Washington-U. S. A.
COFFIN, TRIS
WASHINGTON—U.S.A. By Tris Coffin Soviet Sputnik and ICBM Shock Complacent Capital Washington has the drawn face and wide pupils of a man suffering from shock. The remedy is apt to be tough and...
...For one thing, inflation has hit the cost of military hardware as much as, if not more than, the grocery basket...
...According to a Cairo report, King Saud even threatened to nationalize Aramco's oil properties if the U.S...
...The other recent shocks to Washington include: • The painful knowledge that the United States is unable to control its bigotry, but is exposing to the world's stare anti-Negro disorders in such widely separated areas as Little Rock, Boston, Birmingham and Deale, Md., within a short distance of Washington...
...Eisenhower added that the missile program was "being researched and developed as rapidly as it can be done in this country...
...Air Force intelligence apparently was sending in increasingly alarming reports, for General Twining added soon after White's statement: "Russia is putting more men and money into this battle of the laboratories than we are...
...Only about 7 per cent of the [U.S.] Government's research and development funds are allocated to basic research...
...The remedy—price control and wage stabilization—is too bitter a dose for the Administration...
...He denounced this nation for seeking to intervene in Syria's affairs...
...The President's Budget Message for 1957 stated: "It is my belief that increased returns in military research and development can best come from maintaining a stable high-level program...
...It is quite another to understand that her production of machine tools now exceeds ours...
...was keeping ahead of Russia in scientific development have added to the wallop of the shock...
...intervened forcibly in Syrian affairs...
...policy in the United Nations by the Saudi Arabian delegate...
...To add to the blow, the Soviets, according to the best available information, did this without stealing American secrets or kidnapping scientists...
...The remedy, after the smoke of Congressional investigations clears away, is apt to be drastic and far-reaching...
...Today, inflation keeps moving onward with no sign of a stop...
...In the long haul, perhaps not in this administration, R-and-D is apt to become a separate and semi-independent defense factor and a radical overhaul of our entire military strategy be rammed through...
...In other words, no need to jack up research with more funds...
...The 1958 Budget Message repeated: "Research and development will continue at the same high level as in the current fiscal year...
...He said: "Our work could have progressed faster almost across-the-board...
...On the recommendation of the Arabian-American Oil Company, President Eisenhower went out of his way to greet the King on his arrival in Washington, and special concessions were made to him...
...The Russian triumph destroys a line of thinking the United States has believed and exported to the world— that Russians are mechanical illiterates who can't even thread a screw accurately, that the American free enterprise system has a monopoly on brains, plant and get-up-and-go, and that the Communist system dulls all initiative...
...James R. Killian Jr., President of MIT: "It is one thing to recite that Soviet automobile production is only between 1 and 2 per cent of ours...
...But, combing back through statements of the past several years, one finds revealing quotations that offer important clues to the Russian leap ahead...
...Secretary Wilson...
...Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson, asked if an)' research had been delayed for lack of funds, replied stoutly: "I am not conscious of any important ones...
...At a cocktail party opening the social season, she remarked gaily: "The Russians have so many satellites—what is one more...
...The Soviet Union can touch off a war in the Bible lands that will embroil the United States without involving a single Russian soldier...
...This is at least a step away from the "massive resistance demanded by Senator Harry Byrd last spring...
...General Nathan F. Twining, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at 1956 hearings: "It would be disastrous if our research and development accomplishments in significant areas fell behind that of the enemy...
...He added in Congressional testimony: "There is no doubt that the Soviets have generated a respect and enthusiasm for science and engineering that has operated to give them a large supply of trained professionals in these fields from a smaller total school and university population than this country's...
...Donald L. Putt, Deputy USAF Chief of Staff for Development, during the 1956 controversy over funds for research, testified that 11 key projects had been deferred for lack of money—among them nuclear propulsion and missile research...
...The rudest shock is the stunning knowledge that Russia, a Communist dictatorship, has produced the best jet airliner and the first intercontinental ballistic missile, and has fired a mechanical satellite 500 miles into the air...
...Immediately, Congress may throw into research and development enough funds to unbalance the budget...
...It achieved its goal by a frightening concentration on scientific progress, while America worked on filter-tip cigarets, color TV and bigger fins on 1958 auto models...
...This was particularly hard to take after the campaign of endearment to King Saud...
...Uncertainty hangs like an autumn mist over all but the Foxhall Road manor of social queen Gwen Cafritz...
...Many scientists warned the Joint Atomic Committee that this was a specious argument...
...Now Saudi Arabia, too, has been flooded by the violent Arab nationalism, and the King has been forced to bow to it...
...farmers, small businessmen, pensioners, and middle-class salaried people are all tightening their belts...
...There just were not enough resources to go around...
...No one seems to have any clear idea of a remedy, and certainly the President did not outline any at his press conference...
...June 8. l'i;V>: "If you want to go ahead and have pure research, let us let somebody else subsidize it...
...General Thomas White, USAF Vice Chief of Staff, said that Russia "is making scientific and technological advances at a faster rate than we are...
...Lieut...
...When the USSR perfected an atomic and then a hydrogen bomb, the semi-official explanation was that she had stolen our secrets...
...Admiral Arleigh Burke: "There was $86 million [cut from the 1957 budget] in research and development, which will have the effect of slowing up our R-and-D program proportionately...
...The remedy is apt to be tough and painful...
...Dr...
...In Washington, many experts expect fighting in the Middle East within six months, pulling in Jordan, Israel, Syria and Turkey...
...Assurances by the Administration that the U.S...
...Let us not put the burden of it on the Defense Department...
...Russia has clearly entered the Middle East as a controlling power...
...The most hopeful sign yet was a little noticed statement by J. Lindsay Almond, the Byrd Democratic machine nominee for Governor of Virginia...
...He admitted to the possibility of "integration in some areas—enforced under the mandate of Federal courts...
...King Saud went back to the Middle East, according to background comments of State Department spokesmen, as America's "friend and ally," bent on taming Egypt's Nasser and the pro-Communists in Syria...
...A series of four shocks has produced a confusion and doubt not felt in Washington since the April morning Franklin Roosevelt died 12 years ago...
...When Trevor Gardner resigned as Assistant Air Force Secretary for Research and Development, in protest against insufficient funds, the President said: "I think overall we have no reason to believe that we are not doing everything that human science and brains and resources can do to keep our position in proper posture...
...In the pleasant fall of 1956, only a year ago, the country rocked to the tune of "peace and prosperity...
...Holes have appeared in American prosperity...
...A great slap at American strategy was the attack on U.S...
...In certain fields I am sure we are well ahead of the other side...
Vol. 40 • October 1957 • No. 42
