If you have a look into contemporary magazines, or books about military aviation,
there's always considerable enthusiasm about missiles and "fully automated" weapons
systems, no matter of the country. Even manned fighters are very often described as
"manned missiles", with the pilot regarded just as a kind of passenger.
Duncan Sandys point of view probably was an extreme one, but I think it was shared by
many other politicans of this era, and even as the british minister of defence, he would have
needed to be backed up by other members of the government, I think. The "end of the manned
aircraft" was another episode in the frequent changes of military thinking, very similar to the
"jeune ecole" of the end of the last century, and maybe similar to the boom of UAVs/ACAVs,
which began its rise some years ago and is, as it seems just declining a little bit now. Enthusiasm
is very often followed by disillusion !
