T8 B22 Filson Materials Fdr- Mgen Paul Pochmara Interview- Typed Notes 315

RAM team Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Pochmara Michigan Air National Guard Was also in D.C. Air National Guard Former commander of 113W - 8 years Ang asst. to head of AFMC - Air Force Materiel Command at WrightPatterson 3 years in ANG headquarters also outside the air defense world, flew fighters all life and when larry arnold and paul weaver wanted someone to do study they wanted somebody experienced in fighters with knowledge of air defense, but not a cardcarrying air defender I have sat air defense alert in japan, but I was never a 1AF type of person and never did ad alert in the u.s. At national guard bureau, air defense was part of my responsibilities, but I was close enough and have credibility but far enoough away where I would be credible also I would not be preaching to the choir I questioned the need for the stuyd We went in there with some peopl whow When we put together the team, they wanted me to be an honest broker and I was told to say it like it is I would not be influenced When I chose the members, I chose some who didn't like air defense, who were against it Contractor from RAND Some people like myself who went, "I don't know" Two other generals felt the same way Some people on 1 af staaf I assembled a team who could balance each other out About 4 people in each camp 4 people against it, 4 who loved it, 4 who were neutral, willing to say let's prove it one way or the other

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Where did you guys visit? NORAD, Air National Guard Bureau, A lack of understanding by air national guard bureau on the mission On my budget, but an air force mission Nobody advocating it in the ang Ace was going hey this is an ang mission that is funded by the ang so they didn't advocate it Nobody wsa there as an advocate of the misison except 1 AF They didn't have a big brother excpet norad Ace vice commander Went to head of ang, head of national guard Briefed all the tags of the states w/the mission Went to 1 1th af also sitting alert - alaska How were you perceived? Universally, excpet for going up to norad, I think when we walked in the door, we were perceived I can't say with reticence but they weren't necessarily supporters, not necessarily against it, but we did not walk into the door w/friendly audiences. They weren't hostile It wasnot necessarily a welcomed audience of support, but universally when we left, to the overall concensus of the people there was iunderstand and oh by the way laf is valuable and needs to continue doing the work it does 1 ) we traced why you needed air sovereignty from constitution all the way down into law - the af is an organization for defense in the u.s., not for offense and it's inlaw, you have to do it 2) it is cost-efficient, we're not spending a lot of money on it 3) let's figure out what we're doing with the u.s. I would say let's get down to practical matters, when we're going to take down land borders, get rid of ins, border patrol, dea, take all our sea and port borders down and not have any physical protections of land and sea, then you will get rid of the air portion - 3 defenses, air land and sea, as long as you have sea and land you have to do air and that's the most vulnerable - what were chances of taking downland and sea, zero, therefore you need to get

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behindit and support it and make it as efficient as possible, it is the most vulnerable part of our triad of defense of the u.s. and look what happened we started with monolitihic threat of air bombers, built montage, picture of bin laden we examined the threat and knew he was most dangerous man in the world, we told people, that is the type of propblems you're having if you are going to protect land, air and sea, you can't take down the organization that is doing it and doing it pretty efficiently we looked at efficiency of laf w/167 people, a small naf rand corp. had recommended reduction of entire effort, they were on contract at langley and came in and gave us a briefing I told anybody on team if they didn't agree w/anything in report, they could have declination in the report and nobody did Rand came back and completely modified its study and their study started where ours left off RAND was hired by ACC command and control to look at consolidating efforts of 1AF, they wanted to combine sectors and put it into NORAD Some units saying: why should we sit alert w/7 sites, 7 was the minimum and oh by the way, holes on the east coast from Virginia up we briefed that there were holes on east coast and recommended six stations of airplanes started w/1,500 airplanes involved, 60 or so alert sites and eventually down to 10 then to 7 and some people were advocating, before the study, cutting it down to 4, consolidating the sectors a whole bunch of people, including fighter pilots, who said why am I sitting ad alert to intercept a Cessna 172 off its flight plan that was the misperception of people it was difficult, especially at lower levels getting people to understand concept of sovereignty as a nation 4th thing that sold the briefing: concept of sovereignty of a nation every nation wants to be sovereign but all nations go thru it differently

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nation's that can't afford it can't afford land, sea and air to make it sovereign we're the world's greatest power so we spend evenmore on sovereignty and it means an awful lot to us we're doing this to make sure someone can't penetrate our airspace general officers at least at 3-star anad above understand what sovereignty means as a nation you have your house in a neighborhood and you don't want anyone to break into it but anybody at will can break intoyour house when you're not theere or when you're there and you really can't stop them ... do you leave your door open, do you unlock your doors because you can't stop somebody? We're not going to do that as a nation, we're going to make some attempt to keep our doors locked and protect ourselves and that's what sovereignty means 1 -hour briefing paul weaver was a believer gen davis said how can I help you briefed all directors of ang Was this type of team unusual? Typically people go to an outside source when they want studies, as opposed to an internal study Larry arnold and staff smart to do it this way They allowed me a free hand on how to put it together He stood back and just let it happen I have to give him an awful lot of credit Conclusion of report: whatever you put together I may not agree w/you, you say it how you think it is and I will listen to you Had payne Stewart happened on a weekend where we didn't intercept them: Internal in the u.s. We need better communications We weren't equipped at handling things internally

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Phase 2 - where do we go in the nature? A graph in the study, Interest in air defense going down, air force and population will goup We predict people are going to be more interested in the future We looked at cruise missiles, number of missiles who had them, asymmetrical threats that come from countries - chemicals, biologial When we start looking at all those threats out there, there will be a bigger interest in air defense Phase 2 - what is the future? We talked about having better sensors, things that can detect things, better radar systems, intelligence gathering, we said we needed better communications The af was

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We recommended better aircraft is aircraft is going to be method of air sovereignty, recommended f22s to plug up holes on east coast Could have gotten from here to there - otis to wtc - w/f22 Looked at consolidating other missions and making it more efficient, putting rescue in there recommended a better integration of air force officer to 1 AF, which is mainly made up of ANG Bring more people into AF and cycle them through

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