Exclusive Interview with a High Spokesman
THRUST, WOTAN
The Missile Story Nobody Knows exclusive interview with a high spokesman By Wotan Thrust Q: Mr. Spokesman, can you enlighten me on Sputniks, Flopniks, Jupiters, ICBMs and all these new devices we...
...They put a gun to a fellow's head and, presto, he builds a Sputnik...
...Q: Well, what about limited disarmament...
...A: Of course, my dear sir...
...It is a very good report, though...
...We have the industrial potential and know-how to build those caves...
...We have the finest scientists in the world...
...A: Their industrial capacity is insufficient...
...A: For that very reason, sir...
...We'll send one up when we're good and ready...
...500 miles...
...But then we will have as many Sputniks as we have Chev-rolets now, capable of firing missiles with hydrogen warheads and surefire re-entry devices, plus fleets of anti-sputniks capable of denying outer space to their sputniks, plus anti-radiation caves...
...We were just testing...
...Q: Are the Sputniks really of military significance...
...A: Zeroed in, my dear man, every one of them, by Soviet missiles...
...A: I'm not sure I can really distinguish...
...A: True enough...
...Q: Can heavy bombers be intercepted with present devices...
...Q: In what way...
...To mass-produce them is the crux of the matter...
...The Western alliance would fall apart...
...It was a boomerang...
...A: Interservice rivalry...
...Q: Getting back to those missiles, why did Vanguard fizzle...
...A: Hope for what, sir...
...Former personal security chief to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, he later served on the policy planning staff of the Government of Manchukuo, and is now .. consultant to the Bert Piel Foundation...
...Q: But didn't Germany lose two wars in succession...
...Penny-pinching...
...Q: You mean 5,000 miles, I take it...
...A: There is absolutely no sense engaging in a race on this sort of thing...
...They pull no punches...
...Q: But you just said there was no need for a race...
...If we can all be forced to live in caves...
...A: My lips are sealed...
...People have drawn closer together than ever under the common threat...
...Spokesman, can you enlighten me on Sputniks, Flopniks, Jupiters, ICBMs and all these new devices we keep hearing about...
...500 is plenty...
...A: World Opinion...
...Q: Will we have parity with the Russians five years from now...
...Have you read the Gaither report...
...Q: You mean on the Prussian pattern...
...A: He is a missile man...
...A: Not vulnerable in the least...
...These men know the score...
...He feels he needs the fourth star for the safety of the country...
...Have you...
...we could have done it years ago...
...The significance is very limited...
...We will have alliances hinging on the Washington-Mecca-Luxembourg triangle...
...Scientifically, the Russians are way ahead of us...
...It isn't the money...
...Q: Any military benefits...
...Q: Not operational...
...The Gaither report proves our strength...
...Have the Russians got that, too...
...A: Ours, too...
...A: Confidence...
...A: Of course there is...
...Q: No, Mr...
...The U.S...
...Q: Then why are we building one, Mr...
...A: You bet we have...
...Shooting up pieces of junk, I call it...
...That's why our general staff must be different...
...Anybody can build an ICBM or two...
...A: Of course not...
...The high spokesman with whom he has obtained this exclusive interview is engaged in work so secret and so vital to free-world security that nobody else knows his true identity...
...A: The Strategic Air Command...
...A: Decisive, my dear sir...
...A: Not operational...
...A: Indeed they are...
...A: Of the most dramatic kind...
...What do you want to know...
...A: It is a plain question of survival, my dear fellow...
...None can get through...
...Q: You mean our defense budget of $40 billion is inadequate...
...Planes with hydrogen warheads are in the air at this very moment...
...It would stimulate camouflage—very expensive, too...
...A: Of course not, my dear sir...
...A: No, sir...
...A: A first-class piece of work...
...There is a new kind of Western unity...
...Comes to grips with the main problem...
...Q: Wouldn't that mean testing whether it will go 5,000 miles...
...What about aerial inspection...
...A: Only theoretically, my dear sir...
...A: Indirectly...
...We can't do that...
...Q: So Khrushchev has scored a great political victory by launching the Sputniks...
...A: No, sir...
...Q: Why don't they...
...A: You put your finger right on it, sir...
...Q: Why didn't we then, Mr...
...A: Only by pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps...
...It can level the Soviet Union...
...We can't let those Russkis get away with murder, can we...
...You think these jokers would budge if we had fired the satellite first...
...Q: What would be the consequences...
...Q: And how about the SAC bases...
...Q: Why must we, Mr...
...Q: So there is no protection against the missiles...
...A: We'll all have to live in caves if there is a war...
...I always say you have to start somewhere—especially in the age of the ultimate weapon...
...A: It is a question of brains...
...It isn't operational...
...Q: What is it then, Mr...
...Q: But then our ICBMs aren't operational, either...
...Q: What does it say...
...They prove that Khrushchev wasn't fooling when he said he had the ICBM...
...Q: How about the Rockefeller report...
...A: Certainly...
...Last but not least, we will have a thousand missile-launching submarines...
...If Eastman Kodak is strong, the country is strong...
...Q: So you think the Sputnik is important in the Cold War...
...A: Nobody has read the Gaither report...
...A: It may be distasteful to some Americans, but there is no other choice...
...McElroy has knocked their heads together...
...has no Sputniks...
...A: No, sir, we don't need to shoot that far...
...Q: Strength...
...Q: Has the SAC full retaliatory power...
...A: Sooner than that, I can assure you...
...A: People would look elsewhere for leadership...
...A: Look at what Doolitlle and Gavin said...
...A: By no means...
...But once we have it missiles will be obsolete...
...Q: Why not...
...Hagerty said so himself...
...Q: But wouldn't aerial inspection stimulate confidence...
...The area to be photographed is really huge...
...A: No thrust...
...It's just that we must catch up as quickly as we can...
...Airfields are just as obsolete as planes...
...If the Sputniks have no significance other than to prove that the Soviets have ICBMs, and if they really haven't got any ICBMs, what, then, is the military significance...
...What we need is a general staff...
...Q: And the ICBM can hit any target in the U.S...
...We have the men and funds right now...
...And the Soviets don't...
...A: And they are dead right...
...A: Primarily Eastman Kodak...
...Eventually the world would go Communist...
...Q: Thank you, Mr...
...Q: But isn't it true that we now have a crash program...
...A: None whatever...
...They are as hard to intercept as Admiral Rickover on a black field in a black night, I always say...
...A: Regimentation, I call it...
...Q: How do you know...
...Q: Are we that vulnerable, Mr...
...A: More than that...
...A: There can be no crash program in the field of science...
...Q: Could we do it, too...
...Q: Didn't Gavin say he quit because he couldn't get the fourth star he had been promised...
...Haven't you heard of the anti-missile missile...
...Q: Have we got it...
...Q: Yes...
...Q: Has that had any results...
...But everything Wolan Thrust has won an international reputation as a military expert...
...It will take years to catch up...
...How can you get any place, I'm asking you, when they are all at each other's throats...
...A: To the contrary...
...Q: Are you sure Hagerty said that and not Art Buchwald...
...Who will protect us in case of attack...
...Q: Because the U.S...
...What's more, they put the safety of the country over personal considerations...
...How does that follow...
...Q: But our most eminent educators say that our scientists are not behind the Russian scientists...
...Q: They are...
...Q: Their missiles...
...Q: Very well, Mr...
...else I can tell you...
...How can we catch up if we are not behind...
...A: Very simply...
...Q: Then there is hope, Mr...
...A case of insufficient preparation...
...Who would benefit from that...
...We fired an ICBM 500 miles only the other day...
...Q: So you are opposed to it...
...as leader of the Free World cannot accept technical inferiority...
...Lack of funds...
...A: Absolutely...
...A: They were...
...Naturally, where information is classified, my lips are sealed...
...Look at Indonesia, look at Ifni...
...Q: How is that possible...
...Q: Then where is the rub...
...Q: But you said it would take years to catch up...
Vol. 41 • January 1958 • No. 3
