JOURNAL - OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL TUESDAY - 17 OCTOBER 1972

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74B00415R000200120011-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 28, 2005
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: October 17, 1972
• Content Type: NOTES

Approved For Release 2005/08/03ti CI'A RDP74B00415R000200120011-1
L:re L i d i. i- A
Journal - Office of Legislative Counsel Page 4
Tuesday - 17 October 1972
11. I I Captain Ed Bauser, Staff Director, Joint
Committee on Atomic Energy, called and asked if he could get a briefing
this afternoon on the latest information on the naval construction at Nikolayev.
Bauser had seen the Beecher article in the New York Times today and this
had sparked his renewed interest in the subject he has been following rather
closely. He also mentioned interest in any new information on the "Lenin"
and any new information on Soviet submarines. I told Bauser it would be
difficult to set this up this afternoon, but made arrangements for a briefing 25X1
tomorrow morning at 11.
Approved For Release 2005/08/03 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000200120011-1
 Release 2005/08/03 JI C~TB00415R0002PAGE011-1
N
EW Y&KCIMUff DATE / GG.~
IN'73151ND1(JA'1'
A SOVIET CARREA
Russians Said to Be Testing
Vertical Take-off Jets
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16-
Icy WILLIAM-BEECHER
Special to The New York Times
essel_ A.f ~Q,QQO to
tanker or ~olne sort of "air-
S~S11Slbly
l a.f t carrier But recent
1 a'rr
ion, the an_a ys s say,
h _ u ru e out super- ~'
tJpXUeo
? _
Sea Trials Likely in Year
"I don't think there's much A'
doubt any longer that what
we're seeing is an aircraft car-
rier, roughly the size of our
old Essex-class carrier;" a
senior Pentagon official said.
"I would expect it to be com-
pleted and in sea trials within;
a year and' operational in about
a year and a half."
The Soviet Navy, the analysts
said, has also begun active
flight tests of a vertical-take-
off jet fighter. Previous tests
of such planes have been con-
ducted exclusively by the So-
viet Air Force.
American military analysts
suspect that the Russians will
first employ vertical-take-off
jots from their carrier, avoid-
ing the complications of build-
Ing steam catapults to launch
the plane's and folding wings to
enable them to be lowered in
elevators from the flight deck
to maintenance shops below.
Long-Range Plan Seen
Officials generally express no
alarm at this development, esti-
mating that it will take the
Russians 10 years or more to
,produce advanced carriers and
'high-performance aircraft that
would approach American capa-
bility. But they point to the
moves as but therlatest, ndi
cations that the Sovie neon is
embarked on a Ion =range pro
gram to extend its power and'
influence far from home.
Until recent years the Soviet Carrier Value Noted
Navy had been essentially de-
signed to defend coastal waters Western analysts will argue
against attack. In the mid-nine- that point but insist that in
teen-fifties i e?en had 1,500jo any crisis short of a nuclear
2,000 short-range fighters`%t war there is little debate over
land bases to defend its ships. the value of the carrier in pro-
But as Norman Polmar points tecting a nation's fleet far from
out in a recent study, "Soviet its territory, in projecting air
Naval Power: Challenge for the .i power ashore and in providing
1970's" (National Strategy In- a means to search distant wa-
formation Center, 1972), the r ters for enemy missile sub-
Soviet leaders apparently be- l marines.
came convinced of the inade- Thus the interest over Soviet
quacy of their naval power fol- Navy flight tests of vertical
lowing the landing of Ameri- take-off and landing jets. But
can marines in Lebanon in such planes normally use so
1958 and the United States na- much fuel in lifting off that
val quarantine during the 1962 their range is short. American
Cuban missile confrontation. planners believe, therefore,
Patrols in Mediterranean that the Russians are likely to
Two years after the Cuban
crisis Soviet warships began
regular patrols in the Mediter-
ranean. The size of the Mediter-
ranean fleet has grown steadily.
With increasing frequency So-
viet ships have ventured into
the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian
Oceans and the Caribbean Sea.
The size and quality of its
submarines and surface ships
have kept pace with this out-
ward deployment.
In 1967 the Rusians deployed
the first of the 15,000-to-18,-
000-ton helicopter carriers, the
Moskva and Leningrad, each
with a' half deck used. for anti-
submarine helicopters.
Soviet military writers have
usually denigrated the value of
Western aircraft carreirs, in-
sisting that they were highly
vulnerable to destruction in a
nuclear war.
m follow the Western pattern in
later carrier developments.
Ri
PA "It's still possible we will see
steam catapults and an angled
flight deck in this first carrier,"
are now r construe-
nay be esigne as part
ure carrier task for s.
: tad--fie
the X-r-0 from th
har ra,~idax~ ~n3Za~ e
Sam" lk ' ea into the ), editerra-
is year.
Approved For Release 2005/08/03 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000200120011-1