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news
•
WORLD EVENTS
the wake
of
toda
y'
s
1n
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Chinese Developing ICBM
The People's Republic of China is in the process of
developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM),
reportedly sorne 20% Jarger in volume than the
U.S.S.R.'s largest, the SS-9.
The Chinese missile is apparently a three-stage
liquid fuel ICBM with an estimated range of between
5,000 and 7,000 miles - enough to reach most major
cities and military targets in both the United States and
Soviet Union. Once deployed, this missile will propel
China into true superpower status beside the United
States and the Soviet Union.
Deployment, however, is still a few years away.
After China successfully tests its first ICBM at full range
(possibly later this year), it will take an estimated three
more years before a force of between 10 and 30 such
missiles could be deployed. Sorne experts estimate that,
with maximum effort, the job could be completed sorne–
time in 1975. The Chinese are also constructing con–
crete-and-steel underground silos to protect these
missiles against surprise attack.
Presently, China has a total of about 50 medium–
and intermediate-range missiles deployed at scattered
sites, with ranges of from 600 to 3,500 miles. Its IRBMs
are able to reach many of Russia's main cities west of
the Urals - including Moscow.
Tbe Chinese reportedly have also built a comput–
erized radar installation facing the U.S.S.R. to cover the
corridor that Soviet missiles would have to traverse to
hit China.
Though achievement by China of a strong deter–
rent capability would most certainly reduce the possi–
bi lity of war between itself and the Soviet Union, sorne
observers fear that Chinese nuclear development could
lead toa Soviet preemptive attack on the Chinese main–
land within the next year or two to wipe out the bud–
ding Chinese nuclear arsenal
before it gets too big
-
and
most certainly before the big ICBMs are deployed.
It
is
believed that fear of such a possible Soviet first strike
was a major factor in pushing China toward a greater
accommodation with the United States.
PLAIN TRUTH September 1973
•
Energy Crisis Much Worse
Than Realized
To the majority of Americans, West Europeans,
and Japanese, the "energy crisis" means little more than
higher fuel prices and possible shortages and rationjng.
But a startlingly broader picture emerged earlier
this year during a conversation between nationally syn–
dicated columnist Josepb Alsop and the then Israeli
Ambassador to the United States, ltzhak Rabio. Speak–
ing with the Ambassador just prior to Rabin's departure
from Washington and return to Israel, Mr. Alsop eli–
cited sorne alarming observations:
"You do not think enough about the oil problem,"
asserted Ambassador Rabio. "1 have been looking into
it for months.
It
is worse than you suppose - ten times
worse. Your jugular, Westem Europe's jugular, Japan's
jugular, all run through the Persian Gulfnowadays. Yet
you have no means to defend your jugular."
"This is why your country must cease to be a great
power,,
Ambassador Rabio continued, "unless you can
find means to solve this terrible problem which every–
one has overlooked for too long.
No nation can remain a
great power that has a wholly undefended jugular,
wait–
ing to be cut by anyone with a willing knife."
Alluding to another American problem, Rabio
stated that "no nation can be a great power, either. that
has
an ever more worthless currency
-
unless it is a
totalitarian state like Hitler's Germany or the Soviet
Union, which the United States will never be.''
In conclusion, the Ambassador challenged: "Look
into the facts that the future will force you to face. Look
into what those facts will do to your dollar. Look into
the new strategic situation those facts will soon enough
create for you. Then you will see that I am right."
With the United States increasingly dependent
upon Middle East oil - to say nothing of Westem
Europe and Japan, almost totally so - Rabin's warning
demands attention.
- edited by Gene H. Hogberg
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