From Washington Straight

Scores of would-be Paul Reveres are galloping up and down the land, crying: “The ICBM’s are coming.” High government officials, including Air Force Secretary James H. Douglas, have stated that if the Soviets should launch an intercontinental missile now, we would have no warning. Mr. Douglas said that we have only “components” of a warning system today but that the program is being advanced with the utmost urgency. Let us hope that the program prospers mightily and expeditiously and that in the meantime the ICBM’s will not be coming, because if they do it will be all over before we know they are en route. Or so we are told by the people who should know.

There isn’t much the average person can do about this. We can’t rush to the barricades armed with 12- gauge shotguns, a 30-30 rifle, revolver and carving knives. But we can turn from a futile contemplation of potentially deadly skies to the known menace in the sea around us. In our great preoccupation with the possibility of a knockout blow from the air, we tend to ignore the enemy submarine.

SJ

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Sam M. Jones

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Scores of would-be Paul Reveres are galloping up and down the land, crying: “The ICBM’s are coming.” High government officials, including Air Force Secretary James H. Douglas, have stated that if the Soviets should launch an intercontinental missile now, we would have no warning. Mr. Douglas said that we have only “components” of a warning system today but that the program is being advanced with the utmost urgency. Let us hope that the program prospers mightily and expeditiously and that in the meantime the ICBM’s will not be coming, because if they do it will be all over before we know they are en route. Or so we are told by the people who should know.

There isn’t much the average person can do about this. We can’t rush to the barricades armed with 12- gauge shotguns, a 30-30 rifle, revolver and carving knives. But we can turn from a futile contemplation of potentially deadly skies to the known menace in the sea around us. In our great preoccupation with the possibility of a knockout blow from the air, we tend to ignore the enemy submarine.