Perhaps the most helpful contribution I can make to the corporate thought and study of the National War College will be to discuss one major set of interlocking problems with which I have had to come to grips in my three-and-a- half months as Secretary of the Navy. This is the set of problems deriving from the roles of the Navy and Marine Corps forces, in the three major types of war—strategic- nuclear war, nonstrategic-nuclear war, and sub-limited or Cold War. My objective is twofold: first, to high-light the problems themselves; second, to demonstrate the interrelationships which complicate their solutions.
I like to consider that there are three potential tasks to which our country’s strategic-nuclear war forces might be devoted. There are a certain minimum number of strategic-nuclear delivery vehicles (missiles and aircraft) necessary to insure the destruction of sufficient of the enemy urban-industrial complex to provide deterrence to deliberate nuclear attack. This is the hard-rock minimum requirement and the first basic capability which these forces must have. The essential characteristic of this minimum force is credibility. The elements of credibility that this force must possess are reliability, penetrability, and above all, survivability, in order to provide for the certainty of retaliation. If the United States were to settle for a single such force and nothing more—which, incidentally, I do not consider to be a rational choice—a force of Polaris submarines would probably be the best long-term investment in strategic-nuclear war forces. But, as a nation we can afford to do much more; we can afford a second increment of strategic delivery vehicles which can provide a capability sufficient to assure the United States a clear and decisive advantage in any general war nuclear exchange. These are the additional numbers of strategic-nuclear delivery vehicles necessary to destroy so many opposing strategic vehicles that the adversary could not obtain a military advantage. This could assure our own military victory notwithstanding the serious urban-industrial damage that residual enemy missiles might achieve.
A third increment of nuclear delivery vehicles, of considerably larger number, is required if we are to provide a significant self-damage limiting capability. This final increment consists of those added missiles, bombers, interceptor aircraft, anti-ballistic missiles, etc. with which to deal with known or suspected opposing strategic delivery vehicles in sufficient numbers to insure the destruction of that residual number which, although inadequate to win military victory would be capable of wreaking unacceptable urban-industrial damage on the United States.
Without going into the complexities of the analyses that the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff must make to determine the proper mix and numbers of Polaris and land-based ICBMs, and strategic bombers, just let me cite this determination as the first major complexity with which the Navy, together with the other members of the Defense Team, must deal. The trade-offs are sometimes difficult to evaluate. In the Polaris weapon system we achieve, in the judgment of knowledgeable Defense officials and officers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a survivability factor of one. But the cost of this system per missile is higher and its accuracy is currently slightly less than Minute- man. In the land-based missile system we achieve cheaper per missile on-station costs, rapidity of production and a somewhat higher level of accuracy, but at significantly reduced survivability factors. Our strategic bombers can deliver the greatest nuclear pay-load per “vehicle-that-gets- through,” and with great accuracy, but surrender a price in vulnerability. If we postulate a surprise attack against the United States with inadequate warning and analyze the cost per vehicle of those U. S. vehicles that can be expected to get through to the target, we find the Polaris system to have the lowest cost because of Polaris superior survivability and greater assurance of reliability. To further complicate the equation, we should consider the advantage of moving such obvious targets as U. S. missile sites away from CONUS and out to sea, plus the fact that the B-3 Polaris missile can give us the option of the same high accuracy that land-based missile systems have.
However, prudent strategy requires that we avoid the luxury of sufficient Polaris missiles to perform all three of the strategic tasks I have described. The possibility of technological breakthroughs in defense against any one system, the prospect that the enemy may discover how to counter any one type of weapon, dictate a mix of such systems.
To obtain the numbers of missiles required for the strategic- nuclear war military advantage and damage-limiting tasks, we now rely on such a mix, with generous numbers of the rapidly-brought- into-place land-based missiles and a larger number of bombers. Constant evaluation, argument, and application of judgment go into the determination of the mix and numbers of Air Force and Navy strategic forces. We have no doubt of the adequacy of our current mix and numbers to assure deterrence and to achieve a military advantage.
Furthermore, as the world arsenal of strategic delivery vehicles increases, our ability to limit damage to the United States gains increasing importance. This leads us to another of those interlocking complexities, one that is essentially a Navy problem—the submarine- launched ballistic missile. As the opposing number of these dreadful weapons increases, our responsibility in the Navy to defeat the threat of extensive urban-industrial damage is readily apparent.
We have much work left to do in the area of antisubmarine warfare— both in terms of development of sensors and weapons, as well as tactics. In the allocation of our efforts to provide defenses against nuclear weapons of all kinds, a high priority should be accorded to our defenses against the sub- marine-launched missile.
And quite apart from the problems that this poses to us all as Navy people, it is interesting in a parochial sense that the number of Air Force Minutemen which it is intelligent to program relate directly to the Navy’s capability to solve the CONUS defense portion of the ASW problem.
Being realistic, we are aware that this problem cuts another way within the Navy. Though we are aware that we no longer operate under the theory of strict budget ceilings, each of our Services is limited to some degree by the national capability to support both a large military establishment and a vigorous economy. Our analyses indicate that a larger portion of our U. S. strategic forces should be composed of the Polaris weapon system. However, we must divert a large share of our resources that we might otherwise allot to Polaris into an ASW effort designed to meet the serious strategic threat of the submarine-launched ballistic missile.
This now brings me to two interesting interlocks between our strategic-nuclear war and nonstrategic- nuclear war forces—our carrier striking forces and our ASW forces. I can start with either of these because I travel full circle in either case and come back to the other.
The attack carrier has been designed primarily for a mission in nonstrategic-nuclear war. In the era of World War II and before, when we had no nuclear weapons, the fast carrier task force was, of course, one of our primary U. S. strategic weapons systems. What has happened is that a whole new order of magnitude of war—strategic-nuclear war—has developed since that time, bringing industrial continental heartlands potentially face to face in a new form of combat. As an initial stopgap while missile systems were being created, the carriers have fulfilled a vital nuclear deterrent role which has limited their freedom of movement when deployed. However, our missile systems are now coming into place. We reckon that today, using presently on-station Polaris submarines alone, we could exact 25-35 million fatalities in retaliation to a Soviet attack on our cities. The carrier weapons systems will, therefore, and very fortunately, become less restricted by rigid commitment to a scheduled nuclear mission. It will, of course, continue indefinitely in its role as an important strategic reserve for strategic-nuclear war. The increased flexibility of the future carrier forces has created congeries of problems and opportunities. The opportunities lie in the increasing freedom offered the carrier task force to exploit its capabilities in the nonstrategic-nuclear war area —both tactical nuclear and conventional. This greater freedom provides the opportunity to increase the advantages of the carrier task force for certain contingencies—in which neither tactical air, permanently based overseas, nor CASAF wings could be used as well. Here again, we have come face to face with a series of interlocking relationships—i.e., how best to use, and in what force level mix, the various types of U. S. tactical air power, with the greater exploitation of carrier air power now achievable.
We are exploiting our carrier task forces’ greater freedom for nonstrategic-nuclear war by a number of actions. We are continuing to upgrade the quality of our carrier force by replacing the smaller Essex-class carriers with Forrestal-class or better. This increases the average number of combat aircraft per carrier. Moreover, we are seeking to provide a better mix within the carrier air group for carrying out the various contingencies we visualize for a nonstrategic-nuclear war. The F-111B aircraft, when available, should permit us to reduce the number of fighter aircraft required to defend the carrier task force by half. Our A-6A aircraft have provided a significant all-weather capability for tactical nuclear or conventional attack. The recently authorized A-7A has twice the range-pay load capability of the A-4, which it replaces. The A-7A with a full load of weapons has a comfortable combat radius capable of covering nearly 90 per cent of the area of the world outside the Soviet Union where potential conflict is most likely. We are quite confident that the characteristics of the carrier air group, the composition of which our studies have developed, are the proper ones for the nonstrategic-nuclear war scenarios of the late Sixties and Seventies. There are, however, related and as yet unresolved questions concerning the fast carrier striking forces. These problems arise, in large part, from the success we have had in demonstrating the utility of the fast carrier striking forces in nonstrategic-nuclear war. The increasing emphasis on that role carries with it the built-in requirement to hold down the cost of this weapons system. There are two major orders of magnitude improvements, the cost of which causes problems.
The first of these is nuclear propulsion, both for the future carrier and their escorts. As a newcomer to the evaluation of nuclear propulsion, I have found no one in disagreement with the proposition that a given nuclear-propelled ship is superior to a similar one with conventional propulsion. Nor have I found anyone in disagreement that the nuclear-propelled ship is more expensive. I have found also that the issue of how best to optimize effectiveness at a given level of cost, or alternatively how to minimize cost at a given level of effectiveness for carrier task forces, including escorts and replenishment ships, has many complexities. We find ourselves trying to equate greater numbers of one type to fewer numbers of what are usually a more expensive type. Our real desire is to benefit from the advantages which nuclear power might afford us, and not to offset this benefit by losing the advantages which come from adequate numbers, for one ship can be in only one place at one time. Perhaps, the answer for the Seventies will be to combine the advantages of the high-sustained speed of nuclear propulsion and freedom from rigid commitments to concentrate carrier air power rapidly wherever needed.
This leads logically to an additional interlocking complication in resolving the issue of nuclear power. That is the question of obtaining the most effective anti-air-warfare capability. The mission of AAW forces is not just to defend the Fleet but, rather, is to gain and maintain air superiority in an area of operations. Our problem in AAW results from our decision to cancel our plans to produce the Typhon missile system, due to complexity and high cost. We had planned to install this system in the larger escorts, probably nuclear-powered. We are now embarked on a dual program, the first part of which is a major effort to improve markedly our present surface-to-air missile systems, and I am happy to report that we arc realizing significant success. We have also commenced program definition of a new advanced surface missile system with less size, cost and complexity than Typhon, designed to augment and perhaps ultimately replace our present Terrier and Tartar systems. The characteristics of this system—particularly weight and size—will to a large extent determine the optimum configuration of the future escorts planned to carry it. We expect to be able to define this system by late summer and subsequently be able to recommend a program for an integrated, highly capable multipurpose ship.
Until we have resolved the AAW problem, other interlocking considerations face us in connection with developing the number and general characteristics of our escort mix. We need, of course, a certain number of SAM-equipped ships for each of the separate formations requiring AAW protection. Some of these would be for our fast carrier task forces, a smaller number for our amphibious, underway replenishment, and mining forces, and probably even fewer for our convoys. We need many more ASW ships to fill our purely ASW required positions with all our naval task forces and to protect our convoys. This flows mainly from the geographically greater extent of the submarine threat and the shorter assured range of ASW sensors and weapons, as compared with AAW counterparts. Another interlocking complexity is that it is not economical to build an AAW ship without ASW armament. The ASW capability can be added to the AAW ship far more economically than the equivalent capability can be provided in a second singlepurpose ship in the same task force. On the other hand, an ASW ship without a sophisticated AAW system is relatively economical because of the high cost of the AAW systems and the need for a greater number of ASW ships.
As a result, our escort requirements have the shape of a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid, we require a relatively small number of very expensive, combined AAW /ASW vessels of sufficient seakeeping ability and speed, and therefore size, to keep up with fast carriers and, hopefully, nuclear- powered. Below this, we have a need for a larger number of smaller combined ASW/AAW platforms which can provide protection for amphibious and other naval task forces, and as single ships provide AAW protection to the more exposed convoys while assisted in the ASW role by other ships. Below this, at the bottom of the pyramid, we need a large number of singlepurpose ASW ships to fill out our needs in naval task forces and with convoys. Where we draw the line on the number of each of these types of ships would be complex enough for the reasons I have enumerated thus far, but there are still other related considerations. The first of these brings me, full circle, back to the point I mentioned at the end of my comments on strategic-nuclear war forces and that is the attention we must devote to the development of ASW forces adequate to meet the threat of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The types and number of ships that we would build, and which would be available to both our nonstrategic-nuclear and strategic- nuclear war requirements, could be quite different if we are successful in projecting ASW developments to the point where we can also offer a real solution to the combined aspects of the SSN and SLBM threats. Therefore, although it may not be economical to provide a given level and mix of ASW forces solely for nonstrategic-nuclear war considerations, it might be very economical, indeed to provide these requirements for forces and mixes if they could also limit dramatically the potential damage that could be wreaked upon the U. S. urban-industrial complex. In that event, I am certain that resources would be found to do the job.
But the composition of our nonstrategic-nuclear war forces and their relationship to strategic- nuclear war forces are further complicated by another factor. This has to do with the contingencies with which we are most likely to be confronted in nonstrategic-nuclear war. The current Navy view is that there are two major scenarios for which our nonstrategic-nuclear war forces must be prepared, and that if we are fully prepared for these we should be able to handle any of the lesser ones you might contemplate. The first of these is the prospect of a war at sea resulting from probing aggression in another part of the world. I have long held the view that a likely retaliation on the part of the United States to a nonmortal probe by an adversary might very well be the use of selective naval countermeasures. This could easily lead to a war at sea, with sanctuary ashore on both sides, a situation which would leave our major carrier striking forces relatively inactive, useful only to eliminate those surface ships foolish enough to leave their port havens, and in air defense at sea. Such a war would bring the entire spectrum of our ASW forces into play against the one weapon that could be used against us most effectively—the submarine. Our SSNs, our mining forces, and patrol aircraft squadrons would have to exact attrition from transiting submarines. Our hunter-killer forces, augmented by what CVA forces we elected to reassign to an ASW role, would have to be used as the strategic forces of such a limited war, deployed in the open oceans against the weight of the submarine threat which had transited successfully. There would clearly be a vital dual role for escorts—to protect our merchant ships in convoy, and also to kill enemy submarines attracted to the convoys.
Further, I have the view that this scenario presents a significant potential opportunity for the Atlantic Community and would be uniquely adapted to the concept of usable power. The aspiration to win greater allocation to ASW forces, within any given budget level, very obviously confronts the aspirations of those within the Department of Defense and the Navy who have other views—another problem of interlocks. Let me just mention again the other advantage of allocating additional resources to the ASW forces for nonstrategic-nuclear war scenarios. That is this —such nonstrategic-nuclear war forces make a direct contribution to our capability to meet the SLBM strategic-nuclear war threat. In a very real sense, every dollar we spend for nonstrategic-nuclear war ASW forces is also a dollar spent to protect our homeland against the SLBM.
Another major scenario, which would call into play Navy and Marine Corps nonstrategic-nuclear war forces, is in the various threats posed by Communist China. I have already spoken of the fact that our carrier attack aircraft are being designed to cover 90 per cent of the non-Soviet area where potential conflict is most likely. This obviously includes the sensitive areas of Communist China. In a typical scenario of the Seventies, air power—a combination of the carrier strike force and such long- range land-based tactical air as can be brought to bear—will reduce the potential of the enemy air threat to manageable proportions. Our greatly improved amphibious forces will then be capable of moving in to seize and consolidate the necessary land areas which will permit us to bring in additional forces by sealift or airlift. Early in the next decade, our Navy will have achieved the capability of lifting and landing in a combat zone the assault echelons of large numbers of troops in fast surface ships. During the mid-Seventies, we will continue to increase that capability. The Navy and Marine Corps are quite confident of their grasp of this aspect of naval warfare. We have the know-how to build the ships and aircraft we need. We are confident we can develop improved techniques for capitalizing on this increase in strategic mobility, and in improved techniques for embarking, loading, conducting and control of ship-to-shore movement, and vertical envelopment. This is another case in which the interlocking aspect of the problem is not within the Navy itself, but within the Department of Defense. The key issue is how much of our resources should be allocated to Navy-Marine Corps nonstrategic- nuclear war forces to meet the Communist Chinese contingencies. This problem, although complex, is one of degree. All the Services concede the need for a mix of Army, Navy, and Air Force non- strategic-nuclear war forces to meet these contingencies. The real problem is in coming to grips with the intelligent blend of these forces.
These decisions are not like the laws of the Medes and the Persians—immutable. They must continually be re-evaluated and remade, as the nature of the threat changes and as our own capabilities change through technology and new concepts. For example, the Navy is now moving to add to our carrier air wings the capability to back-up the Air Force tactical air wings by operating from land bases. We are confident that this will extend still further the capabilities of carrier air groups, making it possible to exploit both the seaborne and land-based options with an individual carrier air wing. The extent of our base structure overseas has decreased in recent years. Our carriers must be prepared, if necessary, to assume added air support functions that could formerly be performed by land-based aircraft. We are restrained from taking on a larger share of the tactical air role out of our own Navy budget by still another interlock. The SLBM threat, which we put behind us a few minutes ago, still lurks. And the conventional ASW war at sea is still there. These threats serve to force us to balance, within our Navy ceilings, the conflicting demands for increased carrier striking forces.
I turn now to the third major area of contribution of Navy and Marine Corps forces, and therefore, the third area in which problems have important interrelationships. One of the interesting speculations in connection with the Cold War is the extent to which the success of U. S. military and political policies in deterring hot war have compounded these Cold War problems. Our preponderance in strategic-nuclear war forces has tamped down the threat of strategic- nuclear war. Our constantly increasing capabilities during the last three years in areas where non- strategic-nuclear war had seemed most likely to occur—has made nonstrategic-nuclear war with the U.S.S.R. increasingly unlikely. Since the Korean war, with the exception of the brief excursion into India, our nonstrategic-nuclear war strength has also deterred the Communist Chinese. These successful U. S. military policies have made it seem prudent to the Sino- Soviet powers to extend their influence through political and sublimited war. They seek to do this by direct subversion and by capitalizing on the independent revolutionary changes which are occurring throughout the world. At the same time, U. S. dedication to the creation of a stable world community, in which we have sought to increase the world’s respect for law and order, has drastically limited the circumstances under which the United States can bring the cutting edge of its theoretically usable nonstrategic-nuclear war forces to bear. Perhaps the great watershed occurred as a result of the Cuban missile crisis.
Here, the United States and the U.S.S.R. played out a confrontation in such a fashion as to drive home to their leadership, and probably to a majority of their citizenry, the risks involved in such a confrontation between thermonuclear powers. This has limited the operating room of the leadership on both sides, in the degree to which they will risk strategic-nuclear war. And in this nuclear age, that would also seem to limit the extent to which the major powers will risk nonstrategic-nuclear war with one another. Thus, it has probably increased the extent to which the Communist bloc powers are going to make use of conflicts below the limited-war level.
Now why are the sub-limited warfare tactics of the Communist bloc constituting such a problem? The subversion carried on by Castro against Latin America, the assistance provided by other subversive elements throughout the world, and the constant probing of Communism from within infiltrated nations, are increasingly difficult to defeat because military and political developments have made it awkward for us to use overt military force against this form of aggression. This development is a cause for optimism on the one hand, indicative as it is of the sublimation of the Communist aspirations to a political and sub-limited military struggle. On the other hand, we in the military must be realistic about the degree of success the Communists are having and must apply the full force of our creativity and imagination to meeting the new form of Communist aggression. We see it taking place in widely dispersed locations and manifested in a variety of ways. In each of these places the Communists have tailored their tactics and their tools to fit the circumstances.
Wherever the United States has observed that critical interface, intervening with military force in a way which maintained respect for national sovereignty, the results have been generally favorable. In Lebanon, in the case of the offshore Chinese Islands, with the Greek rebellion, and in the temporary reinforcement of Thailand to restore the situation in Laos, we achieved our objectives. We tend to forget these successes while focusing our attention on our failures. The two special cases which are causing our Government such travail at the present time—Laos and South Vietnam—are areas in which we do not yet clearly show success or failure.
The United States has to proceed in the conduct of her affairs much like a boxer operating under Marquis of Queensberry rules against an eye-gouging opponent.
This constitutes a distinct limitation on our options. The United States is not another ancient Athens, able or inclined to force her allies to subscribe to her will. Indeed, the example of the debacle in the Athens case should deter us from that path. So, for that matter, should the modern example of the Athenian approach to alliances, the U.S.S.R.’s relationship to her satellites, out of which came the rape of Hungary and the bloody liquidation of rebellion in East Germany.
The problem of defending freedom around the world, while simultaneously maintaining respect for sovereignty, will frequently pose a dilemma.
How, then, do we find our way out of this dilemma? In extremis, in October 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, we found a way. The critical days before President Kennedy gave his dramatic speech, disclosing the presence of missiles, were largely devoted to consideration of this very issue. Those of us serving on the Executive Committee of the National Security Council spent many hours during those days discussing how best to handle, under the concept of international law and order, an enemy who had blatantly disregarded it. The final solution was not easy. President Kennedy sketched out in his speech a new and precedentmaking concept—the doctrine of quarantine. He also validated the right of aerial surveillance over Cuban territory. Here was an example of the adaption of the rules of civilized behavior to a new situation. The Communists’ flagrant violation of the standards of conduct of civilized nations had created an environment in which President Kennedy’s actions were widely accepted as reasonable and prudent. It is my view that certain new concepts of action and reaction which are in keeping with the general pattern of civilized behavior, may provide some of the essential components of a long-term answer to Communist sub-limited aggression.
What is transpiring in the case of Cuban subversion against the Western Hemisphere is a case in point.
Following the working out of a modus vivendi at the end of the Cuban crisis, intensive study of the alternatives remaining open to us was undertaken. Our justification for the concept of quarantine had been that this was a reasonable retaliation for a civilized nation responding to a mortal threat—the emplacement of offensive weapons close to our mainland. It did not seem feasible that world opinion could be persuaded that the doctrine of quarantine could reasonably be extended merely to strangle an unfriendly country which was no longer a mortal threat. This left the United States with no immediately executable options for the elimination of the threat of Castro.
We then concluded that the remaining course of action, above and beyond the economic sanctions and other harassing actions already in effect, was to seek general and widespread support of our actions to meet Castro’s threat in response to specific violations of the law by him. Over the months since the missile crisis, while continuing the aerial reconnaissance which has come to be accepted in the Cuban case by the world at large, the United States has sought to win approval by the Organization of American States for collective action against Castro, step by step, as he gives us the opportunity. Our acts in the missile crisis were taken with OAS support. The recent disclosure of an arms cache by the Government of Venezuela clearly traceable to Cuba has served to highlight the dangers of this cancer in the Organization of American States which, even now, is studying what measures might be taken to deal with Cuba’s attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan Government.
Additionally, in response to Castro’s actions, we have made efforts to work bilaterally with several of the Caribbean nations to control the movement of men, money, arms, and propaganda for subversive purposes to and from Cuba. Out of this work, as Castro provides provocation by violations of law, we, as well as other members of the OAS who recognize this serious threat to their freedom and sovereignty, may wish to take further action to cope with it.
My discussion of the developments within our regional associations brings me to another interlocking aspect of our policy and that is the use of our military forces to improve the political ties and closeness of such associations. We are doing a number of things in this field. Let me cite some examples.
U. S. military personnel are serving to educate the military officers of many nations in the democratic process, in the concept of civilian control, and in the general objectives of the Free World. This influence takes place at the U. S. War Colleges in which foreign students are in attendance, at the Inter-American Defense College, through the contacts of U. S. Military Attaches, MAAGs, and Missions, and through visits of military units to foreign countries, particularly naval port visits.
The United States is participating, commencing this summer, in a major multilateral manning demonstration—the manning by NATO nations of a U. S. guided- missile destroyer. This is designed to test the multilateral manning concept in advance of the creation of the MLF. But, as a fallout from this program, one can visualize the possibility of multilateral manning of certain of the forces assigned to NATO at least, and possibly in future years to other regional associations. These forces, which would not, of course, be significant percentages of the total U. S. forces, could serve as a military infra-structure to bring about closer political association, certainly within the Atlantic Community and possibly elsewhere.
The multilateral force itself provides an interesting example of an effort to combine in this case strategic-nuclear war military objectives and Cold War political objectives. Three of the nations of the Atlantic Community are nuclear powers. Several more have the capability to become so. The increasing diffusion of nuclear weapons to other nations is not a prospect to be viewed with comfort. The possibility exists that a vehicle can be created to serve as a bridge between the demands of national sovereignty for nuclear weapons and the requirement for multilateral responsibility to minimize the risk. Any effort which inhibits diffusion of nuclear weapons is not to be taken lightly. But beyond this, the MLF contains again the germ of a possibility that can serve to strengthen the Atlantic Community. This is a challenge of great complexity, to which we of the Navy intend to make every possible contribution.
To complete my discussion of Cold War military problems, I would like to emphasize the capability of naval and marine forces to contribute to their solution. Since this capability has been discussed many times, I will do so by reference to three incidents of the past few weeks. My colleagues. Secretaries Ailes and Zuckert, may not agree that the Navy is the best Service, but they do feel that we are apt to be there when trouble brews. For example, when a recent international situation was particularly hot, we had not one, but two Marine battalion landing teams embarked in Amphibious Squadrons just 120 miles away— where, in effect, they relieved the watch. On another occasion we were on the spot again, with a Marine battalion just landed by an Amphibious Squadron and ashore conducting jungle training on the very day of the flare-up. A third example in the last couple of months of the universal flexibility and omnipresence of U. S. Naval Forces was the location of a destroyer within easy steaming distance of a trouble spot when a revolution caught us completely by surprise. In each of these instances usable Naval power was on hand and ready for instant employment.
This brings me to the end of my thoroughly objective, nonparochial, balanced discussion of problems. I hope that this has helped to convince you that the true strategic-nuclear war deterrent lies in the Polaris weapon system; that the important missing component in having an answer to the Soviet threat to the continental United States is the Navy’s ASW program; that the sharpest part of the cutting edge of nonstrategic-nuclear war forces is the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps; and that the real answer to the Communist sub-limited subversion is the development of a Cold War order of battle with naval actions in the forefront.