578 
In a recent speech before a meeting of the National Aviation Club 
in Washington, Secretary Middendorf listed several major assets of 
the U.S. Navy, such as superior aircraft carriers, quieter submarines, 
and more highly qualified personnel. Hence, he added; “. . . there 
is little validity to the recent charge that we are falling farther and 
farther behind the Soviet Union in seapower.”’!” In recent testimony 
before the Task Force on Defense, of the Senate Budget Committee, 
Admiral Holloway said that it is not the Navy’s intent or objective 
to control simultaneously all seven-tenths of the Earth’s surface which 
is covered by international waters, but instead to be capable of fighting 
and winning any actions required to insure that we are able to use 
those parts of the high seas required to support our national policy. 
Within those parameters, the admiral maintained: 
I might say that our analyses indicate that we can carry out our missions and 
tasks against the current threat as we analyze it, but only by a very slim margin 
of success: There are some areas of the world in which we can’t cope with the threat, 
but in the most important area, which is the Atlantic in the context of a NATO- 
Warsaw Pact conflict where the resupply of NATO through the Atlantic is absolutely 
essential to the fulfillment of our goals in that theater, the U.S. Navy can, we believe, 
maintain the integrity or gain the integrity of our supply lines across the Atlantic.'® 
Department of Defense authorities are particularly worried about 
past and current Soviet shipbuilding trends, which, they maintain, 
will result in Soviet overall superiority at sea, if not arrested soon.'® 
Representative Les Aspin disagrees with the Pentagon. He maintains 
that both the United States and the Soviet fleets have contracted 
in recent years, and that if current shipbuilding trends continue, the 
United States will grow again and outproduce the Soviet Navy in 
both surface warships and nuclear attack submarines.”° 
Naval authorities generally agree with Representative Aspin’s histori- 
cal analysis of total shipbuilding programs in both the United States 
and the U.S.S.R., but they disagree strongly with the Aspin analysis 
of future shipbuilding trends in the two countries. 
- The Members of Congress for Peace through Law recently issued 
a report on national defense stating the U.S. Navy is the strongest 
in the world.?! Recognizing growing Soviet capabilities in the oceans, 
the report maintains: | 
Despite its growing capability, the Soviet fleet ranks a distant second when compared 
to the U.S. fleet. When the NATO navies and the Japanese navies are added to 
the naval power equation, the U.S. and allied navies clearly have an overwhelming 
naval superiority over Soviet, Chinese and/or Warsaw Pact navies. This is likely to 
continue in the foreseeable future.?? 
But the same report also recognizes that the Soviet Union may deny 
sea control—its key role—to the U.S. Navy, arguing: 
'7Remarks by Navy Secretary J. William Middendorf before a meeting of the National Aviation 
Club in Washington, ‘‘Aviation Week & Space Technology,’ Mar. 8, 1976. 
18U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Budget, Task Force on Defense, Seminars, Service 
Chiefs on Defense Mission and Priorities, Sept. 18, 1975, Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Print- 
ing Office, 1976. p. 9. 
'9See: Quotations of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Chief of Staff, General George S. 
Brown in: Representative Les Aspin, The Trends in the Naval Balance: A Fact Sheet, Washington, 
D.C., July 1976. 
20Ibid., pp. 3 and 17. 
21 Congressional Record. Mav 19, 1976, $7509. 
22 Ibid., $7509. 
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