Area/Country Table 12-Joint Chiefs of Staff FY 1958 Mutual Air Force Army Navy Totals gram. The figure recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for materiel alone would therefore have to be reduced by $1 billion. Because of the pressure of time, this reduction was carried out in the meetings of the representatives. Major General Robert M. Cannon, USA, the JCS Special Assistant for Mutual Defense Assistance Affairs, reported to Admiral Radford that the meetings were conducted in an objective, fair and completely reasonable manner. The final revision worked out there was a program of $1.989 billion. General Cannon had concurred informally in this figure, and he recommended that Admiral Radford "support the program as proposed by ISA." Perhaps because of the shortage of time, the Joint Chiefs of Staff received no formal request for their views on the revised program.65 The total program figure had shrunk still more-to $1.900 billion-by the time President Eisenhower made his request to Congress for funds to support the FY 1958 MDAP. Congress cut this total to $1.340 billion, a sum that represented a reduction of about 30 percent in the President's request and about 66 percent in the amount originally recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The period 1955-1956 thus ended with a resumption of the downward trend in appropriations for military assistance, which had been briefly reversed by Congress when it appropriated slightly more than $2 billion for FY 1957. The period nevertheless ended with appropriations at a somewhat higher level than at its beginning: $1.340 billion for FY 1958 as against $1.022 billion for FY 1956. (See Table 9.) Continental Defense 15 Two weapons developed during World War II, the long-range bomber and the nuclear bomb, had given rise to a new form of threat to the United States-that of a direct attack upon the continental homeland. No longer could the nation's security be assured by a Navy powerful enough to prevent an enemy troop landing. It now became necessary to construct a coordinated air defense system, combining interceptors, anti-aircraft guns and missiles, early warning radars, and data processing facilities, that would be capable of blunting a Soviet air attack employing nuclear weapons. The need for effective air defenses had been perceived by US military leaders at the end of World War II, but efforts to establish them were hindered by the difficulty of finding sufficient funds within the limited defense budgets of the early postwar period. In large part the relatively low level of defense expenditures reflected the general sense of security engendered by the US nuclear monopoly, which was looked on by many as a deterrent to war. This monopoly ended in August 1949, when the Soviets exploded an atomic bomb. Less than a year later, communist forces under Soviet sponsorship attacked the Republic of Korea, demonstrating a willingness to engage in direct aggression that set off a major military buildup by the United States. The continuing US rearmament program received a further stimulus when the Soviets detonated a thermonuclear device in August 1953. Policy and Progress in Early 1955 Agreatly strengthened as ir defense forces and their supporting warning and control systems were greatly strengthened as part of the US rearmament effort. To guide the buildup of these defenses, President Eisenhower, on 24 February 1954, had approved as basic policy the statement adopted by the National Security Council under the designation NSC 5408. In this paper, the National Security Council had pointed out that a continental defense was a “necessary element of our defenses," along with offensive striking forces, peripheral defense (allies and bases overseas), and a strong mobilization base. The continental defenses, the National Security Council concluded, were now clearly inadequate, particularly in the light of the recently demonstrated Soviet thermonuclear capabilities. Accordingly, plans for improving the defense of vital installations within the United States should proceed in a rapid and orderly fashion. The objective was to achieve, in collaboration with Canada, a continental defense readiness and capability. Such a capability should give reasonable assurance of preventing a devastating Soviet attack that might threaten the survival of the United States, minimizing the effects of any Soviet attack actually launched, and preventing the threat of atomic destruction from discouraging US freedom of action or weakening national morale. To achieve these objectives, the National Security Council recommended specific military programs in two categories of priority. Major elements to be developed to "a high state of readiness with all practicable speed" included the fighter-interceptor and antiaircraft forces, the seaward extension of the basic system of fixed radars covering most of the United States and southern and eastern Canada, and the mid-Canada early warning radar line together with its seaward extensions. Major elements to be developed to a high state of readiness by the beginning of 1957 included the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line and an air defense control system employing semiautomatic control centers.1 By the beginning of 1955, some progress had been made toward attaining these objectives. The fighter-interceptor force then consisted of 67 squadrons out of a total of 82 programmed for activation by June 1957. Antiaircraft forces consisted of 48 gun and 19 missile battalions. When ongoing programs were completed in 1956, antiaircraft battalions would total 100, but the mix would show an increase in missile-equipped units, which would then total 61 battalions while gun battalions would decline to 39. At the beginning of 1955, the radar warning systems consisted of 83 permanent radars in the United States, 33 permanent radars of the Pine Tree system in Canada, 12 permanent radars in Alaska, and six shipborne radars stationed off the east coast of the United States. These stations combined to give contiguous coverage of most of the important industrial regions and heavily populated areas of the United States and Canada. By 1957, this detection system was scheduled to be improved and extended to cover virtually all of the United States by means of 78 additional fixed radar sites. Coverage of contiguous Atlantic and Pacific coastal waters was to be extended by the addition of 36 radar ships and six squadrons of radar-equipped aircraft. To detect enemy aircraft approaching at altitudes too low for detection by the permanent radar net, a system of gap-filler radars was planned. It consisted of 423 stations scheduled for completion in 1959. None of the stations had been constructed at the beginning of 1955. (See Table 13.) These radars, when completed, would give thorough close-in coverage of the United States and the heavily populated areas of southern Canada, but there was the further need to detect approaching bombers at the greatest possible range. The President's approval of NSC 5408 included a decision to press the construction of two early warning systems. The mid-Canada system, a line of radars along the 55th Parallel, had been recommended by a joint Canadian-US military study group in 1953, and the Canadian Government had decided in June 1954 to |