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- <text id=91TT2147>
- <title>
- Sep. 30, 1991: American Notes:The Military
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Sep. 30, 1991 Curing Infertility
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 35
- American Notes
- THE MILITARY
- SAC Gets The Sack
- </hdr><body>
- <p> To Americans who remember crouching under their desk during
- grade-school air-raid drills, the Strategic Air Command--which kept nuke-carrying bombers airborne round the clock--was
- a special icon of the cold-war mythology. But last week Air
- Force Secretary Donald Rice announced that SAC will be
- eliminated under a sweeping reorganization of the service. Its
- nuclear missiles and bombers will join the Tactical Air
- Command's conventional aircraft to form a single Air Combat
- Command. "Desert Storm demonstrated that the line between
- strategic and tactical air power has become blurred," says a
- report released by Rice's office. "The organization needs to
- catch up."
- </p>
- <p> There are other reasons for the change. One is money; by
- 1997, the Air Force will have about one-third less fighter
- wings, missiles and bombers than it has now. Rice is also
- cutting 700 Pentagon jobs. Finally, with the decline of the
- Soviet threat, new weapons like the B-2 Stealth bomber will have
- to be sold--if they are--with the argument that they give
- the U.S. an edge in conventional as well as strategic warfare.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-