BOMBINGS ESCALATED. TO THREE TIMES KOREAN WAR’ FIGURE
“The story, apparently "leaked", by the Pentagon, about a "shortage" of bombs in Vietnam may well have. been partly designed as a decoy to help divert attention from a new jump in the escalation of the war in Vietnam.
Thus, instead of having to argue with critics about the wisdom of increasing the rain of bombs on, Vietnam and selecting tergets closer and closer to crowded civilian centers, McNamara had the easy job of proving that. the American air force faces no real _ "shortage" of bombs for its murderous forays.
The civilian: head ‘of the Pentagon tola a press conference April 14 that in March U.S. bombers dropped 50,000 tons of bombs, an increase of 25 per cent over February. This brought the average rate of bombing to three times that used to devastate Korea.
The total "conventional bomb inventory" planned for the calendar year 1966, said this war criminal, is. 648,000 tons.
This is 91 per cent of all the bombs used during the 47 months of the Korean war, McNamara said.
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- BARGAIN-COUNTER. BOMBS
‘When the. Pentagon | announced April 16 that-it had repurchased 5,570 of 7, 562, bombs sold as junk to a West German “firm more than two years ago, publicists of the Johnson administration: explained : how clever the deal was and how everyone benefited from it.
. The 750-pound bombs, which cost $330 apiece, were sold for $1.68 each to the Kaus and Steinhausen Co., who planned to extract the nitrate from the explosives and reséll it as fertilizer. By selling the bombs that had. not yet ‘been reduced to fertilizer back. to ‘the Pentagon for $20.56 each, they made a quick and handsome profit.
‘Yet it was a bargain ‘buy for the Pentagon. The ‘production cost today for one '750-pound: bomb is: $440... bo,
_ Moreover the rather sensational purchase gave the more rabid warmongers something to:use as "proof" for the recent stories, apparently leaked by the Pentagon itself, about the United States~ running short of bombS to dump on the Vietnamese. Besides: the publicity, the bombs themselves were, of course, perfectly acceptable for Johnson's B-52 jet bombers, each of which can carry about 40 of the missiles in a single "mission" to north Vietnam.
As the Washington Bureau of the New York Herald Tribune put it {April 17]:."In essence, it seems unfortunate the Defense Department cannot buy. back more of. the