This week marks the 20th anniversary of Sputnik, the launching by the Soviet Union of the earth’s first man-made satellite in space. It was a little moon, only 23 inches in diameter and weighing 185 pounds. It circled the earth every hour and a half at a height of 560 miles.
To Americans who stood in their yards and streets and gawked at that glow in space, it had a traumatic effect. It was tangible evidence that the Soviets had won the first leg of the space race based on technology we did not possess. Sputnik gave birth to the nuclear-space age.
To those who understood weapons of war, Sputnik had an ominous portent. It proved that the hydrogen bomb could be married to a man-made satellite and then wing through space at fantastic speeds to rain massive destruction on enemy targets.
Sputnik offered the Kremlin masters the vision that their longtime goal of world conquest could become a reality. Khrushchev immediately started a program to build an offensive force of nuclear-space weapons.
Sputnik’s effect on Americans was just as dramatic. The American people and their political leaders never even considered the possibility of acquiescing in this new Soviet space superiority. The American people and their government made a collective resolve to take every step and to. pay any price to make sure that no new technology or invention could ever endanger the national security of the United States.
The Eisenhower Administration developed a very clear strategy for dealing with the possibility of aggression in the nuclear-space age. It was best summarized in the words of Secretary of State Christian Herter: “The threat of surprise attack presents a constant danger. It is unacceptable that the Soviet political system should be given the opportunity to make secret preparations to face the Free World with the choice of abject surrender or nuclear destruction.”
To implement this strategy, the Eisenhower Administration devised what was called the Triad of our nation’s defense. On land, we built the intercontinental ballistic missile; for the sea, the Polaris-Poseidon submarine; and for the air, the B-52 bomber.
There are those today who say that we can’t afford to build the space-age weapons necessary to stay ahead of the Soviets. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Melvin Price (D., I1.), in a recent letter to President Carter, expressed “deep concern” that the United States “is falling behind the strategic might of the Soviets.”
Price warned that American security could be further damaged in the arms negotiations now going on with the Soviets. He urged “that we prepare a program which will be based on a realistic view of the world as it is, rather than on a hope of negotiations as they might be.”
Fortunately, God has blessed our country with a Gross National Product more than twice that of the Soviet Union. Anything that the Soviets can do, we can do twice as well or twice as much of. The fact is, we can’t afford NOT to rebuild our military superiority if we care about our homes and country.
This Sputnik anniversary should remind us that the first and most important constitutional duty of government is to “provide for the common defense.” We should rekindle the Can Do psychology that fired up Americans when the Soviets launched their Sputnik 20 years ago, and resolve to make certain that any potential aggressor or combination of aggressors knows in advance that America has more than enough weapons to defend our nation against any threat.
