National Trends

Their Finest Hour?

Here was the factual situation, as sized up in Washington and other Western capitals. The United States currently possesses military superiority over the Soviet Union. Concretely, and in the strategic terms in vogue, we still have a deterrent: though the Soviets have numerous short-range missiles in field units along the western frontiers of their empire and probably some operational 1,500-mile ones, and though their intercontinental giants are probably in the production stage, the U.S. Strategic Air Command—as of now—can unload more explosive power, faster. Fears, in some quarters, that the U.S. is already behind had largely abated because of Soviet failure to make the kind of demands on the West that a present arms superiority would warrant. A consensus held, however, that the chances are exceedingly good of the relative military advantage passing over to the Soviet Union in the near future—most estimates ran from within six months to within a year. And more: that the gap between Soviet and U.S. strength will probably widen for a period following a shifting of the balance.

LB

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L. Brent Bozell Jr.

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Their Finest Hour?

Here was the factual situation, as sized up in Washington and other Western capitals. The United States currently possesses military superiority over the Soviet Union. Concretely, and in the strategic terms in vogue, we still have a deterrent: though the Soviets have numerous short-range missiles in field units along the western frontiers of their empire and probably some operational 1,500-mile ones, and though their intercontinental giants are probably in the production stage, the U.S. Strategic Air Command—as of now—can unload more explosive power, faster. Fears, in some quarters, that the U.S. is already behind had largely abated because of Soviet failure to make the kind of demands on the West that a present arms superiority would warrant. A consensus held, however, that the chances are exceedingly good of the relative military advantage passing over to the Soviet Union in the near future—most estimates ran from within six months to within a year. And more: that the gap between Soviet and U.S. strength will probably widen for a period following a shifting of the balance.