thedrifter
03-06-08, 08:10 AM
03-05-2008-- -- Roger Charles
The Origin of the Phrase; Military Industrial Complex - and What it Means to America's Frontline Troops Today
How does a nuclear powered airplane of 50 years ago equate to today's acquisition scandals involving body armor, the CAR-4, and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles?
Many people think that some Trotskyite radical with a white-hot hatred of America's capitalist economic system coined the term "Military Industrial Complex (MIC)."
Not so.
The phrase entered public usage in President -- and retired five-star General of the Army -- Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address to the nation. Three days before the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, Ike said:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. (Emphasis added.)
(It's worth pointing out that Ike did not caution against any and all influence by the MIC, only against "unwarranted" influence.)
Recent headlines about our military's dysfunctional acquisition system -- think Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP's) and body armor --brought to mind a colorful example from Gen. Eisenhower's experience that no doubt played a part in his issuing his now-famous 1961 warning.
THE AIRCRAFT NUCLEAR PROPULSION PROGRAM, AKA THE NUCLEAR POWERED AIRPLANE
In 1958 Eisenhower had seen enough of one major acquisition program that was little more than corporate welfare for a select few large companies that had used congressional and DOD enablers to pour several billion dollars into the slop trough for Washington porkers -- the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program.
Ike realized that the huge technical obstacles were unlikely to ever be overcome, regardless of promises from contractors, from federal atomic energy officials and from Air Force generals. So, he announced plans to terminate the program.
The reaction of the key players was to mount a classic and cunning inside-the-Beltway propaganda campaign: the Russian Communists had flown their very own nuclear powered airplane just six months earlier!!
Here's the quote from a signed editorial in one of the most "respected" news outlets of its day, Aviation Week:
On page 28 of this issue we are publishing the first account of Soviet nuclear powered bomber prototype along with engineering sketches in as much detail as available data permits. Appearance of this nuclear powered military prototype comes as a sickening shock to the many dedicated U.S. Air Force and Naval aviation officers, Atomic Energy Commission technicians, and industry engineers who have been working doggedly on our own nuclear aircraft propulsion program despite financial starvations, scientific scoffing, and top level indifference, for once again the Soviets have beaten us needlessly to a significant technical punch.
The editorial went on to say:
A nuclear powered bomber is being flight tested in the Soviet Union. Completed about six months ago, this aircraft has been observed both in flight and on the ground by a wide variety of foreign observers from communist and non-communist countries.
And, it ended with as phantasmagoric a scenario as could be imagined by the fervid writer who shucked what little claim for objectivity he may have once had to serve as a huckster for America's "nuclear powered bomber."
As long as a year ago there were brief but specific mentions in the Soviet technical press of successful ground testing of atomic aircraft power plants. Recent speculative stories in the Soviet popular press suggest conditioning the Russian people to an announcement of a spectacular airplane in the near future, probably a non-stop non-fueled flight around the world.
Strong words, indeed -- but, just about the only honest words in the entire quote, are "and" and "the."
The reference to "conditioning the Russian people" is a clever use of mirror-imaging for what can now clearly be seen as an effort to condition the American people into fearing being beaten -- again -- by the nefarious "Commies."
The trauma of Sputnik had occurred the previous year, 1957, so the fear that the US had lost its once vaunted technological superiority was palpable.
As for the cited financial "starvations" -- the writer ignored that several billion of today's dollars had already been invested in chasing this engineers' pipe dream. (The total cost as calculated in 2004 dollars was over $7Billion, hardly chump change, even for the US national security establishment.)
President Eisenhower did not quietly accept the bold-faced lies being leaked to thwart his plan to terminate the nuclear powered airplane. He responded directly and forcefully to the "Aviation Leak" information by stating on December 10, 1958, "There is absolutely no intelligence to back up a report that Russia is flight-testing an atomic-powered airplane." (Emphasis added.)
In Ike, we had not just a president with almost seven years of White House experience, but also a retired commander of the largest military force ever assembled by the Western world and a five-star General of the Army -- someone with impeccable military credentials. He had looked at the nuclear powered airplane program and found it not worth continuing.
One hint of technological challenges to be overcome should have been obvious in the requirement that all crewmen be "beyond child begetting age." (Yep, that's not a typo; that was a requirement due to the high likelihood of radiation damage suffered by the crew, and those are the very words used at the time. Older people are generally more resistant to radiation than younger ones, plus the genetic damage for possible progeny was a moot point for those "beyond begetting age.")
Shielding the crew in an airplane proved to be much more of a challenge than shielding the crew in the Navy's nascent nuclear submarine force, but the "can-do" mentality prevented honest evaluations of this show-stopper technical "detail."
The Air Force just ignored public mention of this issue, and instead boasted that the only reason the nuclear powered aircraft would have to land would be to re-enlist the crew.
Of course, the pale-blue suiters ignored the issue of just what is "child begetting age." Would the crew have been restricted to 80-plus-year olds?
While the above may read like a farcical version of reality along the lines of 1964 classic movie, "Dr. Strangelove: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," the archives confirm this historical record, including the 47 flights that a converted B-36 flew with a prototype nuclear reactor installed in its aft bomb bay. (The designation for this one-of-a-kind aircraft was the NB-36H, nicknamed the "Crusader" by Convair, the contractor for the test-bed airframe.)
The prototype reactor was not a permanent part of the airframe, rather it was a module kept stored in a special pit next to the runway at Convair's Fort Worth plant. For flight ops, the NB-36H was wrenched into position over the pit, the lead track-mounted doors were opened, and the reactor module was mechanically pulled into its special berth in the aft bomb bay.
Only after this was done was the crew inserted into the cockpit. A special, 11-ton, lead and rubber, shielded cockpit module had been installed in this test-bed airframe. It took a powerful crane to open the hatch so the crew could enter. (Left unmentioned was the clear reality that the crew could not have exited, whether in the air or on the ground, had such a need arisen away from the availability of a similar crane.)
The test flights were flown over "lowly-inhabited" areas of New Mexico where the radioactive gasses produced by the prototype reactor when it was made critical and generated power. The reactor did not power the test-bed aircraft, which relied upon its normal eight engines for flight.
At this point, enter the U.S. Marine Corps. Yes, even Uncle Sams Misguided Children had a role in this monumental waste of taxpayers money (and contribution to severe nuclear waste contamination that remains unresolved to this day).
A reinforce platoon of Force Reconnaissance Marines, sat in a chase plane that accompanied the NB-36H on each flight, ready to parachute into a crash zone to secure the reactor and its technology. (It's unclear from the records whether the Marines were informed that such a mission, had it actually been executed, would likely have had severe health consequences to the young Marines who were clearly still within child begetting age.)
THE LOSER, AND THE WINNERS
And, the result of this classic Washington dust up? The Military Industrial Complex steamrollered Eisenhower like he was not even there. He may have lost, but he did not forget this fight and the blatant lies used by the military and their industrial allies against him.
It's easy to understand why the Air Force brass of the early SAC (Strategic Air Command) era was enthralled with the idea of a "high-speed aircraft continuously patrolling the air space just outside" enemy early-warning radar networks, "capable of air-launching a devastating missile attack followed by high-speed penetration or attack" against "hardened installations."
The sad reality is that serious men who had just a few years before contributed to defeating the German and Japanese military machines now saw that whatever their program, that program was indispensable to winning the Cold War, regardless of the realities of insurmountable technical challenges, or cost, or collateral damage to the environment.
To say they only focused on the immediate mission is too charitable. The root of this conflict was money. Those in favor of the nuclear powered airplane wanted to make sure their program continued, regardless of the true merits of this engineering fantasy.
Those opposed, who happened to include the President of the United States, the most qualified military expert on such an issue, were certainly not ready to give the Soviet Union an easy technological advantage with potential decisive strategic implications.
Notwithstanding the above and Ike's strong opposition to the nuclear powered airplane, it was not until John F. Kennedy became president, and Robert S. McNamara the Secretary of Defense, that Eisenhower's desire to terminate the nuclear powered airplane became a reality.
In March 1963, only two months into the new administration, and in his first such action, JFK approved McNamara's request to kill the program.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
This story from 50 years ago is described above in the hopes that readers will perhaps have a better understanding of why America's frontline troops -- Hack's "boys" (and girls) -- today go to the killing fields with inferior body armor, with lightly armored Humvees and not MRAP vehicles, and with the POS CAR-4, to name just a few items of less-than-the-best-available equipment.
That this is happening after five years of sustained combat, is a national disgrace, but one largely ignored in the current presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars go to fund what Hack rightly termed "the toys" of the MIC. Many of which have little discernable relevance to the primary threats facing our nation.
The situation won't change until the unspoken part of Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex is front and center in our national political debate, and that missing word is "Congressional." The MIC should be written as the MICC -- the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.
There is actually a debate about whether Ike's speech writers had used "Congress" in an early draft of his speech, and whether he deleted this key word prior to delivering the speech. What is not debatable is that without the Congressional enablers, the Military and the Industrial sides of the complex could not be nearly as effective in denying our frontline troops the best-available equipment.
It is this third side of the MICC triangle -- Congress -- that must begin to exercise its constitutional oversight responsibilities, or we will continue to send America's defenders onto the killing fields with inferior gear, inadequate training and mediocre leadership.
[Editor's Note: an excellent description of this mind-boggling episode is in Herbert York's Race to Oblivion: A Participant's View of the Arms Race, from which the above quotes are derived.]
Ellie
The Origin of the Phrase; Military Industrial Complex - and What it Means to America's Frontline Troops Today
How does a nuclear powered airplane of 50 years ago equate to today's acquisition scandals involving body armor, the CAR-4, and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles?
Many people think that some Trotskyite radical with a white-hot hatred of America's capitalist economic system coined the term "Military Industrial Complex (MIC)."
Not so.
The phrase entered public usage in President -- and retired five-star General of the Army -- Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address to the nation. Three days before the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, Ike said:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. (Emphasis added.)
(It's worth pointing out that Ike did not caution against any and all influence by the MIC, only against "unwarranted" influence.)
Recent headlines about our military's dysfunctional acquisition system -- think Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP's) and body armor --brought to mind a colorful example from Gen. Eisenhower's experience that no doubt played a part in his issuing his now-famous 1961 warning.
THE AIRCRAFT NUCLEAR PROPULSION PROGRAM, AKA THE NUCLEAR POWERED AIRPLANE
In 1958 Eisenhower had seen enough of one major acquisition program that was little more than corporate welfare for a select few large companies that had used congressional and DOD enablers to pour several billion dollars into the slop trough for Washington porkers -- the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program.
Ike realized that the huge technical obstacles were unlikely to ever be overcome, regardless of promises from contractors, from federal atomic energy officials and from Air Force generals. So, he announced plans to terminate the program.
The reaction of the key players was to mount a classic and cunning inside-the-Beltway propaganda campaign: the Russian Communists had flown their very own nuclear powered airplane just six months earlier!!
Here's the quote from a signed editorial in one of the most "respected" news outlets of its day, Aviation Week:
On page 28 of this issue we are publishing the first account of Soviet nuclear powered bomber prototype along with engineering sketches in as much detail as available data permits. Appearance of this nuclear powered military prototype comes as a sickening shock to the many dedicated U.S. Air Force and Naval aviation officers, Atomic Energy Commission technicians, and industry engineers who have been working doggedly on our own nuclear aircraft propulsion program despite financial starvations, scientific scoffing, and top level indifference, for once again the Soviets have beaten us needlessly to a significant technical punch.
The editorial went on to say:
A nuclear powered bomber is being flight tested in the Soviet Union. Completed about six months ago, this aircraft has been observed both in flight and on the ground by a wide variety of foreign observers from communist and non-communist countries.
And, it ended with as phantasmagoric a scenario as could be imagined by the fervid writer who shucked what little claim for objectivity he may have once had to serve as a huckster for America's "nuclear powered bomber."
As long as a year ago there were brief but specific mentions in the Soviet technical press of successful ground testing of atomic aircraft power plants. Recent speculative stories in the Soviet popular press suggest conditioning the Russian people to an announcement of a spectacular airplane in the near future, probably a non-stop non-fueled flight around the world.
Strong words, indeed -- but, just about the only honest words in the entire quote, are "and" and "the."
The reference to "conditioning the Russian people" is a clever use of mirror-imaging for what can now clearly be seen as an effort to condition the American people into fearing being beaten -- again -- by the nefarious "Commies."
The trauma of Sputnik had occurred the previous year, 1957, so the fear that the US had lost its once vaunted technological superiority was palpable.
As for the cited financial "starvations" -- the writer ignored that several billion of today's dollars had already been invested in chasing this engineers' pipe dream. (The total cost as calculated in 2004 dollars was over $7Billion, hardly chump change, even for the US national security establishment.)
President Eisenhower did not quietly accept the bold-faced lies being leaked to thwart his plan to terminate the nuclear powered airplane. He responded directly and forcefully to the "Aviation Leak" information by stating on December 10, 1958, "There is absolutely no intelligence to back up a report that Russia is flight-testing an atomic-powered airplane." (Emphasis added.)
In Ike, we had not just a president with almost seven years of White House experience, but also a retired commander of the largest military force ever assembled by the Western world and a five-star General of the Army -- someone with impeccable military credentials. He had looked at the nuclear powered airplane program and found it not worth continuing.
One hint of technological challenges to be overcome should have been obvious in the requirement that all crewmen be "beyond child begetting age." (Yep, that's not a typo; that was a requirement due to the high likelihood of radiation damage suffered by the crew, and those are the very words used at the time. Older people are generally more resistant to radiation than younger ones, plus the genetic damage for possible progeny was a moot point for those "beyond begetting age.")
Shielding the crew in an airplane proved to be much more of a challenge than shielding the crew in the Navy's nascent nuclear submarine force, but the "can-do" mentality prevented honest evaluations of this show-stopper technical "detail."
The Air Force just ignored public mention of this issue, and instead boasted that the only reason the nuclear powered aircraft would have to land would be to re-enlist the crew.
Of course, the pale-blue suiters ignored the issue of just what is "child begetting age." Would the crew have been restricted to 80-plus-year olds?
While the above may read like a farcical version of reality along the lines of 1964 classic movie, "Dr. Strangelove: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," the archives confirm this historical record, including the 47 flights that a converted B-36 flew with a prototype nuclear reactor installed in its aft bomb bay. (The designation for this one-of-a-kind aircraft was the NB-36H, nicknamed the "Crusader" by Convair, the contractor for the test-bed airframe.)
The prototype reactor was not a permanent part of the airframe, rather it was a module kept stored in a special pit next to the runway at Convair's Fort Worth plant. For flight ops, the NB-36H was wrenched into position over the pit, the lead track-mounted doors were opened, and the reactor module was mechanically pulled into its special berth in the aft bomb bay.
Only after this was done was the crew inserted into the cockpit. A special, 11-ton, lead and rubber, shielded cockpit module had been installed in this test-bed airframe. It took a powerful crane to open the hatch so the crew could enter. (Left unmentioned was the clear reality that the crew could not have exited, whether in the air or on the ground, had such a need arisen away from the availability of a similar crane.)
The test flights were flown over "lowly-inhabited" areas of New Mexico where the radioactive gasses produced by the prototype reactor when it was made critical and generated power. The reactor did not power the test-bed aircraft, which relied upon its normal eight engines for flight.
At this point, enter the U.S. Marine Corps. Yes, even Uncle Sams Misguided Children had a role in this monumental waste of taxpayers money (and contribution to severe nuclear waste contamination that remains unresolved to this day).
A reinforce platoon of Force Reconnaissance Marines, sat in a chase plane that accompanied the NB-36H on each flight, ready to parachute into a crash zone to secure the reactor and its technology. (It's unclear from the records whether the Marines were informed that such a mission, had it actually been executed, would likely have had severe health consequences to the young Marines who were clearly still within child begetting age.)
THE LOSER, AND THE WINNERS
And, the result of this classic Washington dust up? The Military Industrial Complex steamrollered Eisenhower like he was not even there. He may have lost, but he did not forget this fight and the blatant lies used by the military and their industrial allies against him.
It's easy to understand why the Air Force brass of the early SAC (Strategic Air Command) era was enthralled with the idea of a "high-speed aircraft continuously patrolling the air space just outside" enemy early-warning radar networks, "capable of air-launching a devastating missile attack followed by high-speed penetration or attack" against "hardened installations."
The sad reality is that serious men who had just a few years before contributed to defeating the German and Japanese military machines now saw that whatever their program, that program was indispensable to winning the Cold War, regardless of the realities of insurmountable technical challenges, or cost, or collateral damage to the environment.
To say they only focused on the immediate mission is too charitable. The root of this conflict was money. Those in favor of the nuclear powered airplane wanted to make sure their program continued, regardless of the true merits of this engineering fantasy.
Those opposed, who happened to include the President of the United States, the most qualified military expert on such an issue, were certainly not ready to give the Soviet Union an easy technological advantage with potential decisive strategic implications.
Notwithstanding the above and Ike's strong opposition to the nuclear powered airplane, it was not until John F. Kennedy became president, and Robert S. McNamara the Secretary of Defense, that Eisenhower's desire to terminate the nuclear powered airplane became a reality.
In March 1963, only two months into the new administration, and in his first such action, JFK approved McNamara's request to kill the program.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
This story from 50 years ago is described above in the hopes that readers will perhaps have a better understanding of why America's frontline troops -- Hack's "boys" (and girls) -- today go to the killing fields with inferior body armor, with lightly armored Humvees and not MRAP vehicles, and with the POS CAR-4, to name just a few items of less-than-the-best-available equipment.
That this is happening after five years of sustained combat, is a national disgrace, but one largely ignored in the current presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars go to fund what Hack rightly termed "the toys" of the MIC. Many of which have little discernable relevance to the primary threats facing our nation.
The situation won't change until the unspoken part of Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex is front and center in our national political debate, and that missing word is "Congressional." The MIC should be written as the MICC -- the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.
There is actually a debate about whether Ike's speech writers had used "Congress" in an early draft of his speech, and whether he deleted this key word prior to delivering the speech. What is not debatable is that without the Congressional enablers, the Military and the Industrial sides of the complex could not be nearly as effective in denying our frontline troops the best-available equipment.
It is this third side of the MICC triangle -- Congress -- that must begin to exercise its constitutional oversight responsibilities, or we will continue to send America's defenders onto the killing fields with inferior gear, inadequate training and mediocre leadership.
[Editor's Note: an excellent description of this mind-boggling episode is in Herbert York's Race to Oblivion: A Participant's View of the Arms Race, from which the above quotes are derived.]
Ellie