Gen. Curtis LeMay.

Gen. Curtis LeMay, Air Force vice chief of staff and former Strategic Air Command commander, was understandably nervous at the outset of the space age. There was talk that intercontinental ballistic missiles would render his fleet of nuclear bombers useless. In the "Future of Manned Bombers" written for the September-October 1958 issue of Ordnance he makes a case for keeping the bombers around. Of course, he had nothing to worry about. Sixty-two years later the B-52 Stratofortress mentioned in the article is still in the inventory and the only debate is what contractor will be installing its new engines.

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union startled the world by launching Sputnik I. A few days later, the London Dispatch published extracts of a Moscow interview with Soviet Premier Khrushchev in which he was purported to have said, "Fighter and bomber planes can now be put into museums." Articles soon appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States to the effect that the flying Air Force was finished and that push-button war was around the corner.

A little more than two months later, on Dec. 24, 1957, in a story datelined Moscow, the New York Times reported that the Soviet Union had successfully tested a new type of heavy jet bomber. A lengthy story about the test flight in the Russian Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda said the aircraft had set a nonstop distance record, for airplanes of such type, without the aid of in-flight refueling. The new craft was not identified by any number nor was its designer named.

There is an obvious inconsistency between Khrushchev's remark about placing fighter and bomber planes in museums and the subsequent announcement of a new high-performance Russian jet bomber. While the launching of the Sputnik was a significant technical achievement, the Russians evidently are not placing all their eggs in the missile basket. This fact is corroborated by their continued heavy military aircraft production and the construction of many additional air bases.

The idea that attacks can be conducted deep within enemy territory without subjecting man to the danger of combat appeals to the imagination. It particularly appeals to the imagination of those men who are training hard and standing by right now to conduct a bomber attack if called upon to do so. Most of the aircraft commanders in our Strategic Air Command have had the experience of attacking targets before. They didn't like it then, and I doubt very much if...