with a convertible hood. When the B58 reached 20,000 ft. and was flying at 565 m.p.h., Murray pulled a lever. The hood of his seat closed over him, sealing him into an airtight, 700-lb. capsule. Doors opened in the top of the cockpit...
...should spend $10 billion to develop the B-70, as the Air Force already has a large fleet of B-47s, B-52s and B-58s. The President and the Secretary of Defense have decided that the U.S. does not, despite LeMay's loud claims for the bomber's usefulness. But LeMay plans to continue his one-man war in Congress. This raises the second issue whether or not a military officer should conduct a campaign in Congress to obtain appropriations which his superiors have deemed unwise...