Air University Review, November-December 1976

from the editor's aerie

Traditionally, Air University Review has emphasized technological breakthroughs and their application in a military environment. It seems fitting, then, that we practice what we preach by applying recent computer-assisted typesetting techniques in our own production process. The text of the last issue of the Review was done by Optical Character Recognition (OCR), a process utilizing an electronic light beam to produce type directly from a typewritten manuscript. Further along, we will bypass the scanner and set type from a tape generated by a text-editing typewriter. These techniques eliminate rekeyboarding by the typesetter and a proof cycle and enable us to reduce commercial printing costs significantly. The regional Government Printing Office has informed us that the AU Review was the first federal publication to incorporate this entire process into its contract specifications. We will also use this procedure in our Spanish and Portuguese editions.

A recent new element appears on our cover here. It is the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), which enters the Review in a worldwide computerized network of periodical publications.

At our present rate of computerization, the whimsical thought inevitably suggests itself that we may soon receive articles on magnetic tape generated by computers, which may then be read by electronic scanners and entered in memory banks, thus eliminating the need for authors, editors, the printed page, or even a human readership. Somewhere in this developmental process the A U Review staff promises to draw the line.

If this issue can be said to have a theme, it would relate to technological progress. The lead articles, by Colonel Robert Detweiler and Colonel James Strub, provide instructive summaries of where the Air Force has been and where it ought to be going with its research programs. Our cover pays tribute to Theodor von Kármán (1881-1963), the "father of the supersonic age" and chief architect of today's Air Force research structure.

Nuclear technology and its place in our national strategy considerations are analyzed by Major General Edward Giller, USAF (Ret).

The management process receives its share of attention by Major General Edmund Rafalko and by a team of authors, Lieutenant Colonel Russell Pierre and frequent contributor Jerry Peppers. 

The employment of tactical forces is treated by Brigadier General William Holton, USAF (Ret), and Major Donald J. Alberts. General Holton examines the use of TAC forces in Special Operations, and a regular contributor, Don Alberts, in a particularly provocative article, projects the lessons of the Yom Kippur War to possible future encounters with Communist bloc forces.

Concluding this issue, aside from book reviews long and short, is a backgrounder on the recent turmoil in Lebanon by Drs. Lewis Ware and Paul Godwin, resident members of the Air University staff.