Word: mcnamara
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...also true, said McNamara, that "Soviet resources, industry and technology have given that country the potential to challenge the primacy of U.S. military power." The Russians are now pursuing that aim, he reported, mainly by making their nuclear striking forces harder for the U.S. to knock out. They are developing missiles that can be launched from underground silos (like the U.S. Minuteman) and missile-launching submarines (like the U.S. Polaris). Thus the U.S.S.R. is also developing a second strike force...
When that happens, said McNamara. "even if we were to double and triple our forces, we would not be able to destroy quickly all or almost all of the hardened ICBM sites. And even if we could do that, we know no way to destroy the enemy's missile-launching submarines at the same time." Thus, even though the U.S. remained superior in nuclear firepower, its superiority would not "preclude major damage...
Limiting the Consequences. McNamara has a curious theory that the U.S. and Russia, even if they come to thermonuclear blows, might limit their strikes to strategic military installations and avoid 'blasts against major population centers: "It would certainly be in their interest as well as ours to try to limit the terrible consequences of a nuclear exchange...
What the cold war is heading toward, McNamara continued, is "an era when it will become increasingly improbable that either side could destroy a sufficiently large portion of the other's strategic nuclear force, either by surprise or otherwise, to preclude a devastating retaliatory blow. This may result in mutual deterrence, but it is still a grim prospect. As the arms race continues, the possibility of a global catastrophe, either by miscalculation or design, becomes ever more real. But until we can find a safe and sure road to disarmament, we must continue to build our own defenses...
...long ago, returning from an inspection of the fighting in Viet Nam, Secretary McNamara predicted that it would take many years for the government forces, with U.S. advisory aid. to put down the Viet Cong rebels. Last week McNamara told Congress that the presence of more than 11,000 U.S. military there has led to "a new feeling of confidence." Then, without firing a shot, Admiral Harry Felt, U.S. Pacific Commander, shortened the war drastically. It could be won, he said at a press conference, in three years...