OCR Text |
Show Demo Chairman Blasts GOP On Missiles Lag Paul M. Butler, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Com-mittee, this week charged that "the United States would be virtually vir-tually unarmed in the missile field today had it not been for the foresight and awareness of former President Truman and his advisers who produced the eleven operational missiles that stand between us and the Soviet Union." Mr. Butler called on President Eisenhower to report the facts on current missile progress fully, stating that "all of the missiles which the President claimed as 'operational' in his November 7 chins-up speech' were initiated under the last Democratic administration." ad-ministration." The National Chairman cited a Department of Defense unclassified un-classified "Fact Sheet on Guided Missiles" dated November 21, which he asserted "make it clear that all of the funds, research or full development of every one of the operational missiles today were the result of Truman Administration Ad-ministration policies and programs. pro-grams. "In the light of this public information in-formation it is anything but reassuring re-assuring to hear President Eisenhower Eisen-hower report that of the 38 different dif-ferent types of missiles either in operation or under development almost one third of these are in actual operation." Mr. Butler was quoting from President Eisenhower's Eisen-hower's nationally televised report re-port of November 7. "The Department of Defense Fact Sheet actually lists eleven missiles as operational. From a study of this unclassified information infor-mation and other published data on our missile program, it is apparent that on every one of the eleven missiles presently operational, op-erational, that is, in the hands of the Army, Navy or Air Force and ready to use today, the appropriations, ap-propriations, research or produc tion can be credited to the foresight fore-sight of the former president who j initiated the program." Mr. Butler spoke at a meeting of Young Democrats of Maryland Mary-land in the American Legion Hall at Towson, Md. Mr. Butler continued: "The time has come to halt Republican Re-publican efforts to distort the record on the present missile lag by trying to blame the Democrats. Demo-crats. The time has come for the Republican leaders to halt their false and divisive tactics if we are to catch up and surpass the Soviet Union in scientific progress pro-gress which the President said would require the hard work and sacrifice by a lot of people. "Republicans are trying to blame the Democrats when the Republican controlled 83rd Con-( Con-( gress shares the blame with the j President for the country's lag in scientific research and missile race. It was the 83rd Congress, following President Eisenhower's ! 1952 campaign pledge that cut . ; the defense budget. The Repub-! Repub-! lican Congress went ever further jthan the President when it cut $6 billion from the defense bud-'get bud-'get that President Truman had submitted after careful evalu- ation of the Soviet threat." 1 The Democratic Chairman said that "today's inflation under the J Eisenhower Administration is further weakening the U. S. defense de-fense effort since actual defense spending for missiles and aircraft air-craft is less today than in 1954 as a result of the cheaper dollar. In listing the following record on operational missiles taken from the official Department of Defense fact sheet, along with other published data, Mr. Butler termed it "more than an ade-. ade-. quate reply to Republican attempts at-tempts to shift the blame for the Eisenhower failures back to the administration of Harry Truman." |