First Panel Discussion

MILITARY AFFAIRS EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES

I AM glad Sir William brought up the problem of defense, because it seems to me that strategic concepts, military policies, the means and methods of national defense, are a great issue which deserves some attention from this panel. We have seen that even the small problem of military management has created a great deal of friction, a great deal of difficulty, between ourselves and the Canadians. Any of you who have visited some of the distant early-warning-line sites in the Canadian north or the air bases we have at Goose Bay and elsewhere will note that everywhere the Canadian flag is flying. There is a small management group, not in proportion to Mr. Randall's 34-to-1, but always a Canadian officer and a number of men who are really not necessary to the operation - I say this flatly, I'm told to be bald - but who are there for one purpose and that, of course, is to emphasize Canadian sovereignty over the soil and over the bases. We have a sort of double management system. It is difficult enough to arrange a mutual air defense of the North American continent, almost ludicrously difficult. Only in the last few months have we had a unified air command with a Canadian officer at Colorado Springs, although bombs could fall promiscuously on all our cities, Canadian as well as American. We have made some advances in this field, but I think we would be wrong if we did not stress the difficulties of making these advances - difficulties primarily in the strategic, the emotional, and the political fields, all of which affect military effectiveness. When you actually get Canadian and American soldiers working side by side, you can't imagine better teamwork. In the tactical field it's wonderful, but in matters of top policy we have had many differences and, I think, are fated to have more.

Now, cast your mind forward to the future when long-range missiles are operating. You've all read in the paper recently of the Russian achievement of the ICBM; at least they claim that they have fired one. It's absolutely essential, if any defense against such missiles is to be erected, that a very extensive system of early warning and even interception be erected as far from the United States frontiers as possible. This is why we have radar islands in the Atlantic. This is why our patrol planes are constantly flying from Newfoundland down to the South, day and night, 24 hours a day, with electronic equipment to detect any unidentified plane. In the days to come, U.S. financed operations upon Canadian soil are certain to increase rather than decrease if we are to have any hope of effective defense of either Canadian or American cities. This will increase the problems of friction.

In the broader field, without laboring the point, I'd like to suggest that so far as the United States and Great Britain are concerned, the strategic concept is an all-important issue. How are we to erect a defense against Soviet ground armies in Europe, against Soviet nuclear weapons, and against their long-range missiles? Are we to do this by pulling back to American soil? There are some in America who would like to see us do it - not only the old familiar isolationists, but a good many military men, typified, I think, by our Strategic Air Command, who would like to see everything stationed in America and America defended from America. Europe is naturally worried and somewhat suspicious of this doctrine. Will we fire long-range rockets from America at Moscow? Do we need, therefore, foreign bases any longer? If we say that the decision is in the affirmative, then of course England is left to some extent out on the limb.

And basically what is our NATO concept in which we're all involved, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's strategic concept? We have said that we will defend Europe with nuclear weapons; this is an integral part of our strategic concept. If we do this, this implies, of course, retaliation by Soviet Russia, and that is not too popular in either the United Kingdom or in Europe, which would be the battlefield. These questions of how to defend Western Europe and how to maintain an integrity, a mutuality of defense in the age of modern technology seem to me to pose more difficult problems, more and more great issues in the future as these new weapons are developed.