Read Online AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War by Larry Kahaner - Free Book Online
Authors: Larry Kahaner
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agreed to buy the rights to the AR-15, with ArmaLite retaining some royalties.
COLT HAD A LARGE PROFILE in the world of small arms, with a strong global reputation. Stoner and salesperson Bobby Macdonald joined forces and took the AR-15 on the road, focusing on Southeast Asia, a territory that Macdonald knew well. They learned that the smaller-stature Asian military preferred the lighter weapon with little recoil, but sales still eluded them. It appeared to Macdonald and Stoner that the fix was in again, as foreign military leaders said they had signed agreements with the United States to buy only officially issued weapons and the AR-15 was not an acceptable purchase.
Their luck turned, however, during an Independence Day picnic at Boutelle’s farm outside Hagerstown. He invited an old friend, General Curtis LeMay, air force chief of staff, who was widely known and revered as the father of the Strategic Air Command. He had also taken charge of the Berlin Airlift after the Soviet Union had isolated the city, a move that signaled the beginning of the cold war. Known for his extreme right-wing political views, “Bombs Away” LeMay, as he was dubbed, made no secret of his desire to drop atomic bombs anywhere to achieve a political goal. Years later, during a 1968 press conference, while running for vice president along with self-proclaimed segregationist former Alabama governor George Wallace, he stated to the shock and horror of many around the world, “We seem to have a phobia about nuclear weapons. . . . If I found it necessary, I would use anything we could dream up—anything that we could dream up—including nuclear weapons, if it was necessary.” So excessive was his warmongering persona that filmmaker Stanley Kubrick satirized him in the 1964 hit film Dr. Strangelove as General Buck Turgidson (played by George C. Scott), the trigger-happy, nuclear bomb-loving top gun who nonchalantly advocated blowing the Soviet Union to smithereens despite the human cost.
It was this outrageous figure who would grab the AR-15 from the scrap heap to become the army’s legendary M-16, the AK’s main rival in the Vietnam War.
Boutelle’s farm was a shooter’s paradise, with skeet and trap fields, pistol ranges, and archery lanes. He had set up three watermelons at 50, 100, and 150 yards and gave LeMay an AR-15. LeMay hit the melons at 50 and 150 yards, and they exploded as if someone had inserted cherry bombs. (He and the others ate the third watermelon.) The AR-15’s performance so impressed LeMay that he invited Colt officials to the Air Force Academy to discuss buying the rifles, and he ordered them to replace the M1 carbine for use by base security personnel. LeMay had cleverly circumvented the system by replacing not the M-14 but a different rifle, and Ordnance could not do a thing about it. At the same time, Colt executives were raising awareness on Capitol Hill about how poorly Ordnance had treated their weapon during testing and what a mess they had made with the M-14. Newspapers were beginning to publish stories about the debacle.
Now, for the first time, Ordnance’s activities were out in the open, and further test firing of the AR-15 took place, with high-ranking brass, including the cigar-chomping LeMay, observing. The AR-15 put in a superb performance against the M-14, including shots fired during rain and extreme cold, which had sunk it two years earlier. Because the results were so much better, allegations of previous test-firing shenanigans had legs.
Colt was still in trouble, however. LeMay’s order was personally turned down by newly elected president John F. Kennedy, who had fired the gun during a military demonstration. It wasn’t that Kennedy disliked the weapon; the president and his military advisors were troubled by the notion of different branches of the military using different rifles. With the United States becoming increasingly involved in the Vietnam conflict,
COLT HAD A LARGE PROFILE in the world of small arms, with a strong global reputation. Stoner and salesperson Bobby Macdonald joined forces and took the AR-15 on the road, focusing on Southeast Asia, a territory that Macdonald knew well. They learned that the smaller-stature Asian military preferred the lighter weapon with little recoil, but sales still eluded them. It appeared to Macdonald and Stoner that the fix was in again, as foreign military leaders said they had signed agreements with the United States to buy only officially issued weapons and the AR-15 was not an acceptable purchase.
Their luck turned, however, during an Independence Day picnic at Boutelle’s farm outside Hagerstown. He invited an old friend, General Curtis LeMay, air force chief of staff, who was widely known and revered as the father of the Strategic Air Command. He had also taken charge of the Berlin Airlift after the Soviet Union had isolated the city, a move that signaled the beginning of the cold war. Known for his extreme right-wing political views, “Bombs Away” LeMay, as he was dubbed, made no secret of his desire to drop atomic bombs anywhere to achieve a political goal. Years later, during a 1968 press conference, while running for vice president along with self-proclaimed segregationist former Alabama governor George Wallace, he stated to the shock and horror of many around the world, “We seem to have a phobia about nuclear weapons. . . . If I found it necessary, I would use anything we could dream up—anything that we could dream up—including nuclear weapons, if it was necessary.” So excessive was his warmongering persona that filmmaker Stanley Kubrick satirized him in the 1964 hit film Dr. Strangelove as General Buck Turgidson (played by George C. Scott), the trigger-happy, nuclear bomb-loving top gun who nonchalantly advocated blowing the Soviet Union to smithereens despite the human cost.
It was this outrageous figure who would grab the AR-15 from the scrap heap to become the army’s legendary M-16, the AK’s main rival in the Vietnam War.
Boutelle’s farm was a shooter’s paradise, with skeet and trap fields, pistol ranges, and archery lanes. He had set up three watermelons at 50, 100, and 150 yards and gave LeMay an AR-15. LeMay hit the melons at 50 and 150 yards, and they exploded as if someone had inserted cherry bombs. (He and the others ate the third watermelon.) The AR-15’s performance so impressed LeMay that he invited Colt officials to the Air Force Academy to discuss buying the rifles, and he ordered them to replace the M1 carbine for use by base security personnel. LeMay had cleverly circumvented the system by replacing not the M-14 but a different rifle, and Ordnance could not do a thing about it. At the same time, Colt executives were raising awareness on Capitol Hill about how poorly Ordnance had treated their weapon during testing and what a mess they had made with the M-14. Newspapers were beginning to publish stories about the debacle.
Now, for the first time, Ordnance’s activities were out in the open, and further test firing of the AR-15 took place, with high-ranking brass, including the cigar-chomping LeMay, observing. The AR-15 put in a superb performance against the M-14, including shots fired during rain and extreme cold, which had sunk it two years earlier. Because the results were so much better, allegations of previous test-firing shenanigans had legs.
Colt was still in trouble, however. LeMay’s order was personally turned down by newly elected president John F. Kennedy, who had fired the gun during a military demonstration. It wasn’t that Kennedy disliked the weapon; the president and his military advisors were troubled by the notion of different branches of the military using different rifles. With the United States becoming increasingly involved in the Vietnam conflict,
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