Pentagon Unveils the Stealth Bomber

With its unparalleled genius for public relations, the Pentagon chose the Thanksgiving season to hatch the largest and most expensive turkey in all of recorded history. Not since a lesser authority created the pterodactyl, a few years before President Reagan reached puberty, has this planet witnessed the birth of a more useless and more expensive product of its material and intellectual resources.

The task for which this technological abortion was devised was effectively eliminated over a half-century ago when scientists developed nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which now can reach and destroy their targets before even one of these obsolete budget busters lifts from the end of its runway. The fact that some of these marvels would survive to destroy an assortment of enemy targets is irrelevant, for by the time this horror was accomplished, a sufficient mega-tonnage of friendly and enemy nuclear devices would have been exploded to release more than enough radiation to render this planet totally uninhabitable.

As a practical (a word not in the Pentagon’s dictionary) matter, the only destruction this weapon is likely to accomplish will be to the budget and economy of the United States, a goal with which our archenemies, the communists, are undoubtedly completely in sympathy.

ROBERT S. COUGHLIN

Rancho Palos Verdes