U.S. AIR POWER CRITICISED

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 11

U.S. AIR POWER CRITICISED

Programme “Junked” This Year (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Jan. 22. The magazine “Aviation Week" said today that the hew air power budget of the Secretary of Defence. Mr Charles Wilson, had "junked” the programme to equip the Air Force with modern long-range striking power. In a leading article headed “The New Airpower Fraud.” the magazine said that the budget for the financial year beginning next July, wiped out the programme to re-equip the Strategic Air Command with longrange B-25 jet bombers and with KC-135 jet tankers. “For the next several years, the retaliatory power of Strategic Air Command will be significantly curtailed by this production stretch-out, and its future power will be delayed by the research fund ceiling.” it said. If it were approved without change, the budget “will serve notice to the Communists that our military air power is again on the decline .and that out policy of massive retaliation is being built on bluff and bluster rather than superior weapons.” The magazine said that censorship by top-level Defence Department officials, in the guise of military security, had concealed the real problems facing the Air Force. Air Force funds for the procurement of new aircraft had been cut substantially so that only 1900 new planes could be contracted for in the next year “a bare few hundred more planes than those lost every year through normal operational attrition.