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Show Rep. King Refutes Dawson on Missile Statement Rep. David S. King Wednesday took sharp issue with ex-Congressman William A. Dawson over the latter's statement that this country is ahead of Russia in "missiles with effective striking strik-ing range." Mr. King called on the Republican Repub-lican whom he defeated two years ago to identify by name the military authorities whom Mr. Dawson said were the source of his statement. Utah papers quoted Mr. Dawson Daw-son as saying, in an address to the South Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce that this country was "ahead of the Russians in both missiles with effective striking range and air power sufficient to deliver a mortal blow to any aggressor." This, he said, was the opinion of the "foremost authorities author-ities who are in a position to know the facts." He also blasted Mr. Dawson for his statement characterizing the space efforts as "stunts to hit the moon." "This is exactly the attitude which cost us the lead in space," Mr. King asserted. "By their intensive in-tensive programs in education and research, the Russians are consciously striving to achieve complete control of space. If, by skepticism and indifference, we permit them to achieve that aim we will find th globe completely ensnared in a communist web. They will control the air over our very heads." Mr. King agreed that the U. S. long range bomber fleet still is the strongest single deterrent in the world, but added: "Our space committee very recently has heard all of the principal authorities in the defense de-fense department, and all of them unhappily agreed that the Russians are clearly ahead of us in missile striking power." This view has been given the space committee by Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates, Jr.; Allen Dulles, director of Central Intelligence Agency; General L. L. Lemnitzer, Army chief of staff; General Thomas D. White, Air Force chief of staff, and Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, chief of naval operations. "If these men are not our foremost fore-most United States authorities on military strength the men in the best position to know, then who is?" the congressman demanded. de-manded. Mr. King said he is convinced the nation can improve its defense de-fense without increasing expenditures. expen-ditures. "We can do it by streamlining stream-lining the program, by eliminating elimi-nating the duplication and cut-ing cut-ing the expenditure for weapons which are obsolete or are rapidly becoming obsolete." Several military leaders, have pointed out that we don't need three ICBMs, Mr. King said. He said the solid fuel Minuteman possibly would supplant both the Atlas and the Titan. "But certainly cer-tainly we don't need both liquid fuel ICBMs," he added. |