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WORLD MILITARY SITUATION AND ITS RELATION TO UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1962

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:35 a.m., in room F-53, U.S. Capitol Building, Hon. John Sparkman presiding. Present: Senators Sparkman, Mansfield, Morse, Long, Gore, Lausche, Wiley, Hickenlooper, Aiken, Carlson, and Williams.

Also present: Mr. Marcy, Mr. Denney, and Mr. Newhouse of the committee staff.

Senator SPARKMAN. The committee will come to order.

Let me say to the members of the committee, you notice you have a statement before you that is classified. Leave it at your place when you go out. Don't take it from the room.

Mr. Secretary, we are glad to have you with us this morning. We are in executive session. We are glad to have you bring the committee up to date on the national defense picture and its particular relationship to foreign policy.

For several years now, at the beginning of each session of Congress, the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency have met with the committee to give us their assessment of the overall world situation. We are glad to have you here for that purpose.

Mr. Secretary, you understand that we do have this record taken down. If at any time, though, you would like to leave off any part of it being taken down, we can simply suspend the reporting.

This is kept confidential; it will not be published. It is kept locked in our own files here in the office for the use of the members of this committee, and not taken from the room. So, I think you can feel safe in its security, although sometimes there are some things that we would just rather not be put down in print at all, so you feel free to indicate at any time when you feel that is so. You may proceed as you wish.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT MCNAMARA, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Secretary MCNAMARA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to read a statement, one that may require 30 to 40 minutes to complete. However, there are certain points which I wish to make this morning with respect to our strategic policies and plans and I wish, therefore, to read it. I have reduced it to

writing and, with your permission, I would like to read this statement.

Senator SPARKMAN. Very good, sir.

Secretary MCNAMARA. I also hope you will interrupt at any time or ask questions relating to the text. Senator SPARKMAN. Fine.

Secretary MCNAMARA. Today, and as far as we can look into the future, we face formidable international problems. None of these problems appears susceptible of an exclusively military solution. Military power is but one of our tools for pursuing national goals. It can be used effectively only as part of a unified effort, fully meshed with the other instruments of our national policy.

Nevertheless, the military factor is always influential and is often a determinant in international affairs. This factor establishes a set of limits to the non-military courses of action otherwise available to us at any given time.

Because of the powerful influence of the military environment upon the great issues with which this committee deals, perhaps the most useful service I can render today is to outline the Defense Department's current evaluation of the principal elements and trends in the worldwide military situation. I will do this first by reviewing the relative nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union, and then by developing some of the considerations applicable to the balance of non-nuclear forces between NATO and the Soviet bloc. I will then treat the problems of covert Communist aggression.

SOVIET NUCLEAR STRIKE CAPABILITIES

We have recently completed a new estimate of Soviet strength in ICBM's. This estimate is the result of continued study of the available evidence which includes an accumulation of information in which we now have a high level of confidence. The essential conclusion of our assessment is that the Soviets have deployed a much smaller number of ICBM's than we had once thought they would by this time in early 1962.

The U.S.S.R. has relatively few ICBM's and a modest number of submarine-launched missiles capable of attack on North America. Despite the grave threat they pose to a number of areas, they are few in relation to the number of military targets it would be in the interest of the Soviet Union to attack. They represent only a limited threat to the nuclear strike force based in the United States or deployed at sea.

We now estimate that the Soviets will by mid-1962 have between 35 and 50 launchers from which missiles could be fired against the United States. The number of operational ICBM launchers will not increase markedly during the months immediately ahead. Our analysis leads us to believe that the Soviets decided not to deploy a large force of their first generation ICBM's, but to press for a more easily deployed second generation system. However, some of these new launchers will probably soon begin to receive second-generation missiles, and by mid-1963 we anticipate that the Soviets will perhaps be able to increase the number of launchers to a level of 75 to 125.

LAUNCHERS V. MISSILES

Senator GORE. May I ask a question?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Surely

Senator GORE. When you say launchers, would this term include a facility from which a succession of missiles could be launched? Secretary MCNAMARA. It is difficult to answer that question with certainty with respect to the ICBM launchers. It definitely does include a launcher with a capability of firing more than one missile in the case of the medium-range missiles, and I will cover that subsequently.

Senator GORE. Very well.

Secretary MCNAMARA. But with respect to the ICBM launchers, it seems most probable to us they have a capability of launching only one missile per launcher, but I cannot speak definitively on that point.

Senator LAUSCHE. When you speak of launchers, you mean the entire device equipped with the missile?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Right.

Senator LAUSCHE. Ready to be fired?
Secretary MCNAMARA. Right.

I use the term "launcher" as ready to be fired rather than missiles, because sometimes confusion has been injected into these discussions by using the word "missiles," which obviously includes missiles not on launcher and not ready to fire. Senator GORE. Thank you for the clarification.

SOVIET BOMBER AND SUBMARINE STRENGTH

Secretary MCNAMARA. The Soviet threat will thus increase in the future, but continued improvement in our own dispersal, hardening, and mobility will offset the threat to our U.S.-based nuclear delivery forces.

The bulk of present Soviet capability to attack the United States is in bombers and submarine-launched missiles. We believe that the U.S.S.R. could put about 200 bombers, excluding combat attrition, over North America on two-way missions in an initial attack, but such an attack could not be launched without our receiving warning more than adequate to alert our strategic forces and air defenses. The Soviets now have about 30 submarines equipped to carry and launch a combined total of about 90 ballistic missiles. Although about a third of these submarines are believed to be nuclear powered, all of them are handicapped for effective surprise attack against the United States by the long transit time from Soviet bases, by the short range of their missiles, and by their apparent inability to launch while submerged.

INTERMEDIATE RANGE STRIKE CAPABILITY

Our earlier estimate of large Soviet MRBM strength has, however, been substantiated. We believe that there are about 300 MRBM launchers within range of targets in the NATO area. These launchers are equipped with ballistic missiles having ranges from 700 to 1,100 miles and, as I mentioned a moment ago in answer to Senator Gore's question, we believe they have multi-launch capabilities.

We believe that the Soviets will also have a 2,000 nautical mile IRBM available in the near future. The Soviet nuclear strike capability against the European NATO area also includes several hundred jet medium bombers, plus short range aircraft and missiles. However, the Soviets cannot commit these forces threatening Europe, even in conjunction with a first strike on the United States, without the certain knowledge that they would receive an overwhelming counterattack by substantially intact U.S. strategic nuclear forces.

Finally, the ICBM's, IRBM's, and bombers of the U.S.S.R. are vulnerable to attack, being deployed at fixed, soft bases. Although Soviet air defenses are extensive, we are confident that we have sufficient knowledge of their locations and their performance limitations to avoid or neutralize them.

NUCLEAR CAPABILITY OF THE UNITED STATES AND NATO

In contrast to the Soviet strike capability, the United States and its allies have available a large and diversified nuclear arsenal which now provides, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, a decided advantage in both delivery systems and nuclear weapons of practically every category.

The strategic forces include 50 operational ICBM's, and close to 1,700 heavy and medium bombers, including the V-force and available carrier based aircraft. In addition, 80 operational Polaris missiles and 90 IRBM's are deployed. Further, NATO now has a vast arsenal of tactical aircraft and missiles in the nuclear strike forces. We have good reason to believe that our stockpile of nuclear weapons for delivery by this extensive system is of far greater magnitude and diversification than that of the Soviet Union. We have tens of thousands of warheads, ranging from a fraction of 1 kiloton to the largest size for which we now see any military use.

A STRONG NATO POSTURE

Much more important than our numerical superiority is the fact that the overall NATO nuclear posture, including forces external to the European continent, is far less vulnerable to enemy attack than the Soviet system. Our strength is deployed to strike Russia from every direction, and much of it is remote from the Soviet Union; in contrast, theirs is centralized and more easily reached. Our strength is better protected, more mobile, more dispersed, more diversified, and generally more advanced technically than theirs.

The external nuclear forces, principally those of the United States, of the NATO Alliance have a great and growing capacity to survive surprise attack. Fifty percent of the U.S. bomber force, with each aircraft carrying as a matter of fact-is on 15-minute ground alert. An airborne bomber alert capability has been developed and is constantly maintained. Our early warning system is being strengthened.

The United States already has some hardened ICBM sites coming into operational status, and the number of such sites will increase rapidly. The Polaris submarines, which add greatly to the invulnerability and flexibility of our overall system, do not depend on warn

ing for their survival, and can launch their missiles from a submerged position at a range of at least 1,200 miles. This range will be increased in the near future, in 12 to 18 months.

STRENGTH OF BOMBER FORCE

Senator LONG. Can you tell us how many bombers we have capable of carrying these atomic missiles?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I would be very happy to tell you. At the present time, let me give it to you as of July 1 of next year, that is a little easier, we will have at that point 1,550 bombers in our Strategic Air Command Forces, that are made up of 615 B-52's, 855 B47's, and 80 B-58's.

The B-52's, generally speaking, can carry [deleted] and at that same time, which is next July 1, we will have about 460 air-to-surface missiles for those B-52's, the so-called Hound Dog. We will have in addition to that on the order of 140 Atlas and Titan missiles operational, and we will have 144 Polaris missiles operational. But that number, only about two-thirds at any one time on station. The net effect of all of this will be-may I have this off the record? Senator SPARKMAN. Yes.

[Discussion off the record.]

BOMBER PENETRATION CAPABILITIES

Senator LONG. These bombers will have what I take it to be enough to shoot their way into the Soviet Union if they have to? Senator WILEY. Does the Kremlin know this?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I would like to answer his question first, and then I will answer that.

The penetration capabilities of these bombers are something that we cannot evaluate precisely. The Soviet Union has emphasized the construction of air defense weapons and systems over the past 2 to 3 years. They have placed a tremendous amount of their defense budget into the procurement of such systems, and today I believe that they are very effective.

These bombers, many of them, are equipped with Hound Dog missiles which can be launched between 350 and 600 miles from the target, and thereby they are penetration aids in the sense that they can be launched against air defense sites and air defense facilities, thus helping the bombers penetrate. Furthermore, the Polaris submarine missiles and the Atlas and the Titan missiles can also be launched ahead of the bombers against the air defense systems.

For both of these reasons the bombers' penetration capability will be greater July 1 than it was 1 or 2 years ago. Nonetheless, the air defense system of the Soviet Union against manned aircraft is likely to be so strong as to take a heavy toll of our bomber aircraft as they proceed to the target.

We have taken account of this, of course, in developing the force levels which we recommend to the President and he, in turn, to the Congress, and which are the foundation of our fiscal 1963 budget.

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