SOVIET AIR POWER

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27664, 21 May 1955, Page 7

SOVIET AIR POWER

Official Reply To U.S. Officer (Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 19. Mr Harold Talbott, Secretary of the United States Air Force, said today that the nation’s air power was greater than that of the Soviet Unioh. However, he said that he was surprised at recent Soviet advances. At the same time General Nathan Twining, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, criticised an Air Force general for saying in a speech last night that “the Russian air force is currently at least as good as ours, possibly better.” The Chief of Staff said that the officer, Brigadier-General Woodbury Burgess, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the Continental Air Defence Command, “did not tell the truth ... he exaggerated.” Both Mr Talbott and General Twining today appeared before a closed session of a Senate Appropriations Sub-Committee. Later the chairman of the sub-com-mittee, Senator Dennis Chavez (Democrat, New Mexico) issued a statement saying: "The American people can rest assured that in both offensive and defensive air power we are just as good and much better than any other nation in the world.” Senator Styles Bridges (Republican, New Hampshire) said the meeting had convinced him the United States was stronger in the air than any nation in the world, including the Soviet Union. Brigadier-General Burgess had said in Detroit that the Russians' had, fighters and bombers equal to anything the United States had, and that the Russians had more of these aeroplanes. He said that he feared the Russians were ahead of the United States in the effort to perfect the guided missile. “One of our troubles,” he said, "is that we have been underestimating the Russians.” New Soviet Bombers Brigadier-General Burgess said that the Russians had two new bombers equal in size and performance to the United* States Air Force’s new eightjet 852, but that the Russian aircraft had only four engines. A medium bomber comparable with the United States six-jet 847 and yet having only two engines is being flown by the Russians, he said. The Russians also have more supersonic fighters, similar to the United States FlOO, than does the United States. Brigadier-General Burgess departed from a prepared speech in giving this information. He said that the Defence Department had authorised its release only yesterday. He reported that the Soviet Union’s new aircraft were shown in the strength near Moscow during April, when they rehearsed for the annual May Day show of military strength. The air show was called off because of bad weather, but reports of the aircraft had been forwarded to Washington from observers in the Soviet Union. The big intercontinental bombers similar to the United e States Bs2’s were seen in two versions, he said. One was powered by four jet engines and the other by four turbo-prop engines. The turbo-prop model, in which a jet engine turned propellers, had no equal in the United States. Each Ox the four engines turned two counter-rotating four-bladed propellers. At a news conference, BrigadierGeneral Burgess said that apparently the Soviet Union has developed engines only slightly larger than the J 57, but they develop twice the power. “You can draw your own conclusions on the advanced stages of their engine development,” he said. In Washington today, Senator Henry Jackson called on the Defence Department to switch its emphasis from

better weapons to more weapons in view of the rapid Soviet advance in air power. Senator Jackson, a Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, supported a proposal by Senator Stuart Symington (Democrat, Missouri) for a Senate investigation of whether the United States is in danger of losing the air supremacy to the Soviet Union. Mr Eisenhower, at his press conference yesterday, had rejected any idea that the United States might have lost control of the air to the Soviet Union. “To say that we- have lost in a twinkling all of this great technical development and technical excellence as well as the number in our total aircraft is just not true,” he said.